5 Habits That Will Transform Your Aquarium in 4 Weeks

Over the years I've realized most of the improvements in my aquariums came from small habit changes, things I used to do one way that I slowly adjust. In this video I'm sharing 5 habits that completely changed how my tanks behave, none of them are complicated, but they made everything more stable and some of them might surprise you. If you have algae problems, this is a very useful tip. When we first set up an aquarium we tend to overstock, especially on algae eaters, because we are very afraid of algae, which we shouldn't be, because it's really not that hard to control if the tank is balanced. But when we overstock on algae eaters, one of two things happens, either you lose a bunch of them because there isn't enough algae to sustain them, or you end up with a group of lazy algae eaters that are used to not working much for their food, instead what you actually want is just a few very hard working ones. This is how you get that, first buy only a couple, slightly fewer than what you think you need, then introduce them to the aquarium when algae is at its peak, this part is important, they arrive in this new tank where there's food everywhere and they immediately get comfortable, why would you work hard for food when it's covered in every surface, right? Then you do a deep cleaning and it works every time, their food suddenly disappears, that shock changes them, when algae start showing up again, even in small amounts, they go after it immediately, you give them a reality check and it sticks, every time I've done this it has worked. I keep very few algae eaters now, but they work hard, and if it ever becomes too much for them, then you add a couple more, but only if it's truly needed. I used to buy my fish from online stores, because they have more variety, and I loved having so many choices, it felt exciting being able to pick from all these rare options, but it was expensive and a lot of the fish didn't make it, shipping is not easy on fish, no matter how good the seller is, it's still a long trip in a bag, temperature changes, and sometimes they arrive already weak, I also dealt with diseases, a couple times I introduced fish that ended up contaminating my whole tank, and that was frustrating, then I started buying from local stores instead, even though the variety is smaller, the fish are healthier, they don't have to endure shipping again just to get to me, they are already settled, I've seen the biggest difference with otocinclus, I used to order 10 online and lose 6 almost every time, now over time, every otocinclus I've bought from a local store has survived, I haven't lost a single one, and I'm acclimating them the exact same way, the only thing that changed is where I buy them, that alone made a bigger difference than I expected, and it's something that I recommend you do whenever possible. 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Most fertilizer brands recommend dosing more than what's actually needed, and it makes sense, they want to sell their product, but when you have multiple tanks, that gets expensive very fast, so I started doing the opposite, I always began by dosing less than the recommended amount, for example, I have this 30 gallon tank, the fertilizer I'm using recommends 1 pump per 10 gallons, so technically, that would be 3 pumps for this tank, 3 pumps for macros and 3 pumps for micros, instead, I started dosing just 1 pump of macros and 1 pump of micros, and that was enough for the longest time, the plants were healthy, growth was steady, no deficiencies, no melt, and no allergy spikes from overdosing, only recently, the plant mass got a little crazy, I increased it to 2 pumps, and that's it, this is something I now do for all my aquariums, I always underdose first, then I wash the tank, plants will tell you what they need, not the bottle, as your aquarium matures, as plant mass increases as growth speeds up, then you slowly adjust, but starting high from day 1 usually causes more problems than it solves. Another thing that causes a lot of problems is neglected maintenance, one thing that used to really frustrate me was using hoses or gravel cleaners to clean my substrate, because I would always run out of water before I was done, especially in my nano tanks, that's why I made this little vacuum, it lets you clean your aquarium without removing any water, you can take as long as you like and your water level won't drop an inch, and people love it, there will be a link in the description if you guys are interested. I used to believe you need a large canister filter to have a healthy aquarium, because that's what a lot of advice out there says, go oversized, get a filter rated for way more gallons than your tank, so that's what I did, I kept filters much larger than what my aquariums actually needed, but over time I realized it wasn't necessary, bacteria are like any other living organisms, they feed and if there's no food, they can survive, so if you have a huge filter on a small aquarium, the amount of bacteria living in that filter will still depend on how much waste is being produced, not on how big the filter is, which means a lot of that media is just unused space, and here's something else, the bacteria that reach the waste first are the ones closest to the source, which is usually the bacteria living inside the aquarium itself, in the substrate and every other surface of your aquarium, not really the ones in the canister filter, that's why when some people with oversized filters have a filter failure, it doesn't completely crush their tank, because the filter wasn't carrying the whole system to begin with, so now I run smaller filters, sometimes even tiny cascade filters, especially when I have a lot of soil and my aquariums are still very healthy, stable and I'm saving a lot of money. I've mentioned this before, but it's a really amazing habit, if you have pets, especially cats, having small fish can be a little risky, so I decided to do something different, I started letting my cat interact with my aquariums when she was still a kitten, I made sure to always have at least one tank she could easily reach, not all of them, just the one, the idea is simple, cats are extremely curious and when something is not allowed, that's exactly what they want, so instead of constantly pushing her away, I made it allowed, I let her look and get close, I let her satisfy that curiosity and eventually she got bored. Now she doesn't mess with my tanks at all, she doesn't try to jump on them, she doesn't obsess over the fish, the only thing she does sometimes is drink the water, and even that is rare, it usually only happens when I forget to refill her bowl, so now when I see her drinking from the aquarium, I don't panic, I just know I need to refill her water, and that small change, letting her interact instead of forbidding it, it removes the stress from having both cats and aquariums. Let me know in the comments which one of these habits stood out to you the most, or share a different one that made a big difference for you.