Before getting to the heart of the matter, it is important to remember the need to maintain your aquarium and to do water changes every week. Indeed, the maintenance of the aquarium is not only a question of aesthetics. It's not just about pruning plants because it's ugly or removing algae from the glass because you can't see your fish well. In itself, plants and algae on the windows are absolutely not disturbing for your fish and even less dangerous for their health.

On the other hand, what will be very important in the maintenance of your aquarium is to siphon the bottom of your aquarium if you have a lot of excrement and waste, and also the maintenance of your filter and the change of water which brings new trace elements into the water of your fish and which removes part of the nitrates (which are very harmful for your fish). If there is one step that should never be omitted, it is changing the water every week. If you don't have time to thoroughly clean your aquarium, that's okay, but at least do your water change.

To maintain and do the water changes, you will need a few tools.

The main tools you will need are: a bucket, an aquarium siphon , a squeegee or magnet, a small brush, pliers, a pair of scissors, a small towel, paper towels and window cleaner. So, very important before getting your hands in the water, you should always unplug your internal filters and heaters. You will also have to remove the cover or the lighting background in order to access your aquarium and do the water changes.

Then, the first step is to cut the plants, especially the stem plants that have grown enormously. If they have become too large and have exceeded half their size, they should be cut for better maintenance. To cut them, it's very simple, you just have to take the head of one of the stems and then you cut right on the surface of the water. You can keep the head to make new cuttings and / or replant plants if you wish to give a nice shape to the aquarium by making beds for example.

The second step consists of cleaning the decorations that we can remove from the aquarium to better rinse them under running water.

This generally concerns resin decorations, artificial plants, roots that do not have plants on them as well as rocks, pebbles, etc.

Next, window cleaning.

Having green algae on these windows is completely normal. In every aquarium there is one. This is part of the weekly maintenance of every aquarium. For this step, use a squeegee or a magnet depending on your preference.

And finally, the last step: the water change

To change the water in your aquarium, you will need a siphon or just a hose. You can use a siphon vacuum cleaner model if you have one or if you wish otherwise, a hose can also suffice. And of course, you're going to need a bucket to catch the water you're going to siphon off.

So, while you are siphoning the water from your aquarium, you will take the opportunity to pass close to the ground to collect the largest waste.

On average, we will change between 10 and 30% of the water each week. This will entirely depend on the efficiency of your filter, your fish population and of course, the volume of your aquarium. For example, if you have a 100 liter aquarium with two goldfish and very good filtration, you will only need to change 10% of the water each week.

We will also take the opportunity to maintain and clean the filter. In fact, filtration media, whether biological, foam or wadding, should never be run under tap water which is much too cold and too chlorinated. It would kill the good bacteria. So you always do a rinse and maintenance in the water that you previously siphoned from your aquarium. Once all these operations are completed, we will no longer need the water. You can flush it down the toilet or if you have plants you can use it to water them.

All you have to do is fill the aquarium with water that you have drawn 24, 40 or 8 hours in advance and that you have stored in bottles or cans so that they are at temperature. ambient and especially so that the chlorine evaporates by itself

And There you go! Your aquarium is clean.