I just bought a 30 gallon aquarium yesterday. It came with filter, heater, air pump, d茅cor, background, rocks鈥?everything I needed to get it started. I washed everything good with hot water and I put the water in. I got this stuff from the pet store, can鈥檛 remember the name but the guy at the store told me it would balance everything out. I am getting some fish tomorrow. My questions are is there any fish I could get that would keep the tank clean for me? I have heard this before but don鈥檛 know what kind. Also what are the best types of fish to mix together? I would like to have tropical fish (no goldfish) Any info on this subject would be great鈥 have never had an aquarium before. Thanks
Answers:
At this point, cleaning should not be your main focus I think. Right now you need to get this new tank cycled. As some of the other people will give you an answer on, you can do this with fish and without fish. I am not in favor of without fish and I have a fair amount of background in Chemistry. 30 gallon tank, I'd get some danio zebra's or possibly some tiger barbs, DEPENDING on what kind of long term fish you want. Do NOT go and buy your long term fish right now. You need to cycle the tank first and here is a link, of many different ones you can find out cycling. Please look this over before you go and get some very exotic but delicate fish.
http://faq.thekrib.com/begin-cycling.htm...
Now when you are cycled out, in a 30 gallon tank, I'd reccomend a couple small pleco's and possibly a decent sized Albino catfish. If you don't like the looks of an Albino cat or can't find, Cory Catfish are not bad at all. However, you will need to do some weekly water changes. When you do these changes, you will want to clean up the side of the tank and in the filter. You'll want to clean with the tank water, do not use soap and things like that. Clean your mechanical filter, usually a sponge type, with the aquarium water as well to reduce bacteria loss. To clean with aquarium water, hold some of the water you are changing out in the bucket and do your rinsing of the mechanical filter in there. Use a sterile sponge to clean the sides of your tank.
I am sure you are going to get lots of advise on how best to do this. Whatever you choose to follow I wish you best of luck, but if nothing else, read over the cycling before you go get your fish tomorrow.
Hmm. in Finding Nemo, there's a fish that cleans.What kind was that fish? And you can get a oxygenator. It keeps the tank fresh. You don't have to clean tha aquarium nomore.
after time things should settle to the bottom. No matter what you will have to clean the tank 3 months or so, don't empty all the water either. Sucky fishes do good with allege get a small one big ones don't do any thing . As far as fish you can get angel fish or anything else.DONT GET SALT WATER Fish. I have guppies and they breed all by themselves good luck oh yeah add some coral by balancing your PH levels.
There is no such thing as a fish that will clean your tank for you. The best you can get is snails, shrimp, and fish that will eat some of the algae - but they all create waste and further dirty the tank like any living creature.
The best advice for you in your position, is to invest in a good book on keeping tropical fish. One can't expect all of the information on fish keeping to be provided in a yahoo post.
Keeping a tank clean is about maintaining it well and not allowing it to become overly dirty in the first place. Weekly maintenance of partial water changes, gravel vacuuming, and algae scraping will keep things in order.
The best way is to do a 10% water change every two weeks and get a gravel vac and suction the gravel to remove fish waste. As far as fish go to keep the gravel clean you could go with a catfish, pleco, algae eater, or any type of scavenger fish. Community fish you can go with barbs, lemon tetras, neon tetras, molly, platty,clown loaches (or any loach), rainbow sharks, red-tail sharks, rainbows (these are cool schooling fish, Dianos. These are a few suggestions. As far as additives go you really do not need them if you have a good filter and do regular water changes. Just have your water tested every month at a local pet store or by a test kit.
Your first step is to get your tank cycled with a few hardy,inexpensive fish such as platies. If it doesn't cycle properly the toxic amonnia buildup causes fish to die and the water to be cloudy.
http://www.fishyou.com/saltwater/tankcyc...
Once your tank is cycled,and you are ready to add more fish, check out this site for what type are compatible tankmates.
http://www.peteducation.com/article.cfm?...
There aren't any fish that do the cleaning for you,some help(plecos,snails{be careful with these babies as they overpopulate in no time}),but you will still need to get your hands wet.
Weekly water changes (about 25%) with a gravel vac, not overfeeding the fish (only what they can eat within a couple of minutes),not placing the tank in direct sunlight and not leaving the tank lights on for hours on end (too much light promotes algea growth) should keep your tank looking its best!! You will occasionally need to wipe down the sides with an algea sponge or one of those magnetic cleaners.
If you do regular water changes and maintain your filtration you should rarely have to do any cleaning. Maybe the occasional scrubbing of algae, but my 30 gallon tank never needs algae cleaned out of it. Smaller tanks require a lot more effort and I have to clean the algae off my plants on a regular basis.
http://www.liveaquaria.com/general/gener...
And there is a ton of reference articles on everything on how to set up, maintain and deal with problems in your tank.
A Plecostomus will keep eat algae. But if you want to get that, you have to add in other fish to make sure it doesn't grow too big. A Chinese Algae Eater will also clean algae. Sometimes a Kissing Gourami will pick off algae from plant matter.
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