Removing all of the decorations at once is stressful for your fish. Keep your fish in the tank. There’s no need to remove them when cleaning parts of the tank. Wash your hands with warm water and soap before you reach into the fish tank. Make sure you’ve rinsed all of the soap off your hands. Soap is terrible for fish and can kill them.

You can replace the old live plants with new ones if you want to change your aquarium’s look. Live plants are an excellent way to help enhance the health of an aquarium, since they work as a natural filter.

As the gravel gets sucked into the tube, the pressure will tumble the gravel and clean it. The gravel will then fall back out of the vacuum to the bottom of the tank. This will remove some dirty water from the tank. You will need to replace it with dechlorinated water when you are done cleaning the decorations.

Your decorations should be able to withstand the temperature of the boiled water. If they melt or fall apart, they should be thrown away. Take the water off of the heat before soaking the decorations.

Use a toothbrush that is specifically dedicated to your aquarium. It should not be used to clean anything else, or you may contaminate your aquarium. If your decorations appear clean after this step, you can move on to putting them back in the tank.

Your solution should be 5% bleach and 95% water. A handy recipe to use is 4 teaspoons of bleach to 2 gallons (7. 6 L) of water. This water can be cool or warm, but should not be hot. Hot water can deactivate bleach.

Never bleach aquarium gravel or rocks. This will disrupt the health of your aquarium, because they may absorb the bleach. Always use bleach in a well ventilated area. The fumes can be dangerous. If your eyes burn or run due to the fumes, you’re using too much bleach and do not have enough ventilation. Wearing rubber gloves is advisable when working with bleach. It may irritate or dry out your skin. Never use tap water or chemicals as it will stay inside the ornament and get in the fish’s gill which could lead to death.

Rinse the bleach solution off of the toothbrush when you’re done. You can simply run it under the tap for minute to do this.

Do not dry the decorations off after rinsing them. This is unnecessary.

Most tap water contains some chlorine. Your local pet store should have information about the chlorine content of your city’s tap water. You can purchase dechlorinating tablets at your local pet store. Follow the directions on the packaging to make sure you’re using them properly.

Porous decorations such as driftwood will absorb the dechlorinated water, which will then become part of the aquarium’s water. This is part of why it’s very important to make sure the final soak is done in dechlorinated water. You can give your decorations a quick rinse under tap water after dechlorinating.

You can always add new decorations or rotate decorations to give your aquarium a new look. Replace the decorations one at a time. You don’t want to stress your fish out by radically changing their environment again.

You may need to bury the plants’ roots in the gravel to hold them down.