how often do you need a full tank clean out with substrate change if you do proper maintenance?

[imonthefone]

just that really!

I have a 3ft tank, with 3 dirty goldfish. My intention is to do proper weekly maintenance and replace a proportion of the water; but very often this doesnt happen

I have had tank 18 months and have done a full clean out twice; which equals every 9 months. This is too much is it? is it deterimental to the fish?

Do you ever need to do it? What type of filter do you have? I would be concerned that a full clean and substrate change would get rid of all the necessary bacteria that deal with harmful ammonia by converting it into less harmful nitrite and nitrate. Meaning that you are stressing your fish whenever you do it.

i have a fluval 4 filter

i let it stand and put tap water conditioner in it-but I dont preform any tests to check it

i keep the same filter media

thats what i was wondering though- so you never have to do it, if you preform maintenance regularly?

I don't have a coldwater tank but I've never done it for my tropical one and I have had no problems with it. At least you don't have an undergravel filter - with those the bacteria are on the gravel. If you use a gravel cleaner (syphon thing) to pick up some of the solid waste that falls into the gravel, and only rinse your filter media in old tank water (never in tap water straight off the mains) I wouldn't have thought you would need too. Maybe a coldwater owner can confirm.

i do as you advise herb
I just need to do it more often
good incentive to keep on top of it though, to think i willnever have to do a full change

do you have algae on the gravel?

Not much - tiny spots of it on some pebbles and I get some on the glass. I occasionally clean the front of the tank, but it doesn't often need doing. There is a little plec in there so I need a bit of algae for it (I call it Annie the Ancistrus but it isn't big enough yet to tell if it is male or female), but there isn't much on the gravel. There are lots of plants going a bit mad though so they use up the nutrients that algae would use to thrive.

Sorry, on phone so can't write a long message or post links.

You should never have to do a massive clean out like you describe. Your tank is overstocked which probably is making things worse. Fluval + are good filters but not surprised it isn't coping with 3 goldfish. Water test results would tell you more about what was going on.

How do you clean the filter media?

i rinse the sponge filter out in tank water,

it is over stocked isnt it

my mam gave us the fish from her pond when they were teeny tiny, in a teeny tiny tank; weve obviously had to upgrade. they need to go back to a pond but she says hers is over stocked and I cant find another as yet

so even if I was preforming weekly maintenance, it would probably not keep it clean?

thanks eau and herb

will try harder to find pond

i could have one

i have thought about having a wildlife pond; I have small kids so dont want one dug in the ground for a few years. I wonder about having on in a container on top of the ground-are they hard to maintain?

i shall ask my mum....

I usually find that the small water changes (that I do once a month) stop working after a year and tank looks rank so I do a full clean out and use water conditioners before putting the fishies back in.