Maintaining an aquarium takes quite some time, and at least a lot of precision. One mistake can be fatal! If you are a novice aquarist, read the following article carefully. Then you know exactly what you should do daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly and once a year to properly maintain your aquarium.
Daily aquarium maintenance
Feed
Feed your fish every day, but schedule a fixed day once a week. Make sure you feed it in a variety of ways, always have at least 3 different types of dry food at home, and occasionally give frozen and live food for variety.
Counting fish
Count your fish every day. If you discover a dead fish, remove it immediately and test your water for any high nitrite levels. A dead fish can harm the rest of your aquarium fish.
Control fish
Study your fish every day. Do they look good? Are they eating well? Aren’t they hiding in a corner? Is a fish hunted by other fish? You do this to nip diseases in aquarium fish in the bud.
Check temperature
If your heating element is broken (indicated by a too low / too high temperature), buy a new one immediately.
Check filter
Check whether the filter is still working properly. If not, check if it is really broken. If this is the case, buy a new one immediately, squeeze the bacteria from the old filter sponge and check the water values (especially the nitrite value)
Check light
See if your fluorescent bars are still working.
Weekly maintenance
Change the water
Change about 20% of the aquarium water every week. Not anymore, because then valuable bacteria will be lost during the aquarium change.
Clean the bottom
This is very easy with a soil cleaner, with this you immediately siphon off the polluted water.
Removal of dead plant debris
If you leave these, they will rot and pollute the water.
Add plant food
Add a dose of liquid plant food every week if needed.
Test water
Test your water every week to keep an eye on your water levels. Do this immediately if you notice that your fish are behaving differently than usual.
Monthly maintenance
Replace the filter material
Pay close attention to this. Not all filter material should be replaced at the same time, otherwise you will kill the bacterial culture in your aquarium. So replace the materials in turn. Incidentally, rinsing the material is usually sufficient, rinse the material in aquarium water and not in tap water!
Quarterly maintenance
Plant nutrition
If you use clay balls as plant food, add new balls every three months.
Yearly maintenance
Replace your fluorescent lamps
After about a year, a fluorescent lamp loses its power. This can cause algae to form. Therefore replace all TLs in your aquarium every year.