Hi, I just spent 5 hours cleaning my aquarium - including cleaning out the pipes and tubes. Weekly it still takes me 3 hrs on Saturdays. My BF had a good question.... "how do other people do it? Doesn't seem like it should take this long."
This is my routine:
1. Clean sand bed with python
2. Use turkey baster to blow detritus off rocks.
3. Use a magic eraser to get the coraline algae and film algae off the front and sides that my magnet cleaner couldn't get during the week
4. Scrape and brush nuisance hair algae off the rocks and corals - (I don't know what I'm doing wrong, my hair algae continues to out-compete my coral but that's not the point of this thread)
5. Because the hair algae is now flying everywhere in the tank, siphon the algae into a filter sock in the sump because if I don't, it gets caught on the corals and latches on forever.
6. Clean skimmer and change out filter media
7. Finally change out 15 gallons of salt water
8. Clean up the mini flood I just created around the tank.
I just want to check to see if it's just me and my tank or if I'm there is an easier way out there. I read about the auto water changers people are setting up now...... assuming you don't have my algae problem, I don't understand how you get around tank wall scraping and sand bed cleaning if you have one.
Thanks!!
This is my routine:
1. Clean sand bed with python
2. Use turkey baster to blow detritus off rocks.
3. Use a magic eraser to get the coraline algae and film algae off the front and sides that my magnet cleaner couldn't get during the week
4. Scrape and brush nuisance hair algae off the rocks and corals - (I don't know what I'm doing wrong, my hair algae continues to out-compete my coral but that's not the point of this thread)
5. Because the hair algae is now flying everywhere in the tank, siphon the algae into a filter sock in the sump because if I don't, it gets caught on the corals and latches on forever.
6. Clean skimmer and change out filter media
7. Finally change out 15 gallons of salt water
8. Clean up the mini flood I just created around the tank.
I just want to check to see if it's just me and my tank or if I'm there is an easier way out there. I read about the auto water changers people are setting up now...... assuming you don't have my algae problem, I don't understand how you get around tank wall scraping and sand bed cleaning if you have one.
Thanks!!