"Gill Passman" wrote in message
.. .
Bill Stock wrote:

Depends on the tank....the smaller tanks (2 5gall and 1 7.5 gall) take
around 15 mins a piece including filter clean, gravel vac and plant
culling.

My 10 gallon Betta takes about 15 minutes as well and he's fighting a
serious Algae problem. No plants other than a Java rock.


The 15 gall takes around 15 mins as well but doesn't have an algae issue
but needs plant maintenance to see the surface of the water each week.

The 4ft Malawi tank takes around 30 mins - does have an algae problem but
quite easy to scrape off but needs to be scraped twice a week - I've
included the double scrape in the overall figure.

The 4ft Community Tank takes around 30 mins to do the water, gravel vac,
filter maintenance (then a further 10 to get the Fluval 404 primed again -
grrr :-( ) The algae scrape can take up to 45 mins to get the green spot
algae off the front of the tank depending on how diligent I've been. Plant
cull adds a further 10 mins including taking any decent cuttings.

Those are pretty amazing times for the 4 footers.

Speaking of Fluvals. I decided to clean the 75 gallon GF tank today
(Thanksgiving here) and clean the two Fluval 304s. There is always one
that's hard to prime and occaisionaly leaks. Although it's been pretty good
the last few times. But today it started ****ing all over the carpet and
wouldn't stop. I found a piece of coral in the groove after taking the top
off twice. It still leaked though, even after two more disassembies.
Normally I can just press the top on with my hands to force the rubber seal
into place. Not today, so I took my rubber mallet and gave it a few gentle
taps. (Very tempted to give it one BIG tap) Still leaking I took the top off
one more time. I think it had gotten too full of water, preventing the top
from making a good seal. I dumped out a little water, closed the handles,
pressed down of the top and this time it held.

This little problem turned a 90 minute job into a 3 hour job. I may just go
back to a couple of HOT filters, much less work.





The 30 Gall takes around 30 mins as it is upstairs.

Water changes are all done using a syphon/gravel vac and buckets. I do
15/20% on each tank once a week unless there is a problem that needs
addressing. Generally I spend two half days doing it. Polishing the
outside of the glass only happens when either the watermarks start to
annoy me, I remember, or I'm trying to photograph the fish....

Time spent on NG takes up around another 2 hours a day. Then add in
research or general surfing and that's another 1 hour or so...lol

Gill