Aquariums have been known for being murky and algae-covered; a less sustainable place for sophisticated fish. However, this entire concept can be changed by keeping your fish tank clean and algae free with enough light and freshness. Just opt for a low maintenance tank, yet high impacting minimal plants and fish.
Keeping a fish tank can raise your aesthetics and uplift your emotional move. However, maintenance is the first thing that resists people from taking up the idea. With this being said, we will provide you with a step-by-step guide for setting up a low-maintenance aquarium.
Types of Fish You are keeping
You must split the aquarium into the bottom, mid-water and surface dwellers, thus finding out which fish are easy to maintain. Narrowing your options will help you to decide on the fact that, which fish are accustomed to what kind of maintenance.
Tetras are mid-water dwellers and pose a beautiful classy movement whereas, dwarf Blue Gouramis, with their distinctive colour, dwell on the surface. However, bottom dwellers like Bolivian Rams, Cory Catfish and Chinese Algae Eaters hold a fascinating hardy nature with feeding habits of algae. They can even sustain themselves in hard water.
In doing so, you will find that surface and mid-water fish are hard to maintain as they need high water quality and a constant food supply. So, complete your picture by taking up Corydoras or Chinese Algae Eaters as their minimal need for tank parameters will help you to keep them. Moreover, both these species of fish can provide you companionship for a longer time as they live for almost 10-15 years.
Invest in an easy-to-clean Aquarium
Among different aquariums available on market, it is always recommendable to choose the easy-to-clean aquarium. A few come with bacterial filters along with plants and moss that reduces nitrate to maintain good quality. A self-cleaning aquarium can be your best option as this reduces the time to clean the tank. You can choose EcoQube Fish Tank or Back To The Roots Water Garden.
Aquaponics can substantiate where generating food through fish wastes stands to be the prime idea. The plant grow-bed is placed over fish tank and the roots take the nitrates as food from water, thus reducing your cleaning time. For more information about aquariums, visit The Aquarium Guide.
Stick to one particular type of decor that is needed for bottom dwellers. All the bottom dwellers are comfortable in Java Fern, Java Moss, Micro Sword and Marimo Moss Balls as these help them to hide there. By scraping algae from leaves, these fish will clean your tank, thus keeping your maintenance budget and time low.
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Choosing Your Plants
Just like fish need to be chosen carefully, you must also choose your plants carefully. Plants need maintenance and as they grow, they need more space within an aquarium. Unnecessary growth of the plant will cover the swimming area of your fish, which might stress your fish in turn. Moreover, trimming plants is very time-consuming, hence, sparingly keep plants of low maintenance and less growth.
Proper Size of Tank
There are a few fish that grow larger and with profuse breeding, multiply very quickly. Owing to the excessive biomass, maintenance becomes very tiring. So, it is preferable that you keep either larger tanks or less prolific species to avoid crowding in a tank.
Always act smart in choosing the size of the tank as this determines your frequency of cleaning. Preferably, do not make compartments for different species as this will add to your frantic cleaning procedure.
Keep a Topnotch Filtration System
Filtration is the key to keeping less-maintained aquariums, as exceeding the capacity of filters will allow more water to get filtered, thus keeping flexibility in cleaning. Go for a filter that is one and half times your tank. It is recommended that with the bigger tank, more filtration and fewer fish, maintenance will be easy.
However, as a precautionary measure, you must remember not to keep an extra-large filter as it might push away the fish. Moreover, it can cleanse the media inside it that produces beneficial bacteria. These bacteria are very necessary to support the nitrogen cycle, hence cleaning them with chlorine water might end up killing the life of your pet colonies.
Measures regarding Algae
Algae growth is very common in aquariums, which demands regular cleaning of tanks. Moreover, fish produce waste and faeces that need to be cleaned twice a week.
To begin with, don't keep your tank in front of direct sunlight as it maximises algae growth. As we have already mentioned above, algae eaters can be best for the low-maintained aquarium as they help clean all algae by scrapping them as food. The best choice for this can be Cory Catfish, Chinese Algae Eaters, Cherry Shrimp and Amano Shrimp. These algivores not only clean the tank but also balance the freshwater aquarium.
A Few More Important Tips for Low-maintenance tank
As we have stated earlier, you must not overstock your tank as overstocking might generate a need for regular cleaning. Keep the fewer fish and enjoy a beautiful enchanting aquarium with less waste.
We have a tendency to feed our pets more so that they don't remain hungry for a long time. However, we don't understand, overfeeding is a strict no-no, as this produces more wastes and leftover foods make water conditions toxic. This further needs regular cleaning of your tank, which is not worth your daily schedule.
Avoiding Goldfish can help you refrain from cleaning your tank on daily basis. With a very high metabolism, this fish tends to produce heavy wastes. This becomes very hectic in cleaning their wastes, but no other way; as wastes might make them sick.
Always under-stock your aquarium, by keeping as few fish as possible. Choose your fish at first, research on their maximum adult size and finally follow the inch-per-gallon rule. Keep one or two fishes and add a few extra gallons for good.
Once a week, use gravel vacuum or siphon hose to clean crevices of substrates and pipe out water partially. This is expected to reduce the extra stress of water changing as a whole. Use this drained water in rinsing filter media or houseplant.
Fiji Sand, also known as Quartz gravel is used as they are very fine and doesn't harm soft-bellied Cory Catfish. You can use this so that the fish can find algae easily in them and by sliding in they can feed on algae.
This step-by-step guidance provides you with a complete list of activities for your low-maintenance fish tank and helps to ideate your own fascination. Once you decide, gather bare essentials and set up the tank. Guidance on algae and plant control suggests that dead plants might alter water chemistry and micro-biome of the tank. Hence, if you want to keep a low-maintained, yet fresh and hardy tank, plan your needs and act accordingly.