Daily Maintenance Of Your Aquarium
Daily maintenance makes weekly and monthly maintenance much simpler. Doing a few simple things every day will help you keep your tropical fish aquarium clean and healthy.
The Day Is Over And You Are Ready To Relax
Now you are ready to just hang out and watch your little friends swim. Not just yet. There are a few things that you need to do to insure that your aquatic buddies are in tip top shape. Healthy fish are happy and active fish.
Here are a few things you need to do each day to keep your fish healthy and active.
- Feeding You would be surprised at how many people simply forget to feed their friends every day. While your fish can go a couple days without food, feeding them every day will keep them healthy. The key here is to not over feed them. Don't feed your fish more food than they can eat in about five minutes. It might take you a few days of experimenting to find just the right amount to feed your little friends, so don't get bent out of shape if you get it wrong at first.
- Observe Your Fish After you feed your aquatic friends, watch them. Make sure everyone is eating and swimming normally. Fish that don't eat or swim right may be sick.
- Check Your Water Temperature Fish are sensitive to swings in water temperature. You should check daily to make sure that your water temperature is constant. I have found that I prefer thermometers that are inside the tank because they are more accurate than the kind that stick to the glasss on the outside.
- Make Sure The Filters Are Operating Your aquarium filtration is the life support system for your little friends. Make sure that your filters are running properly and that filters with bio-wheels are turning as they should.
- Remove Dead Fish And Debris A dead fish rotting away in your aquarium will cause an ammonia spike. Remove any dead fish as soon as you find them. Also be sure to remove plant leaves and any other debris that is stuck to the inflow of your filtration system.
- Clean Algae Off The Glass Using some kind of algae brush to remove the algae off your glass will help keep it under control. Some algae can be good for your aquarium, but it can also get out of control quickly. Besides, who wants to stare through a green front panel to see all their beautiful little friends?
- Test Your Water You may not have to do this every day, but do it at least every two to three days to make sure you don't have any spikes in ammonia, nitrite, or nitrate. Dip style test kits are useful for quickly testing your water to determine if you have a problem.
- Check Your Water Level Water will evaporate out of your tank and you might have to add more or do an early water change to replace it. Letting your water level get to low can allow spikes in harmful chemicals. If you add water, also add water condtioner as instructed on the label. Remember, adding water is not the same as a water change and only dilutes contaminants, it does not remove them.
Doing daily maintenance doesn't take as long as it might seem and can save you a heap of trouble. Early detection of aquarium problems can make them much easier to deal with. Daily maintenance will also spread some of the work from your weekly and monthly maintenance around, making those types of aquarium maintenance a little easier.
For more information on Daily Maintenance, go to Wikipedia's Fishkeeping page.
