How to clean an aquarium at home - important rules and advice for beginners

The habitat of fish and any other kinds of aquatic animals should be cleaned regularly to preserve their health and form the right microflora. To understand how to clean the aquarium at home, you need to have experience and listen to the recommendations of experts.

How to properly clean the aquarium?

There is no single rule for the care of a tank in which fish, shrimp or turtles live. Its main goal is to preserve the natural habitat for its residents and preserve the aesthetic beauty of the aquarium. Before you read the recommendations, how often you need to clean the aquarium, it is important to remember the basic principles of this procedure:

1. Each intervention - creating a nervous environment for pets. Most of the aquatic organisms consider sharp movements by hands or a drastic change in the composition of water by aggression, to which they react with a decrease in activity or disease.
2. Cleaners are purchased exclusively in specialized stores. On the packaging of preparations you can also read how to clean the aquarium at home.
3. If other manipulations with capacity are planned in the near future, it is better to conduct them simultaneously. Combining the two operations not only saves time, but also deprives the fish of the need to experience unpleasant experiences twice.

How to properly wash the fish tank?

Balanced housing care for fish will help prevent the growth of algae and the multiplication of pathogens. Conditions for cleaning differ, based on whether the tank is filled with fresh or salt water. With this in mind, experienced breeders give a number of recommendations on how to wash an aquarium with fish:

1. If fresh water is used, it must be prepared in advance in an amount of 10-20% of the original volume. Dirty water can be replaced with distilled water, but it should be noted that there are no nutrients useful to fish.
2. When a salt liquid is needed, a reverse procedure is carried out. Water mixed with salt for aquariums from the pet store and heated with a water heater. At 4 liters you need not more than 100-150 grams of salt.

How to clean an aquarium with shrimps?

The capacity in which shrimps live is called shrimp. Its main problem is the turbidity of the water through the appearance of a yellow hue. In this case, it is not enough to know how often it is necessary to clean the aquarium, because it is much more important to find out the cause of duckweed and yellowness. The most common reasons for contamination of shrimp are:

• accumulation of small debris under the bottom layer of soil;
• refusal to use a siphon during cleaning;
• planting overgrown plants.

How to wash an aquarium for turtles?

Aquatorarium with a water turtle involves cleaning at least once a month, because it reacts sensitively to the composition of water for drinking. It is not so important to decide how to clean a small aquarium or large, how to take into account the health of the animal. A sluggish, newly acquired or fearful tortoise should not be disturbed by washing the place of her residence until recovery. For all the others, the following algorithm is suitable:

1. Tearing the turtle in another container. A large glass bowl, a carry or a bucket will do. It is required to pour water and add peat or stones, habitual for a pet in its natural conditions.
2. Change of substrate. These animals like organic ground from ground nutshell, which is not washed, but is utilized for cleaning.
3. Gentle cleaning. The answer to the question of how to clean an aquarium at home, if a turtle lives there, does not involve the use of chlorine bleach. It is recommended distilled white vinegar or a store solution for a water turtle.

How to wash an aquarium - basic rules

Every detail of the aquarium space involves its own means and regular washing. There are basic postulates of care for the habitat of fish:

1. Before settling new fish or transferring the former pets to new housing, the container must be washed and simultaneously inspected for chips and cracks.
2. Before thinking how to clean the aquarium with a siphon, you need to solve the problem with the rest of the detergents. It starts with natural resources.
3. If dangerous fungi settle in the aquarium, the fish are moved to quarantine and washed with hot water and detergent.

How to clean the ground in an aquarium?

A small soil is easier to replace with a new one than to arrange a total cleaning every 2-3 months. Large parts of the coating are washed once a week with a siphon, and once in six months - soaked in a bucket with water and liquid soap, then boiled and washed again. If there are large plants in the aquarium, they are carefully moved to the jar so as not to damage the root system. Smaller hydrophytes should not be disturbed, but simply do not direct a stream of siphon onto them. Little wonder how to clean the ground in an aquarium with plants - it's easier to exclude its frequent pollution. He is assisted by:

• excessive lighting;
• excess feed in the tank;
• deficiency of filtration and aeration;
• putrefactive fungi in the substrate.

How to clean the bottom of the aquarium?

When all the parts are removed from the bottom, it can be easily cleaned of debris with a siphon . It is a tube that sucks or smears dirt under the pressure of a jet of water. When deciding how to clean the bottom of the aquarium with a siphon, you need to select the best suitable type of device. The mechanical siphon is more reliable, but it is slow, because the water in it is typed manually, every time you press the pear. Electric models are noisy, but they pump water quickly and are sometimes equipped with garbage cans.

How to clean the glass in an aquarium?

