The Puffer Forum

....each week, cleaning & maintaining your tank?
I was just wondering, because I spent a couple of hours on mine earlier & the BF mentioned how much time I seem to spend poking about in it!!
I guess I probably do 2 hours at the weekend & a bit of "poking about" (as he calls it) during the week. Maybe 3-4 hours in total.
Also, do you have full time jobs, families etc - if so, how do you find the time?
I generally work about a 40 hour week, plus some on call work, nights & weekends.
I only have one tank, but I know that many of you here, have several (schismy007!!)

About an hour, maybe two. I have three tanks, and one of those is divided into two setups for two male bettas. It helps that the puffers need less water changes than they used to. I have wisteria in the tank, and it sucks up nitrates like crazy. Two weeks, and the nitrates are at 7 or so. I do 80% changes on that tank, and maybe 25-30% changes on the double betta tank. My single betta tank, which I set up yesterday, will get about 30% weekly.

Probably makes a difference too, if the tanks are Fresh, brackish or marine I guess.

Definitely. Oh, and using jugged RO water for one of the betta setups speeds things along, too. The part that takes me the longest is that I lost my bucket, so I can only fill the puffer tank with a container that holds less than half a gallon. It's a million trips and a lot of dechlorinating and a lot of temperature checks.

yep running back and forth trying to fill a huge tank with a vase of water takes a long time lol.
I have an easier load though 15 minutes for feeding and monitoring, 45min every weekend. I'm still in HS no job yet.

At first it was about two hours, but now like an hour for two 29gal and one 55gal

Well, I spend an hour each day just doing the vacuuming on all the tanks, removing uneaten food mostly, and any other mess that happens to be in the tank. I do this every day because I know that uneaten food can be the cause of high nitrites, and don't need that. Besides, when I am vacuuming the tanks it gives me a chance to see if there's any problems with the puffers, or the equipment.
Today I did maintenance and water changes on 2 of my bigger tanks. One is brackish (Ceylon tank), but it doesn't take me any longer to do it, there's just adding the salt. But it took me nearly 3 hours to do those two tanks. I have a system where one week I clean all the filters, impellers, etc., plus water changes, and then the next week it's just water changing. I have a list on my computer that I run off and I write in the date that I do maintenance or water changes, or whatever on that tank, that way I know which ones have been done and which ones still need to be done. I also make any notes if I've done a wormer or whatever.
I don't work, which is just as well because taking care of all these tanks is very close to having a full time job.
But getting back to how long it takes to do a water change. If I'm doing one of my normal size tanks, it's about 45 minutes to an hour, but rarely more than an hour to do one tank, sometimes I can do two in that time, it depends on where that tank is in the house. I do all mine the old fashion way, carrying buckets of water from the kitchen to the tank, and taking nasty water from the tanks to the kitchen to dump. It's all good fun. But to be honest, I actually do enjoy doing the water changes and working on my tanks.

An hour for a water change and 30 minutes per day for feeding.

I'm guessing I spend about 4-5hours a week maintaining my 7 tanks...keep in mind i'm in the middle of treating one for Ich so I have to do a 50% WC on it every other day....I like to go in and brush the decor on each tank at least once a week and I always vaccum and test the water..

i have 7 tanks, id say it takes me around 4 hours to do weekly water changes, i usually do them all in 1 go on a sunday afternoon or monday morning, cos thats when im not working
everyday maybe 30 mins altogether getting old food out etc + feeding them
and i hate 2 think how long just watching them lool and playing with the puffers!

LilGreenPuffer wrote:The part that takes me the longest is that I lost my bucket, so I can only fill the puffer tank with a container that holds less than half a gallon.

FOUND IT!!!!! It's been gone for a month!

LilGreenPuffer wrote:

LilGreenPuffer wrote:The part that takes me the longest is that I lost my bucket, so I can only fill the puffer tank with a container that holds less than half a gallon.

FOUND IT!!!!! It's been gone for a month!

Thats funny!!

where was it? Good for you, I know how you feel, trying to fill a huge tank with a little betta container takes a lot of time

It was under the bed. I'd looked under there like twenty times. AUGH!!!

(I used a betta container too... An old hand-me-down that I would never actually put a fish in! )

No worries, that thing hasn't had fish in it in 6 years don't plan on it either