Joey Mullen:
Twice a week if I'm bored, I come out here and do water changes. I'm not a loser. I have friends, not many. When it comes to the aquarium gallery, one of the most popular questions I actually get is, "With so many tanks, how do you take care of it all?" In today's video, I'm actually going to show you how I take care of this entire wracking system. I'm going to break it down from beginning till end, what I do to maintain these aquariums. Clearly, I have to do some water changes and clean the tanks. With that said, before I ever do any of that, I like to feed the fish first. Let's go ahead and do that right away.
I like to feed the fish and get it out of the way before I do water changes simply because if I feed after the water changes, we're just polluting it right away. Why not just do it before? No big deal. Now, believe it or not, I take care of all of these tanks on the same day. Each aquarium or each section in the gallery here is dedicated its own day. Wracking system one day, the pond another, the 2000 another and then the 3-75 and of course Frank on another day. With all the fish now, Fed, I'll go ahead and shut off all of the return pumps and circulation within the tanks.
This is pretty easy by just simply shutting up these eco-tech pomps. Each system has a return pump, and then of course, two of the wavemakers. I shut all these off just because I don't want them to run dry when I'm doing big water changes or blowing around any of the debris that might settle on the bottom of the aquariums that I can remove during a water change. Instead, I just go ahead and shut them all off. Then, of course, I need to work on the appearances of the tanks, removing any algae detritus bacteria that's build up on the inside glass of the tank.
I only do this for the glass aquariums. My acrylic tanks get treated a little differently, we'll cover that in the near future. Just like normal people, it's a magnet cleaner going across it like this. We're just removing anything that's built up on the inside of the tank. Now the next thing, of course, which, technically, I don't do in this order, I wait until all the tanks are done, is I just clean the outsides of the tank with some glass cleaner. These are glass aquariums, so it's safe to do so.
On my acrylic ones, this type of stuff would cause some hazing and damage. I do not use any sort of glass cleaner on acrylic. Also, with that said, I know many people are going to say you shouldn't use glass cleaners or any aerosols or anything like that around your aquariums. All these tanks are sealed with tight lids. I'm not using a tremendous amount. To be honest with you, I've always done this. Just do it with caution. Now, a lot of the times at the outside of the wracking systems are kind of got some water stains on them.
I'll go ahead and wipe those down as well but I really have to do this. Because I have so much water in these aquariums and so many tanks to do, I like to try to get everything done in about three to four hours. Believe it or not, that's all the time that this takes. I need to take out as much water out and put it back in the fresh water as possible. That means that I have to sacrifice certain things like gravel cleaning and rearranging the substrate or anything like that. I actually do that next. However, to be completely honest with you guys, there's actually only a couple tanks in this entire wracking system that need to actually be gravel that.
They all have one thing in common. The first tank that actually needs it is the Uaru tank. See all that stuck on the bottom? Next one is the Rainbow tank. They get it too. The Angel tank gets it pretty bad. These guys don't need it ever so much. Then, of course, the Exodon tank you can see it there. All that brown stuff that's collecting is raw manzanita just breaking down in the aquarium and it's constantly collecting. That's one week's work. This isn't months or anything sort of a build up.
That's one week. I got to do this every week. It's only four tanks out of ten, not a big deal. Of course, just like any aquarium, we would take a siphon of some sort or whatever your preferred method for your gravel vacuuming is and just remove it. It's odd that my circulation doesn't remove this completely, even though most of the filter does, a lot of it still remains. It does collect on this one side of the aquarium. I guess I have that going for me.
Of course, I can re-adjust some of the circulation and flow patterns in the aquarium. I have done that to the point where none of this is collecting, but the water would stop acting natural. Of course, the tank is healthy. I want the fish to act as natural as possible out here as opposed to constantly hiding and fighting the current. Now, just because a lot of detritus and build up doesn't fall on to some of the substrate or maybe we think that it doesn't actually need to be cleaned in ways that other tanks do.
