Maintaining your cichlid fish tank may be a big job at the best of times. Even with the best mechanised filtration device on the planet your freshwater aquarium water will turn out to be stale and that is why each week you ought to exchange a minimum 25% of the water with clean. I'm fortunate enough just to be able to take advantage of usual tap water which I treat by means of an item called Aquasafe. This eliminates the metals within tap water and makes it safe for the cichlids. Dependant upon the species of African cichlids you might have you may require to add a small amount of aquarium salt to the new water.
Using a siphon it is advisable to remove the waste water to a sizable pail. For best results the bell-end of this siphon is required to be dragged backwards through the gravel to draw up any surplus rubbish lying on the surface. This would help cleansing the substrate and remove uneaten fish food from your tropical tank. This water should be then used to wash whichever items from within the aquarium, for example rocks, caves, artificial plants etc. To clean these things in clean running water would annihilate the friendly bacterias and to all intents and purposes involve the tropical aquarium to cycle for a second time.
Each week the filter must also be cleaned. This is normally completed through removing the filter media from within the filtration system and rinsing it out in the old water you've just removed from the aquarium. This lets you remove fish waste from the filtration system media while not destroying the friendly bacterias necessary to process that very same waste. Now and then the very fine filtration system media might need to be replaced with new media to keep effectiveness. On my own 5ft african cichlid freshwater aquarium We've used two exterior filters due to the amount of mess the African cichlids made. While I cleaned the freshwater aquarium weekly I just cleaned one filter on every alternating week to minimise the bacterial disruption.
My own inclination has always been in favor of an Eheim Canister Filter. I've always been happy with the performance and clarity of my tropical tank water. An external container filtration system is much a lot easier to clean since it is possible to seperate it from the freshwater tank setup and relocate it to a better scene for maintaining. Interior filters on the other hand present the chance of fish waste falling back within the fish tank.
The aquarium glass should be also cleaned each week using a blade edged scraper or even a plastic scourer. I find magnetic cleaners are more of a gimmick than any practical advantage so, yes, you have to get your hands wet. You must scrupulously scour the glass since any suggestion of algae will give it a foot-hold and rush back quicker next time.
I must point out that algae on the aquarium glass is only a display matter. It does not come across nice but makes totally no difference for a cichlid. Some fish even prefer to forage on the algae but providing you're feeding them in the approved manner they can manage without it.
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We have an entertaining video on how to maintain an fish tank just here in case you want to look at it.
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