CLEANING ADVENTURES

[felipe]

i just learned today how to use funnel thing to clean the poop outta my rocks. haha it made things soo much easier, it was actually really fun and interesting. not to mention a good skill to have. I had to suck on the end of the tube to get the vacuum going, and the first couple of times i got like mouthfulls of fishwater in my mouth hahaha, it was soo gross but the thought of it was worse then the reality. anyway all the poop and rocks and stuff went up and the rocks fell back down at a certain point put the poopystuff and waste got sucked up into a bucket that i then drained. it was a really cool experience and not even like a chore. i enjoyed it alot. also me and my friend saw this awesome fish tank in some guys window while skating down the street. and we stopped and went inside his house to check it out. IT was a 72 gallon saltwater tank. it was soo intense. I like these fish.

[fishfreek]

Felipe, Let me give you a little trick about getting that syphon going. Put the entire hose in the water. Move it around so its full of water and not air. THen put your thumb over the small end and pull it out of the water and put it in a bucket below the level of the tank. Take your thumb off the end of the hose and presto.

This is much more healthy than using the old 'suck on tube' method.

When cleaning the substrate clean only 1/2 of the tank a week. This way you dont remove to much benifical items from the tank at the same time. I have heard of people being to fanatical about keeping their tanks clean to a point that they where continusally in an ammonia cycle because they kept removing the benifical bactera.

[felipe]

thanks for the advice

[Bearfan]

I still whole heartedly recommend the suck of the tube method. Nothing brings you closer to your fish than a mouth full of waste ridden water. I think there was an entire discussion on this at one time.

Yep, start the syphon by mouth, that would be mee too! I try not to let the wife see me do that, or she makes me gargle with listerine for like 20 minutes!!!

Freak's way does work though, just takes the adventure out of it.

felipe, BTW, we generally call the "poopystuff" "mulm", or "detritus". You can say poop here, but these terms are more common in the hobby. just an fyi.

[Bearfan]

I also use waste. I like waste, because it is vauge enough to include overfeeding, dead leaves, etc.

[angelstiger]

Call it what you want. In my Oscar tank, It's "POOP" hahahaha. I am one of those fanatical cleaners. Weekly water changes of 50%, clean all the gravel. I never have an ammonia or nitrite spike. Of coarse I use really good bio-wheels on all my tanks, and use stress-coat & stress-zyme with each water change

[catfish1102]

I was doing fortnightly 20% water changes, but now my sailfin plec is making such a mess I may have to go to weekly. Its not too much of a chore, and I refill with rainwater. I've got a water butt in the back garden with a divert from the roof down pipe. Rainwater's better for the fish than tap, and its free (we have water meters here)

[ConanTheLibraia]

I assume you put certian conditioners in the rainwater? Thats pretty cool consitering all the acid rain pollution stuff going on today.

[catfish1102]

Yes I still use a water conditioner, its called 'biotopol'. One capful per bucket of new water. Depending on the temperature outside sometimes I bring the buckets of water into the house 24hrs before I'm going to do a water change, or I add a kettleful of hot water to warm it up a bit.