Aquarium Cleaning Tools
Maintenance tools are cheap and the mistakes they prevent are not. A magnet cleaner used carelessly will scratch a tank permanently in one pass; a filter rinsed in tap water will set your cycle back weeks. Here is how to use the things on this page properly.
Water changers
The single most useful purchase on this page. A siphon-and-fill water changer turns a twenty-minute bucket operation into a five-minute one, and the practical effect is that you actually do water changes on schedule instead of putting them off. Pump-driven changers work regardless of how high the tank sits relative to the sink, which matters for stands and upper-floor tanks.
Whatever you use, dechlorinate. San Diego water is chloraminated, and chloramine does not gas off the way old-fashioned chlorine did — sitting a bucket out overnight does nothing. Treat it, every time.
Magnet cleaners: the grain of sand rule
Read this before your first use. If a grain of sand or substrate gets caught between the magnet and the glass, dragging it across the pane cuts a permanent scratch — and on acrylic, it happens even more easily. Always start the magnet high on the glass, well away from the substrate line, and never let it touch bottom. If the outer half falls off, do not scoop it up through the substrate and slap it back on. Rinse it first.
Strong N52-magnet cleaners hold well on thicker glass. Match the strength to your glass thickness — an underpowered magnet on a thick tank simply drops off, and an overpowered one on thin glass is harder to control.
Scrapers and blades
Green spot algae laughs at a magnet cleaner. A blade scraper takes it off in seconds. Glass tanks tolerate a stainless or razor blade; acrylic tanks absolutely do not — use a plastic blade only, no exceptions. A long-handled pro brush reaches the back corners of a deep tank without you getting your shoulder wet.
Cleaning filter media — the mistake everyone makes once
Never rinse biological media under the tap. Chloramine kills the nitrifying bacteria the media exists to house, and you will see an ammonia spike within days. Rinse sponges and ceramic media in a bucket of water you just siphoned out of the tank, squeeze gently, and put them back. Mechanical floss and filter pads are the exception — those are meant to be replaced rather than preserved.
Also: do not clean the filter and change a large volume of water on the same day. Space them a few days apart.
Purigen and chemical media
Purigen pulls dissolved organics out of the water column and will visibly polish a tank, which makes it popular for display setups and for clearing tannin stain from new driftwood. It exhausts as it works — the beads darken from white to brown — and it can be regenerated with a bleach soak followed by a thorough dechlorinator rinse. Follow the regeneration instructions exactly; incompletely rinsed resin put back in a tank is dangerous.
Substrate vacuuming, and when not to
In a bare or gravel tank, vacuum the substrate at every water change. In a planted tank with active soil, do not — you will tear up root systems and pull the soil apart. Hover the siphon just above the surface to lift detritus without digging in. Planted tanks accumulate less anyway, because the plants are using what would otherwise rot.
Pipettes and spot treatment
A cheap pipette is the right tool for target-feeding shy species, spot-dosing algae treatment directly onto a patch of BBA with the pumps off, and getting a water sample out for testing. A dollar well spent.
Bring us a sample instead of guessing
Most of what people try to scrub away is a symptom. If you are cleaning the same algae off the same glass every week, the answer is in your lighting, nutrients or flow rather than in a better scraper. Both stores test water for free — bring a sample and we will help you work out the cause.