Decorating your fish tank is the best part of setting it up! Whether you want an underwater palace or a sunken pirate ship, you can set up a theme and completely customize what your aquarium looks like. If you just purchased your aquarium décor or are cleaning your tank, you should always clean the décor because you never know what bacteria it harbors. Read on to learn more about how to properly clean your aquarium decorations.
Wash Your Sink and Your Hands
The first step you want to take is to clean the area where you’ll wash your aquarium décor. It’s best to clean aquarium supplies in a sink because it gives you quick access to water.
However, you want to make sure your sink is squeaky clean. If you use harsh chemicals or scented soaps to clean your sink, make sure to really rinse the sink down, as you don’t want that stuff on the decorations. Once you finish cleaning, wash your hands thoroughly before putting your hands in the tank—this helps you make sure you’re not introducing any bad bacteria into your aquarium.
Pro tip: If you want to decorate your fish tank on a budget, you can decorate your fish tank with items in your house! Lots of people use plastic building blocks to build their own decorations because they’re safe for fish.
Use Clean Water and the Right Tools
Remember, it’s really important to not use any chemicals when cleaning, and that also means using clean water. You can buy clean, distilled water from the drugstore, boil your home’s tap water, or get water from a filtration system. Whichever way you choose, make sure the water is warm, not hot. Hot water will hurt your hands as you clean, but warm water will help kill germs.
You can soak your décor to help loosen any algae or scrub it off! Use a sponge to wipe down the algae and a toothbrush to get into hard-to-reach places. Just make sure that you only use these tools for things that go in your aquarium to avoid accidentally rubbing dish soap on your decorations.
Rinse Thoroughly and Return to the Aquarium
Now, you can rinse off any loosened dirt or algae and gently put it back into the aquarium. While you can put back your décor wherever you like, some fish are very picky and prefer their hiding spots to be in the perfect place. Either way, you can use these methods to clean any new or old aquarium decorations. Just be mindful of what you use so that you can have happy, healthy fish and a pretty aquarium.
Now that you know how to properly clean your aquarium decorations, nothing is stopping you from building the ultimate underwater paradise!