It doesn't mean that we don't have to still take care of that substrate. For a fine green sand like this, I still have to take care of it even though it's virtually clean. Now, for a substrate like this in the tank, Tanganyika tank tank, you can see that it's pretty darn clean and I haven't even touched it minus one dead leaf from some anubias that just is sitting there growing. I take a little old glass cleaner like this. I just stir the substrate up. The reason we do this is simple. With a fine green sand like this, it's going to become compact in certain areas, develop anaerobic regions, release nitrogen gas.
Basically, just dead spots in your aquarium, you want to keep all of this turned over, at least weekly, so that if anything is built up under or releasing it to be able to be removed from the tank. Just because we can't see it, doesn't mean it's not going on in the tank. Then, of course I take a small bucket or a five gallon bucket and fill it about half way up with some aquarium water. We got to do the dirty work. I remove the pre-filters from the aquarium which is usually not that bad because I like to do this several times a week.
I squish it around in the water, removing any detritus, any food, anything like, that that might have gotten into it over the past few days. Again, just because we don't see it in the aquarium doesn't mean it's not still in the system. Tons of things can get stuck in your filter but still polluting your water and everything looks fine because it's clean. In reality, the quality of your water is slowly deteriorating. I clean my pre-filters probably every other day just because it's so quick and easy to do, taking out it, rinse it off, put it back in.
I use tank waters so I don't kill any beneficial bacteria that's actually growing on the sponges or whatever else I'm using to pre-filter the aquarium. PS, the water that you create with this is absolutely fantastic for your house plants. Don't throw it out if you have house plants, water it with this. I forgot to hit the record button during the last video which is most important part which is draining and filling back up the aquarium. It's next day, these guys are going to get another water change. Let me show you what I'd come up with in order to drain so much water.
I actually have a water change system on this. If you guys remember when we initially set up these aquariums, in behind each aquarium at the midway point is a one-inch bulkhead, attached that is a hose and a ball valve. If I turn that ball valve, I drain 50% of the water on each tank. Takes too long. I got too many tanks to do. I want to do it fast. Sometimes I use those ball valves, but for the most part I use this. This is a one and a half inch pond hose and attached to it it's just one of those-- I had an extra H2O overflow from Custom Aquariums.
Put it on a one and a half-inch elbow. I'm using this as a strainer, so obviously the fish don't get sucked in. I like it because it has such a large surface area. I'm not going to cause a tremendous amount of suction, so that small fish might get sucked up against it. I just go ahead, drop it into the aquarium here. Then, of course, I have to go inside and suck on the other end of the hose. This is a family-friendly channel though. You're not going to be able to see that.
This actually only takes a few seconds. If we watch, we can see these draining in real time. We're not going to speed this up at all. I want to show you how fast this is going to be. I use this method because each one of these tanks is 120 gallons. It's a 300-gallon system. Again, I want to be able to change as much water as I possibly can as fast as I can. In the near future, I'm definitely going to change a few of my systems and how things work but this tends to be the-- It was just a quick fix. I had the equipment and pieces.
I just thought, "I'll throw this together and will drain it" but as you can see, we're already down 40% just standing here. As soon as this tank is drained, I move immediately to the next tank and then the next tank and then the next tank until they're all drained. I worry about filling them up as I am filling. Once this tank is done filled, I move to the next one and so forth. I got to keep it moving. Maybe we'll speed it up a little bit.
Okay, I'm not going to do a full water change. I just did this yesterday and I want to get this video up for you guys today, but you get the point. It drains incredibly quickly, very efficient means of draining a bunch of tanks really fast so one and a half inch hose. I think the real point of this video and what I wanted to show you was that I'm taking care of this entire gallery using methods that you use at home. Nothing's really different. I just have to do a lot more of it and try to be faster at it so I can get more done. Let me show you how I fill this.
