Habitat - Indoor :: Cleaning tank..

[easy2putt]

My tank looks pretty clean now..but when i do clean it am I to rub the insides or just a good rinse..?

Doesn't it have that "good" bacteria/algae that I want..?

[meltedspork]

You should clean your tank as thoroughly as possible. The "good" bacteria you are talking about are in your filter, in the bio media. You should not wash the bio media, except to rinse it in your tank water BEFORE you change the water.

[Franklin]

what does the bacteria do??

[Kemul]

The good bacteria converts ammonia to nitrite and then nitrite to nitrate. Ammonia
and nitrite can kill the tank inhabitants, nitrate is rather harmless in small
dosage. However, nitrate builds up slowly. The only way to get rid of nitrate is a
water change.

[easy2putt]

You should clean your tank as thoroughly as possible. The "good" bacteria you are talking about are in your filter, in the bio media. You should not wash the bio media, except to rinse it in your tank water BEFORE you change the water.

How do I know when it's time to change the filter then?

[meltedspork]

How do I know when it's time to change the filter then?

Depends on what kind of filter you have, what kind of media you have in the filter, and how big your tank is. I clean out my filter about every month, maybe 6 weeks. A typical filter will have 3 kinds of media... biological, chemical, and mechanical. For bio media, just rinse it in the dirty tank water, and you rarely have to replace it (I'm going on a year with my current bio media). For chemical media, again, just rinse in dirty tank water until it is time to replace it. It depends on what chemicals you have in there, but I change my chemical media out every few months. For mechanical media, you should clean it out everytime you clean your tank, as this is where most of the "gunk" gets caught. I clean my mechanical media out in the sink very thoroughly.