How do you clean a 55 gallon fish tank?

Answer 1

I am going to assume that it is filled with water and has fish in it. First, try to reduce the amount of fish in the tank by returning most of them to your local pet store. Make sure they will take them before you bring them there. Double up on the filtration system temporarily. Then, get a glass, magnetic scrubber (if your tank is plexiglass, then get the plexiglass version) and scrape away all the accumulated alga on the front of the tank. Don't scrape all of it on the side and back. You want that there. The remaining algae will remove nutrients from the water and help stabilize the water chemistry. Don't move the gravel that is most likely at the bottom of your tank. If algae starts to grow on the front again, then cull the amount of fish again and also think about how much you are feeding them. Once the tank stops growing algae, then add bigger plants to your tank. After those plants have taken root in your tank and you see the algae on the back of your tank start to disappear or turn brown and fall off, then, you can start thinking about adding more fish back but in pairs. Not a entire shoal of 30 fish. Make sure all of your fish are about the same size so no one feels threatened. Always remove dead fish right away before it starts to add nutrients into the water (decaying). After a few months to a half a year, you may notice that everything is thriving and people will start to ask you how you do it.

Answer 2

This is a highly subjective question. How often you clean your tank is entirely up to you. But it's dependent on MANY factors. It depends on the fish and how tolerant they are of organic waste, how many fish, what kind of fish, how fast waste is building up.

The general rule to go with is at least 1x per week you should change 25% of the water. I myself change 50% of the water in my tank per week, vacuum to poop off the gravel, check on my plants, scrape algae off the sides of the tank, and every other week perform filter maintenance. 50% is sometimes a bit too much to change at once, but I have a lot of fish so I make sure I don't let the organics get too high. But I also have a lot of plants too, to help with that.

Answer 3

Well, i would say the best way would be with a siphon. And scrub the sides to remove algae.