Cleanup Question - Plant/Rock Cleaning, Filter changes etc.

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rosswake

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Aug 7, 2006
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I have a question about what I should do to clean my tank. Is it a good idea to take out all the plants, rocks, and driftwood and rinse them off every once in a while? The reason I am asking is because I recently saw a post about hollow rocks retaining stagnant water and it made me worry. Another reason is that when I did this type of cleaning (month or so ago)(rinsed everything in tank-including filter and media), my tank's bios really went out of whack for a while. (nitrites and ammonia spiked). Did I get rid of all my helpful bacteria?

Another question is should I change or just rinse out the foam filters of my Whisper 60 filters? (I have two of them). 55 Gallon Tank--

Finally, when is the best time to switch out the active carbon in my filters and should I change them all at once or one at a time.(there are 4 total). Thanks for your help!
 
hmmm

personally i wouldn't do it since you have done it before awhile back. The only reason i would if anything was covered with algea or crap like that. And i once made the mistake to clean my filter.... my fish suffered... Just make a mild clean...so no bacteria is destroyed.. But thats just my 2 cents :D Good Luck
 
I don't recommend taking decorations and plants out of the tank. The only thing I take out of my tank is my filter sponge--which I rinse in old tank water to keep the good bacteria, about every 3-4 weeks. I do weekly gravel vacuuming, and wipe any accumulating algae off of plants, decorations and tank walls, but that's it.

Over-cleaning a tank wipes out the good bacteria, especially if it's done with tap water (which contains chloramines that kill the good bacteria). Plants don't especially thrive with uprooting either.
 
assumong you mean fake plants If you want to rinse the decor use tank water. as far as the foam filters never replace them. You can rinse them in tank water as well. As far as carbon it only lasts about a week or so and you dont really need it you can use other media. If you do use it you should replace it every 2 weeks just rinse the mesh. when you need to replace the carbon bags you can just throw those out and replace them they dont keep much bacteria most of the bacteria is in the foam, filter and substrate. If you remove all the decor and clean it wait a couple of days to do the filters and you should be fine. anything new you put in your filter make sure it is rinsed in tank water first so you dont introduce chlor. to your filter it can kill good bacteria.
 
allright! thanks! When I had my problems, I cleaned everything with regular tap water, and changed all filters and even rubbed the foam filter until it was completely clean. --no wonder it took me a few weeks to get everything back to normal. I should probably move this whole thread to the newbie section so nobody has to go through that. It was rough on my fish, but somehow no casualties. whew!!
 
the good bacteria is heterotrophic aerobic bacteria. it thrives in well oxygenated water. It colonizes on smooth surfaces. The place where those two elements combine best is in the filter. where there is a constant supply of water.

There is soemthing called the "bio-film", the slimy stuff that seems to coat the glass and the other surfaces in the tank. That contains algae, faculative bacteria as well as the denitrifying bacteria you want for the bio filter. it also contains some "other stuff" that is really incidental to this discussion (trying to keep it short and sweet.

If you perform weekly gravel vacs of a thorough nature concurrent with weekly (or more frequent) cleaning of the inside glass you are ravaging the "bio-film". But that is OK. You have the colony of denitrifying bacteria in (and literally on) the filter. As you knock out large portions of the bio film the colony of good stuff in the filter grows. It is afte rall receiving more and more food to process (ammonia and nitrites).

if (and you probably should) you clean the filter media monthly you will be damaging the colony in the filter to some extent. (as an aside, if you don't already know it, use existing tank water or dechlorinated water to rinse you filter media. you do not want to use chlorinated/cloramined water straight from the tap.) I would probably not take my interior decor out of the tank the weekend you clean/replace filter media. That is probably the only time i would be the least bit paranoid about doing so.

I periodically perform complete substrate replacement and decor changes in one tank or another. I have never had a problem with taking stuff out and cleaning it--then returning--or not returning it to the tank. The colony of denitrifying bacteria in the filter should be more than suffiecient to hold its own when decor is taken out for cleaning.

a 20% chlorine solution should kill algae if that is a problem on the rocks and other decorations. Just make sure that is thoroughly rinsed after cleaning.
 
The only problem I have ever had is when my tank water was getting dirty, and I over did it before I knew any better.

I took all the fish out, performed a full water change, scrubbed the gravel, the decorations, the filter, and put in a new filter cartridge. Filled it back up, put the fish in, and it looked fantastic. The next day, cloudy water, which just didn't compute with me. Did a little research, and realized what I had done. Took a long time to get it back to normal, and somehow all of the fish survived. That's what you call learning the hard way.
 
lol, yep! sounds familiar! looks like we both got lucky that our fish are extremely tough.
 
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