Comments on: How to Clean a Fish Tank

on 4/24/2008 Nice and simple explanation - but it has no pictures. Here's another blog post with step by step approach to basic fish tank maintenance, including photos for each step: http://richelectron.blogspot.com/2007/06/jebo-r338-aquarium.html

on 6/21/2007 Unless you just have a little bowl with one goldfish in it (so you plan to dump all the water and replace), it's neither necessary nor advisable to remove the fish while cleaning the tank. You have to be careful none of them jump out of the tank, and you have to be VERY careful to refill the tank with water that has already been dechlorinated so that you don't shock (or kill) them with the chlorine. But, they will be far less stressed if you don't remove them. And you will be far more likely to clean your tank regularly if you don't have to go through the very long process of catching all your speedy little fish to remove them before cleaning. You're far better off cleaning the glass and replacing 20% of the water every week than you are breaking down the tank and replacing 50-75% of the (now filthy) water on a very irregular basis. Your fish will be much happier.