How Often Should You Clean Your Fish Tank?

One of the most common questions that novice aquarium owners ask is how often they should clean their tank.  The answer comes in two forms depending on how you define cleaning. Even once you’ve read this article and discovered how often you’ll need to give your tank a clean, sometimes, on the odd occasion, you’ll forget. Ultimately, it’s important that you don’t make this a common occurrence, and if you clean your tank as frequently as we suggest, you’ll have a stunningly clean tank all year round. Here’s what we’d recommend.

Your Weekly Partial Cleaning

The first thing you should take note of is that cleaning your tank is not a one-off occurrence. Instead, it’s something you need to be on top of all the time. As an example of this, you’ll need to complete a partial clean at least once a week, if not twice a week. So what is a partial clean, you ask? Essentially, you’ll need to purchase a gravel vacuum which can remove any waste product (stale fish food and excrement) from the gravel, and you should also use this opportunity to remove some of the old water from the tank and replace it with fresh. You’ll only want to replace around 20 percent, as too much of a direct change could be a shock to your fish.

A Full Monthly Change

On top of your weekly or twice-weekly partial clean, you’ll need to give your tank a full clean at least once a month. This means doing the same as you did for the partial clean, but also scrubbing the inside of the glass clean with a specific algae scrubber, vacuuming any tank ornaments to remove potential rot and moss. It’s also important to use this opportunity to clean the filter out and replace any of the filter pads with new ones (if need be).

Make Tank Cleaning Part of Your Daily Routine 

Tank cleaning doesn’t need to be a chore, and if you keep up with it as we have suggested, you’ll find that it is not as arduous a task as you might think. Ultimately, maintaining a healthy tank will ensure that you don’t have to throw out old rotted ornaments, and you’ll spend less on your tank overall.