Curiosity questions about tank maintenance

Heya guys,

Out of curiosity, how do people with lots of tanks keep on of weekly tank cleaning (like partial water changers)?
Do you dedicate a day and clean them all? Do you clean one or two everyday? Or do bribe/hostage friends and family to help out or perhaps sacrifice a juicy worm to the axolotl gods?
Just curious to know what others, more experienced and perhaps more organised than me do.

Two other questions about tank maintenance; about which I have read contradictory information.
1. Should you do a yearly 100% clean of your tank?
I've read you should give your tank a full clean once a year, so extract all the water, clean the substrate, the ornaments, the surfaces etc. But I've also read your should never do that cause it would crash the cycle (which makes sense).
2. Should you replace your filter sponges and carbon cartridges (regularly or at all)?
I've read you should replace them every couple of weeks, especially the carbon cartridges because they will start to leach the toxins back into the water after a while. I've also read not to bother replacing cause it's a waste of money.

So yeah, what do you guys know about it?
All answers appreciated

I have two four foot tanks and one two foot tank and they are plenty for me! I usually would do the two large tanks on one day and the smaller one on another day.

You could do a large water change very occasionally but I would not go to town and scrub everything clean. I clean my filter every few weeks (large canister filter) by very gently rinsing the media in tank water. If you scrub everything clean you may affect your cycle. Using straight tap water will also harm your cycle.

I don't bother with carbon cartridges. I don't find them necessary unless you are trying to remove some sort of medication etc from the water. You can replace the filter media but you should not do it all at once and the best way is to to keep the old one in for a while with the new piece so the bacteria can move and colonise on the new piece. I would only change a small part of the media at a time when it has basically warn out and almost disintegrating. If you change all the media at once you will likely crash your cycle.

FireStar said:

1. Should you do a yearly 100% clean of your tank?
I've read you should give your tank a full clean once a year, so extract all the water, clean the substrate, the ornaments, the surfaces etc. But I've also read your should never do that cause it would crash the cycle (which makes sense).

Click to expand...

I give my tanks a full clean once a year, usually in February ; it triggers breeding. The rest of the year, I only do partial water changes from times to times.
Don't worry for the nitrogen cycle. There are enough bacteria in the sand and on the plants, rocks, wood...) to start it again rapidly. But don't change the sand.

If you do a 100% clean you blow the cycle unless your filters cycled. I run 30- 50 tanks and 20-40 tubs, depending on how many species im raising, maintenance is around twenty hours per week, spread out over the week, 1- 2 hours per day and one full day. Most of my breeding animals are in cycled ,heavily planted , low maintenance set ups, they require weekly/ monthly water changes, most of my larvae are in non cycled tubs on daily water changes , or in cycled tanks with partial water changes several times per week. Each tank is treated differently and maintenace is performed as required with a bias towards over cleaning rather than under cleaning, there are many factors which determine when you need to clean such as stocking density, cycled\ uncycled, planted\unplanted, food type, feeding regime , temp etc. The skill is knowing what a tanks cleaning requirements are and actually doing it, fortunatly water test kits make this easy.