how often do you and how do you clean your 55 gallon fish tank?

Once a week, usually every Tuesday, least busiest day of the week.

1) Unplug all of the heaters, filters and bubblers, they can be damaged from being run dry.

2) Take off the hood and lights ( turn off ).

3) Take out all fake plants, and decorations, don't go crazy, just do it to algae covered plants and rocks ( big ones ).

4) Scrub algae off of tank walls.

5) Stick the end of the hose out the window into my garden, start siphoning and do a 30-40% water change and get as much of the junk out as possible, meanwhile my plants are loving the dirty fish water.

6) Put all the decorations and plants back in and get them to a good position.

7) Then fill it up with dechlorinated water from my tap, using Aqua safe or stress-coat,

8) Put the light and hood back on and turn on the heaters, so the water doesn't get too cold, give the tank 10-20 minutes to settle, than turn on the filter.

9) I leave the light off for the rest of the day and don't feed them, that way they can clean up un-eaten food and so on.

That's what I do once a week, monthly I do:

All of the above, except, after step 3 I clean my HOBS with a filter brush and gently rinse the foam in aquarium water to clean out gunk, every 2-3 months, i replace the mechanical part of the filtration, just this part, I do not use chemical filtration, but if you do, replace that once a month too.

After step 1 I replace the air-stone so that it doesn't crack and back up my air pump.

If you have plants, trim those once a month after step 3.

Vids:

Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ir3R_vFXPGs

Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSnElTcMdjk&feature...

PArt 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CZU5HMmosg&feature...

Part 4 ( Next day ) : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bulESbeZAoY&feature...

Good luck

I do mine each week

Turn off the filters and heaters, you dont want them running dry.

Wipe the glass if you have algae growing on it.

Vacum the gravel and take out 20-50% of the water. Depends how many fish you have.

Rinse out the filters in the old tank water if they are getting clogged

Refill the tank with fresh conditioned water.

Remember to switch the heater and filters on again.

Thats it. Tank size doesn't matter, you do the same routine on a 5 gal or a 500gal.

Ian

it would depend on the number of fish, more fish, clean it more often, but a good rule of thumb is, if its gettin a little cloudy, clean it...

put ur fish in something while u clean (bowl, bag, cup) and wipe the sides down, i have this nifty little gravel cleaner thing that i use on the gravel, it was really cheap and u just have to siphon some of the water into a bucket and it works like a vacum, but of course u have to replace as much water as u take out, however, u dont have to worry about takin the fish out for this, as long as theyre not to small

what variety of fish? you may desire to be somewhat greater specific whilst asking a question like this. Rule of thumb, you may desire to be changing on the minimum 20% water weekly or bi-weekly reckoning at this sort of fish you have. Cichlids, Goldfish 20-50% weekly reckoning on length. Tetras and different smallish fish no greater than an a million-2" 20-30% bi-weekly could desire to suffice.