Cleaning a Fish Tank

What is the best way to avoid fish tank cleaning? Is it to simply ignore that it is dirty? Or is it to tape picture of a clean fish tank on the front of your dirty fish tank? Surprisingly, it's neither.

The best way to avoid fish tank cleaning is to construct your fish tank in such an optimal way that you actually don't need to clean it. You're probably thinking “yeah right,” but aquarium construction has actually become an art form in recent years, with worldwide participants numbering in the tens of millions.

But what if my fish tank is already nasty? If that is your case, you should purchase a bottle of fish tank cleaner from your local pet store. Many fish tank cleaners can now be used in live tanks and often contain special bacteria that will break down organic materials, reduce odor, and reduce sludge.

Now how do I keep it clean? This brings us back to the art of fish tank construction. If you want to avoid fish tank cleaning, you will need to recreate your fish's exact habitat inside of the tank. If your fish would normally live in neutral pH, tropical, saltwater ecosystems, you will want to create exactly that in your tank to avoid fish tank cleaning.

Additionally, you will want to artificially recreate all of the disposal mechanisms that are present in such an ecosystem. For instance, depending on your ecosystem, you might be able to purchase snails or suckerfish to reduce the sludge in your tank.

If you're having problems with plant death in your aquarium, you may want consider getting a carbon dioxide pump for the plants. This seems anti-intuitive, since fish tanks almost always have oxygen pumps; but if you have too many plants and they're dying and creating sludge, you might be better off without the oxygen pump.

And there you have it: the best way to avoid fish tank cleaning.

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