The key to having health and happy fish swimming in your tank is proper maintenance. This is done on a daily, weekly, monthly, and even yearly basis. By keeping up with your maintenance tasks, you can help prevent fish stress caused by any irregularity in their environment. The goal is to make sure that the fish tank lives up to the living requirements of your tropical fish. Here's a short guide.

Daily maintenance tasks

The daily maintenance tasks required for tropical fish tanks are simple and easy. All you have to do is make a head count to make sure that all fish or aquatic animals inside the tank are alive. Also spot dead plants so you can remove them immediately. Check if the water is up to its optimum level. If not, then replace the water to keep the salinity at its proper level along with the pH levels.

Also check the temperature reading of your heater and thermometer. A huge discrepancy in their readings generally means that the heater is malfunctioning.

Weekly maintenance tasks

Every week, tropical fish tanks need to be cleaned and its water changed. Dirty decorations should be removed and cleaned, while live plants should be pruned and re-anchored. The tank walls should also be cleaned, and floating particles and gravel dirt should be siphoned out. After cleaning, remove 25% of the aquarium water. Replace it with new water but make sure that it is filtered, aerated, and dechlorinated first. The temperature of the new water should also be the same as with the water in the tank.

Monthly maintenance

Cleaning and replacement of some of the equipment of tropical fish tanks are done monthly. These are your filter media and filter cartridges. Do the monthly cleaning together with the scheduled water change so you can use the discarded water to clean the mechanical and chemical filter media of your fish tank. However, do not replace nor replace the biological media as this will wipe out the bacteria colonies needed for filtration. Make sure that you test the levels of ammonia, pH, nitrates, and nitrites in the fish tank.

It is advisable to keep a record book where your observations, activities, and testing results are noted down. Referring to those notes will help you later on in case concerns regarding water conditions or fish health will arise.

Bi-annual schedule

Tropical fish tanks are equipped with pumps, light bulbs, filters, pipes, and protein skimmers, and you need to clean or replace them at least every six months. Make sure that the pumps are working properly by checking for impeller cracks or any missing blades. For pipes, you have to clean them thoroughly to make sure that they'll work properly. It's best to replace the light bulbs of tropical fish tanks one at a time and when they're cool enough. Check the manual as a guide for replacing and cleaning any of these equipment.

Tools for maintenance

Using the right materials during cleaning will ensure faster cleaning time with less hassle. Your cleaning kit should include algae pads, magnetic cleaners, gravel vacuums, water changing tools, scrapers, brushes, tongs, gloves, and cleaning fluids. Examples of cleaning fluids specially made for fish tanks are scratch removers, salt creep removers, lime dissolvers, and glass polishers.

Greg Simms is a pet shop owner and an aquarium enthusiast who likes to help others be successful in growing their fish as well. He is a featured associate and guest speaker at many aquarium organizations. He knows also of tropical fish tanks and acrylic reef aquariums.