how often should i clean my fish tank? ?

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Tae

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Hi, i have a 55 gallon fish tank with a 5 watt uv clarifier, fluval 405, magnum 350, and a hagen 205 powerhead running. How ofen should i do water changes?
 
Wow a Fluval 405 should take care of all biological and mechanical except for reach out on the gravel and cleaning it. So grab yourself an algae scrubber and a gravel vac and do it one every 1 or 2 weeks. Every 3 or 4 weeks take out all the decorations and or fake plants and put them in a bucket with hot water and salt. Let them sit for an hour and then come back and scrub then. Thoroughly rinse them off and place them back. Also do regular maintenance on your filter such as taking the pieces apart and cleaning out all of the algae.
 
minski-
why not ask on here?
this is a place for people to ask questions on pretty much anything

ok on to your question

you should do a 15-20 percent water change, weekley
 
Do weekly changes to keep the nitrate under 20 ppm.

The amount of water you need to take out depends on how many fish you have, the kind of fish, if you have live plants, and things like that.
 
Depends on your stocking. Lightly stocked tanks with dense planting can go 2 weeks, but not many tanks are lightly stocked sadly. If you have heavy waste producers like larger cichlids or plecos, go for 20% or so once a week with a good substrate hoover.
 
You are going to hear a number of answer from every week, every 2 week to even once every 6 months.

The frequency (or how often) you change the water depend entirely on the setup. If you have more fishes, then you need to change the water more frequently to get rid of the accumulated nitrates.

If you have a good filtration, then you could reduce the frequency.

Here is what you need to do. For the next couple of moths, monitor your nitrate level every week. I say every week since you have 55 gallon tank. If you have smaller tank then you might have to do it at every other day.

When the nitrate level reaches around ~40ppm, do a water change. After a couple of months you will get a rough idea even without monitoring the nitrate level how often to change your water.

-rds
 
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