Wednesday, September 30, 2015

What Is Involved In Aquarium Maintenance

By Della Monroe


You are required to do maintenance of fish tanks on a regular basis. For those with fish tanks, they are bound to get untidy after some time due to the activity of various organisms inside. Water will also need to be topped up because some will have evaporated. A schedule for the maintenance will be required that guides your activities. With aquarium maintenance the tank will not have to get broken down whenever maintenance is done.

Tank cleaning should be done a minimum of once after a fortnight. Ideally, the cleanup should even be done weekly so that not much effort is used for the subsequent cleanups. With every cleanup, you should replace 20 percent of water in the tank. Algae are scrubbed off using an algae scrubber. This is done at the sides and front of the aquarium. You should be careful not to scrub acrylic off in the case of acrylic aquariums.

Before the addition of water to the tank, there should be addition of proper amount of chemicals which will remove chlorine from the water being added. The water that is being added should be of the same temperature as the tank water. If there are high temperature swings, there will be stress for the fish. Any water that is added should have the right chemical composition, failure to which the fish are likely to be adversely affected.

In the event that the water in the aquarium is salty, you will need to have the water ready some one day or so in prior. The reason for this is that freshly mixed salty water is toxic to fish because the salt will not have mixed properly. The water will need time so that all salt dissolves. The other important thing that should be checked is the concentration of salt. It should not be too concentrated.

The filter is a very important component when it comes to maintaining tanks. Depending on how bad the water is, the filters should be replaced once every three to four weeks. With regular change of filters, there will be less stress when it comes to maintenance practices. There is likelihood of development of rust near connections with filter or water inlets. This should be checked.

Algae growth needs close monitoring. Algae tends to thrive when there are many wastes within the tank. If they are in excess, there will be eutrophication which is a situation where they utilize too much oxygen in the tank. Fish will die because of suffocation. Oxygen is one of the important components that should be in the tank.

There are various ways of controlling algae. One of them is through the use of sucker fish which consume them. While these fish are not the best looking, they an effective and will minimize the costs incurred. The other option is to try keep the tank away from the sun so that algae growth is controlled. When algae are exposed to the sun, there will be fast growth of the organisms.

Using air conditioners is vital when doing change of water. They will remove chlorine. That notwithstanding, there are impurities such as excess ammonia that are removed as well.




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