How clean is clean?

The basic test that most aquarists flunk is that of keeping the aquarium clean enough for their fishes: either it is too clean or too dirty.

Too clean would be like living in a sterile environment with the smell of chlorine, and too dirty with the fish poop and the organic waste of dying plants and it would be like living in a sewer. Either way it is sad choice for the fishes. One has to master the art of changing water in the aquarium in a way that the water is clean yet not too clean.

We don't like to be uprooted from our surrounding and placed in a new one at the flick of a finger. Fishes too don't like that to happen to them.

The trick is don't drain off all the water; leave 20 per cent of it in the aquarium so that the environment of the fish doesn't change too drastically.

Use a siphon, keep it at one-fifth the height, swirl the water so that organic waste floats, wipe the glass with a piece of old, clean cloth (anything fancy leaves scratches) and drain the water into your lawn. Fill the tank with fresh water from a borewell or tap, keeping the air filter working continuously. Watch your fish frolic happily.

~S.N.