:yay: Answers please! The fish stores around here told me to vacuum the fish tank with special equipments, but I don't have money. :cry: I wanted to use a garden hose with cut-out ends. And I'd put one end in the water and suck on the other end and put the water in bucket then pour it outside. Then when I'm done and the tank's 1/4 full, I'd fill it back up with new water. But I'm scared that my precious fishes will go through the garden hose or get stuck at one end 'cause it's too big and die that way by mistake? :eek: Feedbacks? My fish tank is right by a window if that helps... Thoughts? Stories? I need your help ASAP because the fish tank is becoming algae-infected slowly, I didn't realize that algae grows quicker than how much algae catfishes could eat!!! Should I buy snails!? :hmm:
:help:

My mom always bailed out most of her water. You dont want to take out all of the water.

I have a snail...he's a cute lil booger. :) I don't clean my tank all that often. It's not big, but my snail keeps up with things fairly well. ...although...snails often times appear to be dead so don't frantically run into the pet store with the snail in a ziploc bag freaking out that he's dead...not that I'd be speaking from personal experience or anything :)

I always remove my fish when I clean my tank. I take out all of the plants and clean them off and move the rocks and stuff around to get the crud that's tucked away under them... That would eliminate your horror of a fish going through the hose :)

TNC, taking water out using a garden hose and a pail bucket??? That'd take hours and hours!! I'm looking for ideas to clean it up effectively without taking any water out. I'd like to partially change the water once a month or so. Should I buy more snails or catfishes to eat the algae up? Or do you know where I could get a cheap fish tank vacuum cleaner? :shrug:

MLG78, the idea of taking out fishes first makes me smile. Because I sometimes put an individual fish in different non-blender containers like the movie "Gigilo". :ha: When I clean the tank throughly with plants, rocks, structures and so on.... So much work! Should I scrub the fishes too? Ha. But I know how to clean the stuff but my problem is that cleaning/replacing the water with a hose is VERY time-consuming. I'm looking to do it the easy & quick way.

I bought two gallon size buckets( a dollar a piece) one to out fishes in and one to add/remove water. I have one of the fish tank siphon thingys (costed like three dollars) and I siphon off about 3/4 water then carry to sink and rinse gravel several times and use algae brush (another three bucks) to clean the sides of the tank. I use the water conditioner with the new water and then place fish back in and hook everything up again.

I took care of algae. Good thing, the catfishes didn't die from "ick" white disease.
Yes, that's what I do. I know there's filters that constantly filters the crud and lets cleaner water pour out. I replace the filter every week.
I went to the lake other day and found some pretty seashells that's called "Conic...something"? Then I put them in my tanks for decoration. 2 days later, I saw 8 baby snails less than quarter an inch long. :confused: But at least, I got some snails! :yay:
I'm still struggling to finding a way to just spark magick on my now-kinda-clean tank and it will change in a CLEAN tank like the one in doctor's offices, lol!

I have a 35 gallon fresh water tank that I got from a neighbor. It has "one" filter/pump on it, with two "filter pads". I wash those with clear water weekly, and replace them monthly. My water was HORRIBLY cloudy and I couldn't get it to clear, no matter what I did!

A friend suggested putting 1/4 cup of plain old salt in the filter, and it did the trick! I was also feeding WAY too much! The can always says to "feed only as much as your fish will consume in 5 minutes... huh? Who REALLY sits and watches their fish eat? And- the crap all sinks to the bottom so fast, can we really tell what they ate? Finally, a fish store told me they should get 2-3 flakes per fish, two or three times a day, and that the fish should always "act hungry".

Sounds silly, but so far, the water is crystal clear, and the fish are looking hungry! LOL... but no floaters, so I guess it's all good.

Good luck!

Missy

If you move the tank away from the window then that should take care of your algae problem.... light produces algae!!!! I found this out myself as I have a 30 gallon tank I was always having problems with because of algae - also all the snails (8) is not a good thing really - they will reproduce again trust me....they are like rabbits.....you will have an over populated tank and their slime will make it harder for your fish....might want to look into getting rid of some of those snails....


Kelly

I used to manage a pet store and when it was aquarium cleaning day we used gravel vacuums.

They are relatively inexpensive, ususally between 5-8 dollars. You don't need the big expensive ones just the plastic ones. You should siphon out no more than 25% of the water as you are siphoning you should be stirring up the gravel too. You can then wipe down the interior walls with an aquarium approved scrubber. Then refill with room temp. water. The fish should remain in the tank. I have never added chlorine out or anything else, since you are only adding a small amount of water you will be fine. It should take you about 10-15 minutes to clean your tank :)

The more light, the more algae your tank will have. Don't leave your light on more than neccessary.

Also, the larger the tank the easier it is to take care of. It might not seem like it but once you start using a gravel vacuum and scrubby you'll get the hang of it.