Technically, I use two water sources. One from the gallery itself or the running water that I have out here and then, of course, one from the actual hose. This will allow me to fill the aquariums up twice as fast. You might be wondering, "Don't I have to do anything else?" No. You see, I'm on a well. I don't have to treat my water for chlorine or chloramines or anything like that. Most people will use water conditioners of some sort while doing a water change but I don't have to do that.
Next thing you might be wondering is, "Man, your water bill must be enormous." Like I said, I'm on a well. My water bill doesn't cost me anything. I clearly just have to pay the electricity to run the pump to pump it out of the well but that's minuscule as well. Why am I pumping the water to the top aquarium though? Why not fill the tank up that I changed? I wanted to do it for a couple of reasons; one, just do for dilution. I could remove some from here and some from there. It's going to double the workload. All the water is going to combine and mix anyway. Filling it up here is already diluting this water.
I also do it for temperature dilution. If there's any differences in the temperature of this water, it's going to have a minimal impact up here. Maybe drop the entire tank by one degree which overflows into the bottom tank and this fish aren't going to mind a one degree temperature change but if I had a big fluctuation in the temperature going in and I put it in the bottom tank which just a little bit of water, the fluctuation to these fish is going to be much more detrimental to their health.
As water is filling up there, it overflows down here, fills up the tank back up. As soon as it gets fills back up, I can go ahead and turn all the pumps back on. Then, of course, I have to repeat this process of filling them all back up one at a time until they are all done. It only takes anywhere between two and four hours, sometimes a little longer, sometimes a little less. It depends on a couple of things. One, my water pressure. Two, how quickly I'm going to move and of course, how much I need to clean.
Ultimately though, this doesn't take me much time at all and I know a lot of people are assuming or thinking I'm in over my head because there's about 5,000 or 6,000 gallons out here but if I break it down into individual days and individual sections like I had mentioned, I only have to come out here and do water changes for anywhere from two to four hours a day, four days a week. Not a big deal. You can do that in the morning with your coffee, et cetera. That's kind of what I do. Unless you are like me and a YouTuber, we're approaching a million subscribers and you forget to hit the record button and you got to do the same tanks day after day because I'm a professional and I make no mistakes.
This one's recording. I hope this video sheds light on what it actually takes to run the gallery. It's not that big of a problem to do the water changes. That's the number one key to success. With me is doing consistent water changes and the way I do them is I don't actually measure the perimeters of the water. I don't care what the nitrates are. I don't care how the fish act. If they act differently before and after a water change, clearly, something was different before that they didn't like and they are happier after the water change. To me, that speaks volumes. It says, "You're not doing enough water changes. Clearly, it's getting too dirty. The water change is having an impact on our happiness. Please do more."
I find that doing it about 50%, once a week. Sometimes I do it twice a week if I'm bored. I come out here and do water changes. I'm not a loser. I have friends. Not many but I come out and do water changes because I don't mind it. I come out and I monitor the fish, sometimes take pictures, put them on Instagram, go live there, et cetera. I just have fun out here and enjoy it. Anyway, I'm going to go ahead and fill this tank up again for the second day in a row and then I'm going to give you this video. I hope you guys enjoy it. If I missed anything in this video or if you need me to recap, please let me know in the comment section below. I can follow-up on it or simply answer it there.
However, if you have any suggestions on how to do things differently out here or how you do your water changes or maintenance, please leave it in the comment section below. We all know YouTube video is half of the process, the comment section is the second part of this experience. People do read the comments and they would love to hear your feedback as well as I do so please leave something in the comment section below.
If you enjoy these types of videos, you want to see more and you're not subscribed to this channel yet, highly suggest you do so, you don't miss any of them. Also, on that note, if you like these types of videos, you are a subscriber, you're used to the types of videos I make, let me know some suggestions of things you like to see in the future. I don't mind doing these. These are fun. I'm doing them anyway.
