If you want your underwater world to look particularly lovely for a special occasion, a little planning is the key. Here is our guide to getting your tank looking great for Christmas or any other special event. There is nothing better than having a stunning, well maintained aquascape in the house when you are going to spend lots of time around it and we’re sure any visitors will agree!
Finalise the date you want your tank to look its best, then follow the steps below…
We’ve put the most important steps in bold.
2 WEEKS BEFORE
- Trim back any plants where needed using aquascaping scissors
- Use ADA Green Gain to help boost plant growth after trimming (a highly effective product which we use in store after pruning plants)
- Add ADA Multi Bottom Long and ADA Iron Bottom to the substrate to increase fertility
- Add ADA Bacter Ball to the substrate to increase bacterial filtration
- Use ADA ECA to enrich the colours of plants (especially effective with red plants)
- Use ADA Aqua Conditioner Vitamix to improve the health of your fish and make them more resilient to stress
- Add Seachem Purigen to your filter for crystal clear water! *This is our hot tip for clearing water
2 DAYS BEFORE
- Clean filter media – fill a bucket or sink with tank water (Important: Do not use tap water because this will kill filter bacteria). Turn your filter off, open it up and transfer the media to the bucket or sink. Give it a good shake in the tank water to clean away waste debris. Make sure the filter impeller is moving freely by removing any debris.
- If necessary add some extra filter media (we recommend Sera Siporax)
- Clean filter pipework with ADA Tube Brush, ADA Spring Washer or Eheim Cleaning Brush
- If you have glassware clean the tubes with a brush set. If you have a diffuser in your aquarium, it is very useful to have 2, so that you can immediately replace your diffuser with a clean on – we like to have two diffusers for every tank becasue it makes maintenance so much easier. *Don’t clean ceramic plates with brushes because it damages them, we recommend soaking them overnight in Hydrogen Peroxide for about a week, or if you want faster cleaning try using ADA Superge as this only takes about an hour – we like to use it with the ADA Clean Bottle for extra safety. After using Superge, make sure you give your diffuser or glassware a really good rinse with water.
- 50% water change- remove 50% of your tank’s water and replace it with fresh water
- Treat your fish with some tasty fresh or frozen bloodworm or daphnia – their equivalent of a roast dinner!
- Clean the inside of the aquarium glass with JBL Blanki Non-Scratch Cleaner or an Algae Pad
- Clean the outside of the aquarium glass with some wet newspaper with a splash of vinegar on it. *This is our hot tip for non streaky glass cleaning!
- Dust down the aquarium lights with a duster
- Maintain your current plant fertilisation regime (Don’t have one? Give us a call if you would like us to help advise you for your unique requirements).
Aquascape Maintenance Video Guide
Use this detailed video guide to see how the TGM team carries out maintenance on one of our huge display tanks, then use these techniques when cleaning your own aquascape.