what's up guys welcome back to the channel today we're going to talk about that thing we all love
to do aquarium maintenance we're going to go through a whole water change including a complete
tank cleaning from start to finish you ready let's go welcome back to caveman aquatics guys
I'm Kevin today we're gonna be doing a full tank cleaning including an 80 percent water change on
this bad boy right here so I'd like to make a lot of helpful aquarium videos I've helped a bunch of
guys get started in the hobby so if you're into a programs consider subscribing take a look around
the channel after this video and maybe you'll find something else you like you never know first thing
I'm gonna do guys is turn off my heaters and turn off my filters the reason why I turn off
the filters is while I'm taking the decor out of the tank to get it ready for cleaning I don't want
any of the debris that's stuck in the rocks to get stirred up and then suck into the filters that's
their job when I'm not cleaning it but when I'm doing the cleaning I don't want any more debris
getting sucked into my filters I want to get all that debris out myself the reason why I turn the
heaters off is kinda obvious if the heaters aren't submerged they could cause damage to the heater so
we want to turn them off before anything else at this point I've taken my canopy off already I'm
removing the lights from the top and then removing the glass on top of the tank just to get access
to all the decor inside as you can see the fish already knows something's up and they don't like
next thing I want to do is get my decor out of the way I've only got these two big pieces of rock so
it's fairly easy to get them out I just want to make sure that there's no fish stuck to it or
stuck inside of it I have found my pleco inside hang in there once it's right before the core is
out of the way I like to start cleaning the inside of the glass getting all that built-up film and
algae get out of the way now since the house is pretty hard to see up close when you're painting
the tank you can't really tell where it is exactly so you just want to make sure that you cover all
of the surface area on the glass if you notice I also have that magnetic algae scrubber on the side
there I don't like to use that too much because if sand or gravel gets stuck in between the magnets
you end up finding some scratches in your glass so I just keep it there as a worst-case scenario
type of thing now I'm gonna go ahead and start vacuuming the sand I've got my siphon tube and
the hose and a bucket and basically I'm just gonna cover all the square footage around the bottom of
the tank and get as much detritus as I can out when it comes to vacuuming sand is not quite the
same as gravel with gravel you just want to push your siphon tube all the way down to the bottom of
the tank and it'll suck all the dirt off but with sand most of you are the try this tends to lay on
the surface of the Senate so you kind of want to just brush the surface of the sand you will suck
up some particles of sand it's just part of the process but that's okay what's more important
is that you get up all those pieces of debris detritus uneven fish food fish waste you got to
get it all out of the tank these are the things that are causing your tank to have high nitrates
week as long as you get most of them out of your tank and put new water in your nitrate levels will
come down and your fish will be happy after a full pass from left to right with the siphon
tube I'm never satisfied so I always go back and just try to find little pieces I'd miss now that
your substrate is vacuumed it's time to start getting some of this water out now I used to
use a Python for this process but I found that connecting the Python to your sink and having
your sink on and running the whole time to create the siphon that's a big waste of water so what
I've recently changed to is this pump that I'm using the pump goes right into your tank and the
other end goes right into your bathroom right down the drain not only does it work much faster more
efficient but it also saves a lot of water this is a cheap twenty or thirty dollar pump that I
found on Amazon it works great and it gets the job done I'll put a link in the description so
you can check it out now while this water is draining out I like to wipe down my Inlet and
outlet tubes just clean them up a little bit get all that gunk off of them let it fall right into
the tank water as all these water's getting out of there anyway this is the best time to get it done
what I'm doing now is just spreading out the substrate just evening it out these guys love
to redecorate and make mountains and hills and I always come in afterwards and put everything back
the way I want it cuz I'm the boss but there'll eventually to get it back how they want it anyway
right now what you see me doing I'm just kind of looking at every fish making sure nobody's
an overly stressed out making sure everybody's still doing okay this is a big water change so
while this water is draining let me talk to you a little bit about why and how I do an 80% water
change what time I figured out that my fish can handle an 80% water change I didn't start with an
80% water change at first I started with 20% then I upgraded to 35% 50% I eventually got down to
80 because I realized that the fish can handle it they're not overly stressed out this is my process
of getting to 80% and making sure that the fish are gonna be okay now there's a common myth in
the fish keeper hobby I wouldn't say myth I'll say a common misconception beneficial bacteria
does not grow or live or swim in your water power beneficial bacteria only grow on surface
area they'll grow in your glass they grow in your decor they grow on your substrate they grow inside
