Major clean.

[Luggy978]

Hi all. I recently went round to my sisters and noticed that her tank was in need if a major clean up. Most of the rocks and other decor are covered in long hairy algae and the substrate looks pretty much the same. I've got some new rocks to add a new centre piece and I'm going to give it a good clean up. I was just wondering how far can i go with the cleaning and rescaping. Will it be ok to rearrange the tank? All her fish seem to be ok but it just looks a mess. Any help on this would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks


One day at a time

 

[fishyd]

It should be fine to rearrange. Be careful with cleaning though. With it being so overgrown, by doing a full cleaning might cause a crash. Take it slow, small parts over time and it'll clean up good

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[gilpi]

I'd say go ahead and clean, just don't change any of the filter media. Take out the filter stuff...floss, sponge etc and rinse it lightly in aquarium water.

 

[tazzy_toon]

I think it depends on how dirty and the size of the tank/filter.
Just rearranging could stir up a lot of crud, but if you do a partial water change right after, and maybe lightly rinse the filter media for a start, could be ok. Clean a few pieces of décor, but maybe not all at once.

I think the bigger issue is figuring out what kind of algae is in the tank and how to avoid it in the future!

 

[Luggy978]

Thanks all. Started the clean yesterday and just basically done what you've said. Rearranged some of the furniture and added some new, about a 50% water change, it stirred up a heck of crap!!, cleaned all the glass and vacuumed half of the gravel. The ph was below 6(my test doesn't go any further), ammonia 0.5, nitrite 0.25 and nitrate 100+(the colour was bright red!) All the fish seemed fine when I left and I'm going back next week to test again.


One day at a time

 

[gilpi]

Keep up the cleaning on a regular basis