Deep cleaning

I was wondering if anyone does a deep cleaning of their tank every so often. This means removing the axies and basically starting anew.
I want to give me tank a good cleaning and was wondering if I can do something like that where I remove my axies and clean the tank, or will this cause my cycle to crash?


Also how often should I change my filter? I know that some people say every 3 months and others say differently. But any time I check on my filter all this s#$%(literally haha) pours out from the overflow and back into the tank. Any way to avoid that?

I could understand wanting to take all the items from the tank out, and rinsing the inside of the filter but I would take a bucket of tank water, put the filter media in it, and then "clean" everything else. I quite often take out all of the silk plants & rocks & take off all removable pieces of the filters in my tanks and scrub them (especially in my fish tank if there is algae) & to prevent and/or remove the hard water deposits/get any slimey residue off the rocks.

I never remove my axolotls to do any of this and if I want to make sure even more of the water is fresh than the usual % I add back in a bucket or 2 of fresh water and then siphon that all back out as well. I actually just did this last water change for my 20gL. Seems a lot more fresh and I feel better when my fish/axolotls are in as much fresh water as possible. I wouldn't want to swim around in my pee ?

But yeah I wouldn't change the filter unless you have more than 1 filter pad/filter media in your filter... Then I would replace one every 5-6 months. It never messes with my cycle and when I take out the next one the new one is finished and definitely seeded so adding the new media will not mess with the cycle.

Hope that helped a little!

A deep, thorough cleaning could definitely crash your cycle. The cycle is just bacteria, so you can't kill that. I use filter floss and sponges in mine and I haven't had to replace anything in the several months I've had my tanks up. Every week, during water change, I just take the filter media out and give it a squeeze and swoosh in old tank water and rinse and wipe the filter if it needs it.

Jessica gave the best example of how to do the deepest cleaning you can without crashing the cycle. I've read it's also a good idea to clean only part of your tank at once, like gravel vac-ing half of the substrate at a time. I use sand, so I just skim the surface with the gravel vac and get everything that way.

All that slimey film is exactly what I want to get rid of, just was wondering how others do it. I will for sure try out your guys' suggestions.

Also what kind of filter do you have? I spot clean almost everyday and then do a water change every weekend and clean then as well. But it seems like there is always something that I miss. I feel like my filter is too powerful and just moves everything to the corners like the dirt and my moss balls. However I cannot adjust the output of my filter. I have a makeshift spray bar but it doesn't make that much of a difference.

I have a tetra whisper packed with filter sponge. If the walls of tank are gunky, I use a magnet scrubber or a wand type scrubber while I do a water change. I might take my axolotl out and put him in a temp tub if it's really bad, but I don't let it get there. Anything else I use an aquarium sponge or filter floss to scrub it in the bucket of old tank water. If you have something like hard water build up on the top of the tank walls, you could use a metal blade scraper on it. My wand style cleaning tool came with one as an attachment.

I have a Penguin 150 packed with filter floss.

I really wouldn't "deep clean" it's not worth losing your cycle. Maybe if you have more than 1 filter insert you could replace 1, but that will even still possibly lead to a mini cycle.