Slime accumulates on the walls of the tank, especially if there are living plants in the water. Due to the fact that a full-fledged cleaning is carried out relatively rarely, the maintenance of the glasses requires an effective, but safe adaptation. If you also take into account how to clean the built-in aquarium, which is considered the most popular, then the selection of a tool seems an impossible task. Surprisingly, they can become a simple scraper for algae, subject to competent operation:

1. Use of household gloves. Before you put them on, you should make sure that they are not in contact with dangerous chemicals.
2. Purification with a rigid economic sponge. Angle elements are wiped with a sponge, which was not used previously for washing dishes.
3. Removal of plaque plastic card. There is also an express advice on how to clean the aquarium at home, if slime accumulates on the glass. On it you need to vigorously 2-3 times to draw a wide edge of the old plastic card, replacing the hard scraper.

How to clean a round aquarium?

The round container is a little more difficult to care for due to the absence of corners. Its advantage can be considered a fast transplantation of fish, because in them live 2-3 individuals maximum. To imagine how to properly clean an aquarium with fish, if it is a round shape, you need to purchase some accessories: soft foam sponges, a brush with a corner handle, a scraper on the hinges, a silicone scraper attachment that prevents turbidity. Use them in the following order:

1. First, the aquarium extracts all the jewelry and equipment. In a round container they are attached to the suckers, from which there are traces on the walls of the container.
2. After moistening the sponge with water and washing liquid, it is necessary to rub with pressure those areas on which the suckers were installed.
3. The walls of the aquarium clockwise are wiped with a scraper with a silicone tip on it.

How to properly wash equipment and accessories in the aquarium?

Since the aquarium consists not only of glass surfaces, but also of additional accessories, they need special conditions for the removal of dirt and plaque. Ornaments, filters, heaters, a compressor, a thermometer - each of these elements is designed for delicate handling during cleaning. To learn how to properly clean an aquarium with similar details is not as difficult as it looks from the outside:

1. The filter, the heater and the compressor from plastic are dismantled before washing and cleaned with a soapy warm solution, if necessary using a sponge or scraper to remove mucus.
2. The thermometer is a detail of increased danger. It is impossible to learn how to properly clean an aquarium at home, without realizing how dangerous it is. If it contains a mercury meter, the thermometer is gently wiped with a sponge with soda or natural soap.
3. Decorations and decorative stones are easily removed from the container and soaked for several hours in a strong solution of salt and soap. Then they need to be rinsed and dried with a towel.

How to wash corals from an aquarium?

If snags and stones are covered with mucus, the corals change their color from white to gray or brown-yellow when contaminated. On them settle particles of food and soil - the porous surface of the decoration makes it difficult to rinse the accessory. Realizing that many will be interested in how to clean the aquarium at home, if it contains corals, experts recommend using for cleaning such tools:

1. Hydrogen peroxide. At a serious degree of oxidation of the coral, it is collected in a pure spray and under a pressure wash with a jet, with an insignificant amount - mixed with water in a proportion of 1: 4.
2. White. It can be used for washing only 1-2 times for the entire life of the coral, because from it its surface becomes fragile.
3. Soap nuts. They are used on the principle of washing powder with the boiling of corals in solution.

How to wash the aquarium before starting?

Issues related to the launch of a new capacity arise only for beginning breeders. They buy everything at once - fish, plants, soil, so they aspire to fill it with water as soon as possible. Do this before the initial processing can not. To understand how to wash a new aquarium, tips will help:

1. Refusal to use chemicals. Inexperienced owners sometimes try to wash it with gels for dishes or ceramics.
2. Natural or safe detergents. Ideally suitable soap nuts, soda or dry mustard. They do not leave the film and are easily washed off with both cool and warm water.
3. Accounting for the design of the aquarium. If it is assembled on a frame, it will require settling of water. The capacity is recruited completely for 2-3 days for cleaning and checking for leaks.

How often should I clean the aquarium?

The regularity of removing debris and mucus from the walls of the container depends on its volume, the number of residents and other factors. Excessive zeal here can play a cruel joke, because each relocation to another capacity and the use of new detergents - an extra stress for the aquatic inhabitants. Before considering how often it is necessary to wash an aquarium, it is necessary to take into account such aspects:

1. The presence in the aquarium of the inhabitants of the "cleaners". Catfish antsistrusy and some types of snails play the role of a natural filter for the remnants of food and other livestock products doubling the life of a clean container.
2. Litrazh habitats of fish. A large aquarium for 200-300 liters is subject to general cleaning once every 1-1.5 years, and fast - every 7-10 days. It is gradually added to the new water, partially replacing it. Capacity of 50-100 liters is cleaned every six months, using a siphon - every 2 months. To understand how to clean a small aquarium at home will help the presence or absence of plants in it. If it is devoid of vegetation, it is washed twice as often - every two weeks.
3. Soil quality. Substrate with the addition of fine gravel or sand makes the water turbid, so it must periodically be sieved during washing.