Maintaining your aquarium

[matt_C]

After a short summer it seems. Many people well be getting back into their aquariums.

Everyone lets their aquarium slide over the summer.

Working at an Aquarium store. We service aquariums also. Needless to say I clean a lot of skimmers. The top things I have notice is the lid on the cup it self.
The vent holes, The groove to where the lid sits on. and the logos on the top. Most of the time I just use my hand to clean it off or a sponge. At home i use an electric tooth brush it works wonders.

Other items I use on a regular basis is Mr.clean magic easer. For scuffs or scratches that may occur when servicing the inside of the aquarium I find my buttons or zipper on my jeans mark up the walls or what not.

Turkey basters I love them for feeding frozen food. Blasting the rocks for cleaning. Sucking up thing you don't want in your aquarium.

Water Changes thing that get neglected a lot over the summer months.

If you make things simple you do on a daily, Weekly, Monthly, or when ever I get around to do it. You well do it more often because it isn't to much of a task.

Prime example is doing a water change if you do any more then 5 gallon buckets, how do you know how much to take out. unless you have 2 of the same storage containers.

Lets hear some of the things you guys and gals do to make your aquarium easier for you.

[shiftline]

Premix 5G of waterchange water.
Drain old into a 5G (easy to match/reparable the same volume.) I suck out the old water with a water change tube and hover over rock or dirty parts of the sand bed.

My next build will be automated water changes to make it easy.

Skimmer gets dumped down the bathroom sink and rinsed out.. Wipe out the cup with paper towel and re-install.

For re-filling ATO i added a 50' hose to my RO/DI unit so i can just walk the line over to the thank rather than hulling water.

For cleaning the Glass a Flipper cleaner works wonders.. I hardly ever use the scrubber and just razor it to perfection.


that about sumps up my every week or two maintenance.