What's your maintenance schedule?

Mid posted.


"Gill Passman" wrote in message
.. .
Bill Stock wrote:
"Gill Passman" wrote in message
.. .

Bill Stock wrote:

Depends on the tank....the smaller tanks (2 5gall and 1 7.5 gall) take
around 15 mins a piece including filter clean, gravel vac and plant
culling.


My 10 gallon Betta takes about 15 minutes as well and he's fighting a
serious Algae problem. No plants other than a Java rock.



The 15 gall takes around 15 mins as well but doesn't have an algae issue
but needs plant maintenance to see the surface of the water each week.

The 4ft Malawi tank takes around 30 mins - does have an algae problem
but
quite easy to scrape off but needs to be scraped twice a week - I've
included the double scrape in the overall figure.

The 4ft Community Tank takes around 30 mins to do the water, gravel vac,
filter maintenance (then a further 10 to get the Fluval 404 primed
again -
grrr :-( ) The algae scrape can take up to 45 mins to get the green spot
algae off the front of the tank depending on how diligent I've been.
Plant
cull adds a further 10 mins including taking any decent cuttings.


Those are pretty amazing times for the 4 footers.

Speaking of Fluvals. I decided to clean the 75 gallon GF tank today
(Thanksgiving here) and clean the two Fluval 304s. There is always one
that's hard to prime and occaisionaly leaks. Although it's been pretty
good
the last few times. But today it started ****ing all over the carpet
and
wouldn't stop. I found a piece of coral in the groove after taking the
top
off twice. It still leaked though, even after two more disassembies.
Normally I can just press the top on with my hands to force the rubber
seal
into place. Not today, so I took my rubber mallet and gave it a few
gentle
taps. (Very tempted to give it one BIG tap) Still leaking I took the top
off
one more time. I think it had gotten too full of water, preventing the
top
from making a good seal. I dumped out a little water, closed the
handles,
pressed down of the top and this time it held.

This little problem turned a 90 minute job into a 3 hour job. I may just
go
back to a couple of HOT filters, much less work.






The 30 Gall takes around 30 mins as it is upstairs.

Water changes are all done using a syphon/gravel vac and buckets. I do
15/20% on each tank once a week unless there is a problem that needs
addressing. Generally I spend two half days doing it. Polishing the
outside of the glass only happens when either the watermarks start to
annoy me, I remember, or I'm trying to photograph the fish....

Time spent on NG takes up around another 2 hours a day. Then add in
research or general surfing and that's another 1 hour or so...lol

Gill







I guess the answer is a little bit of rock music on the stereo when you
are doing the algae scrape....gets the pace going great and you don't
notice the time going by.... :-)

Works the same with ironing which doesn't happen any near as much as the
tank maintaince - afterall we all have our priorities - lol. Ironing has
to happen soon as the mountain is about to collapse and it will take a
hell of a lot longer than algae scraping the tanks - the only advantage
being I can set it up with a great view of any of the tanks and just
watch the fish while I do it :-)

Hey, I know what you mean about the Fluvals though...last time I did
maintainence on the Malawi tank a baby Yellow Lab dropped out....worth
checking the chambers before rinsing/chucking the water.

I use those sponge prefilters that I talked about on this newsgroup before,
to prevent any fry from getting into my fluval 104 in my bedroom.

We actually use
a door key to break the seal but as yet (fingers crossed) have not had a
problem re-sealing it since the first learning curve - very wet floor
:-( My main bug bear is I worry about not switching it back on after
maintaining it and sometimes do it before filling the tank again - it
coughs for 5 mins and gives up and then once I get the water level back
up again it is the 10 mins hard labour on the primer (still got a
blister from the last time)...

My smaller tanks don't get too much natural light so algae isn't too
much of an issue hence the quick maintainence times...

To be quite honest the main 4 foot community tank is everyone's
nightmare...it lives in a Conservatory with a glass roof as well as
glass surround - although it is against a brick wall and we have
blinds...a combination of hard graft (my 45 mins algae scrape which
would be less if I did it weekly or more often than that), some good
algae eaters (Plec, Ottos, Flying Foxes) help keep it down and a hell of
a lot of plants (I don't have a CO2 unit in the tank but add plant food
every week). I think really it is a matter of creating a natural balance
and accepting that there is some work to do and that I need to leave
some for the algae eaters...Some algae is quite pretty afterall and adds
to the natural balance of the tank - I know have some great purple
blooms on the ocean rock in my Malawi tank but also have some hideous
bright green stuff that needs to go - everyone to their own taste....:-)

Gill

On Sun, 9 Oct 2005 23:51:49 -0400, "Bill Stock"
wrote:

I've read about people spending half an hour a week (or less) maintaining
their planted tanks. I simply don't frickin believe it! Either they live in
a perfect world or they're doing an awful lot of daily maintenance that's
not being included in the weekly total.

snipped for brevity

It's hard to say for certain just how much time I spend on tank
maintenance: I do all the routine water tests weekly on Friday
afternoon - I figure about ten minutes per tank (I have a 20 gallon
plants tank, two 30 gallon tanks, and a 55 gallon Barb Community tank
up and running right now. I've also got an old 20 gal. long in the
bath tub right now being cleaned and sanitized for a new set-up, and
two 10-gallon tanks waiting their turn in the tub.) I also do weekly
tests on my tap water (I have a dee-ee-eep well in limestone country).

I do the routine 20% water changes, filter/sponge rinsings, and inside
front-of-tank wipe downs weekly on Saturday mornings: that takes about
2 hours with buckets, not counting time-outs to rest my back ... I
bought a Python recently, and plan to try it out on Saturday. I do any
plant trimmings or plantings just before the water changes. If there
are any problems with the water tests, I do what I have to: more
frequent water changes, change in lighting, etc.

Then, on inspections (twice daily feedings, etc.) if I see anything
out of place (broken leaf, uprooted plant, moss pieces pulled free,
excess algae growth, etc.) I take care of that right away.

Once a month with the water change, I scrub out the filter intake
tubes and filter impellors, clean the undersides of the glass canopies
and hoods with a mild vinegar solution, and wipe a paper towel around
the inside top of the tanks and rims to remove any stray food and
mineral build up. I also wipe down the heaters and thermometers.

Spring and fall, I wash down the walls behind and the shelves above,
and clean the floors beneath the tanks, make sure all the electrical
wires are in good shape and labelled, clean the surge-protector, make
sure the plugs are all tight, etc., but this is part of my Spring/Fall
House-cleaning regime.

sigh I'm also making a test-tube holder for the water tests ...


--
Patricia
Proud Citizen of the Commonwealth of Virginia

Mine is a 75 gall, low light, very heavily planted low light plants, CO2
injection (automatic), I fert regularly, give an overdose of Seachem Excel
every 3-4 days, water change about 25% every two weeks. I never get BBA and
very little green spot algae on the glass. Filter change about once every 3
months, if that! I have to prune back the plants every water change as they
would take over the tank! Probably takes me about an hour and a half to do
the 2 week thing. I used to do chemical samples constanly when the tank was
new but now do very little. Rarely loose a fish or plants. Tank is now about
12 months old.