Maintaining a lush green vibrate aquascape filled with thriving plants, fish, and other livestock is the dream of many aquarists. And it all starts with having an excellent maintenance routine that keeps your aquarium in tip-top shape.
There are many different ways to maintain an aquascape or planted tank. Many recommend breaking up your maintenance into daily, weekly, and monthly tasks in order to keep your aquarium in tip-top shape.
It’s essential to follow a good routine when it comes to maintaining your aquascape. This is true for an aquascaped aquarium, a planted tank aquarium, and even an aquarium without any live plants.
Below, I’ll talk about the importance of each of these tasks. This article focuses on maintaining aquascapes and planted tanks, but this maintenance routine can be used for an aquarium. (just ignore the tasks related to plants if you don’t have any live plants)
And to make your life a little easier, I’ve even created this easy checklist you can use down below:
| Daily | Weekly | Monthly |
|---|---|---|
| Feed Livestock | Check Water Parameters | Inspect/Clean Filter And Media |
| Examine Livestock | Water Change | Add Root Tabs (If Necessary) |
| Clean Up Loose Floating Debris | Clean Substrate | |
| Check Equipment | Dose Fertilizers | |
| Check Water Temp | Trim And Replant Aquatic Plants | |
| Inspect Water Quality | Examine The Health Of Plants | |
| Top Off Tank (If Necessary) | Clean Hardscape | |
| Clean Any Algae Build Up | ||
| Examine the Health Of Plants |
Guide To Maintain Your Aquascape AKA Planted Aquarium
These tasks will be broken up into daily, weekly, and monthly tasks. The majority of your maintenance will be done with your daily and weekly tasks.
Follow these tasks, and you’ll be able to have a clean, well-groomed aquascape with thriving fish and livestock. Also, following this routine is a good way to catch any problems early on that may arise in your aquarium.
And the earlier you can spot something, the better your chances of correcting the issue…
Daily Maintenance
These tasks should only take a few minutes at most, but they are essential to do on a daily basis. This will allow you to get a better sense of how your aquascape is doing and if there are any signs you should be concerned about.
Feeding Livestock
If you keep any fish or other livestock in your tank, you know you need to feed them.
And keep in mind this is a general rule…
Your inhabitants will be the deciding factor on how much and how often you feed them.
For example, a shrimp tank filled with biofilm and algae may not require you to feed every day. On the other hand, a community tank with different types of fish may require you to feed daily or even twice a day.
Examine The Health Of Your Livestock
Getting in the habit of examining and watching your livestock daily is a good habit to build. You will slowly learn about your fish and other livestock’s typical behavior. And this will allow you to notice anything that might be out of the ordinary.
It’ll also give you a chance to watch for any aggression or bullying you may have to deal with. It also gives you time to catch any diseases or issues any of your inhabitants might be dealing with.
A lot can happen in the course of a few days, and if you’re not regularly keeping an eye on the health of your fish and livestock, it can spell a disaster for the rest of the aquarium.
Clean Up Loose Or Floating Debris
Some fish love to munch, sleep, or swim through your plants. Sometimes, this can knock some loose leaves/debris to the surface of your aquarium.
Cleaning the debris from the top of your tank is quick and easy. It shouldn’t take you more than a few seconds, especially if you are doing this daily.
But it’s a great way to prevent organic matter and debris from falling in your aquarium and slowly building up, which can lead to a load of other issues down the road.
Check Equipment
Checking your equipment doesn’t take very long. You want to make sure your filter is still working properly and is not clogged or have any issues. Also, this is a good time to check on your lights, heater, air pump, CO2 injection, etc., and make sure they’re all working fine.
Check Water Temperature
I always like to keep a thermometer in the tank to give me peace of mind. It’s a quick and easy way to ensure my aquarium’s water temperature is in the correct parameters.
Inspect Water Quality
Now, you don’t have to pull out your API master test kit and test your water parameters every day. We can save that for our weekly task…
What I mean by inspecting water quality is just to take a look at your water. Is there any algae growing on your plants or walls in your aquarium? Is your water getting cloudy or tinted? Is there any excessive biofilm or bubble buildup at the surface of your aquarium?
This is a quick and easy way to see if there are warning signs that there may be something going on with your aquarium if you see any of these early signs.
Water Top Off
And water tends to evaporate over time. Depending on the setup of your aquascaped planted tank, your water can evaporate very fast or very slowly.
Aquariums without any covers tend to evaporate faster than those with covers. You never want to neglect your aquarium to the point where the water level falls below the minimum level for some heaters and filters.
If you let it get that low, it can cause issues for your planted tank, and your equipment can get damaged.
Weekly Maintenance
Daily maintenance is great for keeping an eye on your aquarium and doing some light clean-up of floating debris. But over time, lots of things can start building up in your aquarium—things like nitrates, organic matter, uneaten food, fish waste, etc.
The build of these things can lead to a disaster if left unchecked. So, our weekly maintenance task helps reduce the build-up of these things as well as clean up other things like dosing fertilizers and trimming our aquatic plants.
