"Tanks" for the advice...

[rgG]

As per the advice I got here, I just finished cleaning my 55 gallon fish tank, in anticipation of getting some new fish. It was a 2-day, 2-person job, and we didn't even drain it completely.

My husband and I vacuumed and drained about half or a little more of the water yesterday. That was a chore, but all the house plants and a few outside loved it when I watered them with the "mulmy" water we removed. I then removed the 7 big decorative algae covered rocks from the tank, but left the pea gravel that covers the bottom. We then refilled it about 90% of the way and let the filter work to clear the water. I let the rocks dry out in the sun yesterday and then scrubbed most of the algae off this morning, before putting them back in the tank and topping it off.

I have cleaned the filter and will let it go for another day or two before cleaning it again. Then I will change the pads and the medium, let it go a day or two more and then probably get a couple or three goldfish to introduce.

Thanks for all the advice. Siphoning and schlepping all that water gave me a real work out. My husband hurt his back last week, so I had to do all the heavy lifting, and those water buckets were really heavy. I used a large empty kitty litter bucket, about 4-5 gallons, as the container. Refilling with the two gallon watering can took some time, too.

Edit: This tank is built into a wall in our breakfast room, and is accessed through the pantry, so it made the whole process just that much more "fun" doing all this on a small step ladder while basically in a closet.