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Aquarium Maintenance - A quick overview

© Winston Vaughan Schoenfeld

For those of you that have been following the series of articles that have been written by guest editor Peter Odell, Ralph's Corner should continue next month.

This article will deal with aquarium maintenance. Many people assume that an aquarium is, for the most part, a self-sufficient entity that requires little human intervention. In the case of special freshwater aquariums this is sometimes close to true, but for the most part, aquariums require constant care. Some of you may realize that you must do water changes, etc., but are not really sure what the proper amount to change is. Others may wonder how often you should do aquarium clean-ups. I will attempt to let you know about what has worked for me for both freshwater and saltwater aquariums. I will stay away from reef aquariums here because there is a lot more care that one must consider, and the frequency of what you must do varies greatly depending on the contents and structure of your aquarium.

Let me start with water changes. Unless you are simply adding water to account for evaporation, water changes should be done using a gravel vacuum. This is much like killing two birds with one stone. A gravel vacuum is designed to remove debris and nitrate from the aquarium floor. At the same time, it siphons up the water in the aquarium allowing for the addition of new water.

Typically one does about a 10 percent to 15 percent water change. They should be done about every two to four weeks. Many would like to say that you must do them every other week no matter what, but I am a person of reality, and it is simply to hard sometimes to dedicate this much time to your aquarium. I almost hate to say it (I may get some nasty e-mail from this), but in many cases you can do a water change about every month if you change 20 percent of the water. Please realize that this will cause a greater risk of algae growth and biological disruption in your aquarium, but you shouldn't run into any major problems. In the case of freshwater aquariums, you are going to want to add a bit of water dechlorinator to condition the water before pouring into your aquarium.

While I am at this point, let me also mention that you should take care when adding new water back to the aquarium. The fish are already a little uneasy about the gravel vacuuming, so you want to reduce the stress that you put on the aquarium inhabitants when you replace the water. Simply add the water slowly over a few minutes rather than dumping it all in at once (this will also help since the new water is usually not at the same temperature as that in the aquarium). For those of you with saltwater aquariums, make sure that you mix your saltwater solution and check the salinity. When adding water to account for evaporation, you should add freshwater since the salt does not evaporate, but when you have removed water using the gravel vacuum, you will want to add saltwater. It is also a good idea to check the aquarium salinity so that you can try and compensate for any deviation from the desired value when adding new water to the aquarium.

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