Check Water Parameters
Checking your water parameters is a good way to identify if there are any issues with your tank. If your tank is a new setup, you may want to check water parameters more frequently than this to ensure the water quality of your aquarium is good.
Once your tank matures, it’s common practice to check water parameters once a week.
Water Change
Everyone in the hobby has their own preferences when it comes to water changes. Some people may be in a situation where they need to change their water every day or every other day. There are others in the hobby that might only need to change water once a month.
But a good habit to build is doing a weekly water change. It’s a good way to reduce any nitrate build up (if any), but also a chance to clean up some of the other build up like dead plants, mulm, and any other decaying organic matter you may have.
And if you are going to trim any of your aquatic plants. A water change is a good way to clean up all that debris you’re about to create…
Depending on your water parameters, you may want to do a water change from 20%-40% (and in some drastic cases even more) or you may be able to skip the water change if your parameters are all good.
Clean Substrate
Depending if you have a carpet in your aquascape, it may be difficult to do this…
But what I like to do is get a turkey baster and use that to blow any loose debris on my carpet/substrate up into the water column. I have my vacuum in hand to suck up all the loose debris.
You’ll want to be careful and lightly blow the debris just enough for you to be able to suck it out of the aquarium.
Dose Fertilizer
Just like how your fish and livestock need to eat. Your plants need food to grow, too!
Most people tend to dose their fertilizer weekly. This is a good time to knock that off the list. (there are others who like to split the dose into multiple days throughout the week. If that’s you. Then you can ignore this task)
Trim And Replant Aquatic Plants
Water changes are a great time to trim and replant any clippings you want to propagate into new plants.
This is where you want to go in and trim any overgrown plants. Also, it is a good opportunity to clean up any dead or dying leaves from your plants to promote new and better growth.
Examine The Health Of Plants
While you’re at it, it’s a good opportunity to check the health of your plants and look for any signs of deficiencies or issues they may be having. This will give you plenty of time to try and fix any issues if you are having them.
Clean Hardscape
If you don’t have a clean-up crew of different fish, invertebrates, or snails. Then algae, biofilm, or other things can start growing on your hardscape.
You can take a toothbrush and quickly brush off any unwanted build-up or debris off of your hardscape during your weekly maintenance.
Clean Any Algae Build Up
This is if you are dealing with any algae problems or just have an excess build-up that you don’t want to get any worse. Be sure to take the time and clean it up during your weekly maintenance.
Clean Glass
Last but not least. After all that cleaning and working around your aquascaped aquarium. You are bound to get some water on the glass.
When you’re done with the other task, it’s a good idea to clean the water line and the outside of your tank so you can enjoy that beautiful view of your aquascape and all the hard work you’ve just put in.
Monthly Maintenance
I say the bulk of maintaining an aquascape is done with the daily and weekly tasks. But there are a few important things you should check on and do on a monthly basis…
Inspect/Clean Filter And Media
If you are running a filter in your aquarium, it’s a good idea to inspect and clean your filter and media at least once a month if needed.
Add Root Tabs (If Necessary)
Depending on your aquascape. You may have used some aqua soil with very little nutrients or just have some plants that are heavy root feeders. If this is the case, then you may need to add additional root tabs to your aquascape.
Depending on the root tabs you purchase, there are different recommended doses. So brands recommend adding them every month, every 3 months, or even some recommending every 6 months.
How often you add in root tabs will depend on your aquascape, aqua soil, plants, and the brand of root tabs you decide to go with. But it’s important to keep this task in mind.
Extra Tips On Maintaining Your Aquascape
Here are a few tips on maintaining your aquascape.
- The earlier you can spot something wrong. The better chances you have to fix it.
- Be sure to clean your filter and media on a day different from your water change. (doing both simultaneously can mess with your beneficial bacteria and cause a spike in ammonia/nitrites)
- Ensure your water parameters and livestock are compatible.
- Ensure your livestock and plants are compatible.
- Keep an extra sponge filter in your tank to jump-start a new aquarium easily or set up a quarantine tank.
- Don’t neglect simple the simple task. Things can slowly pile up and build up, creating more unnecessary work for yourself.
- Try to make maintenance fun and relaxing. Put on some music and zone out.
Final Thoughts On How To Maintain An Aquascape Or Planted Tank
And that concludes my post on how to maintain an aquarium…
Remember, these are just some general rules and guidelines I like to follow when maintaining my aquascape or planted tank aquariums.
But it’s hard to give a one-size-fits-all solution to anyone maintaining an aquarium.
There are so many factors and things to consider, like the size of your tank, the type of aqua soil, your tank’s inhabitants, the equipment you decided to use, etc. that can influence how you need to maintain that exact aquascape.
Some tanks will require more extensive maintenance and a watchful eye, while other tank setups can be more forgiving and can be left alone for longer periods of time.
So, please make sure you use these rules more like a guidepost and adjust them to your needs based on your experience.