your filter media in your bio media but they do not live in the water column so there is no fear
of taking out too much water and eliminating beneficial bacteria that's not how it works
there is no fear and losing beneficial bacteria because you took too much water out the fear of
taking too much water out is overly stressing out your fish as long as you're aware that your
fish aren't stressed out you're keeping an eye on them and watching them then the more water
you take out the better because you're gonna drastically lower the nitrate levels now with
that being said the water that you're replacing back into your tank when you do a big water change
like 80% you've got to make sure that those water parameters are identical to the water that was in
here prior identical meaning the pH level is the same the temperature is the same the there should
be no ammonia in it it should be no nitrite in it but as long as your water parameters are the
same and you're not going to shock your fish with this very different water that you're adding then
your fish are gonna be okay so in my opinion I would suggest that you experiment a little bit
with how much water you can take out during your water change and see how much your fish can handle
how stressful they look how do they react when you're taking more water out if they're doing
fine they look fine as you take more water out I suggest take as much water out as you possibly can
as long as you're replacing it with water that has equal parameters as the water that you took
out here we are guys at 80% fish look like they're doing okay but we're going to start refilling this
tank there's a few things you gotta cover before putting water into this tank so now I'm gonna go
ahead and get at the core in and give these guys some of their hiding-places back real quick here
are the products that I use during every water change guys I make sure to always add cichlid lake
salt obviously some prime cichlid race and stress card I'm gonna go through step by step which ones
I add first what order and why so hopefully we all know why we use prime but I'll touch
on it real quick just in case is any beginners watching prime is a dechlorinator and you must
dechlorinate your tap water before adding it to your tank chlorine will kill your fish chlorine
will kill your beneficial bacteria chlorine is gonna kill anything that's alive inside your
tank so prime is great to dechlorinate your water prime is also going to detoxify any ammonia in
your in your water ammonia is also very bad for fish so the first thing that goes into the tank
is the prime just before adding the tap water now as you see the water start to refill the
tank let's talk about those water primers I've got a thermostat on my tap making sure that the
temperature of this water is exactly the same as the temperature in the tank additionally I use
crushed coral and aragonite sand as the substrate I also have a bag of crushed coral in my filter
what this does is the crushed coral in the Ragged nice and well for my water and raise the pH to
the required pH for African cichlids as this new tap water enters my tank it's immediately being
buffered by the crush coral and the iraq and i said putting the ph levels to the exact same as
the water that was taken out I've tested my pH levels before the water change and immediately
after the water change to confirm this at this point I like to add the stress guard now stress
car is gonna do just that guard your stress is going to help reduce their stress levels
kind of calm them down and settle into this new environment next thing you'll see me add is the
cichlid race and I'm gonna read this stuff right off the bottom cichlid race supplies a
broad range of trace elements demonstrate it to be necessary for proper fish health and growth
now don't take my word for it go to Google go to Amazon read the reviews read the description and
you'll see that this stuff is super beneficial for your African cichlids I also like to add cichlid
lake salt to the tank this has very similar elements as the tres but some are missing so I
just add both make sure I get the best of both worlds now grant said these two products are
for african cichlid keeping if you don't keep african cichlids obviously you don't need these
cichlid problems now the lake salt does tend to clump up a bit if it's not dissolved properly
so what i do is that i put it in the back of the tank towards the weight makers and as the water
rises and goes over the waymaker i turn them on right away and get all that water movement going
so now that we got the tank refills I'm gonna go ahead and plug my heaters back in I'm gonna plug
my filters back in get them going I'm gonna put my covers on including my lights and my canopy
and just clean up around the outside of the tank now once I'm done with that I do like to just
leave the lights off for a while just to maintain the calmness in the tank things get different but
the core moved a little bit people are gonna be fighting for some new territory so I just like to
keep the lights out make sure everybody is nice and calm and cool I'll leave it like this for
about an hour or so and then I'll come back and show you guys the tank looks like after everything
settles down so that's your whole tank cleaning from beginning to end including an 80% water
change whoa hold on before you go let me know if you like my shirt there's plenty more over at
caveman merch I'll put a link in the description below plenty of original designs for you guys to
choose from don't forget to like this video and consider subscribing so you don't miss any new
content after you do that make sure you watch one of these other cool videos see you on the next one