At what age should you reset your aquarium?

[FloatyGimpy]

I have a 3 year old healthy aquarium. Is there a suggested age at which everything needs to come out and be redone? How many years can an aquarium just keep going?

 

[briangcc1997]

I had my 55 running from 2014 till it crashed, due to my neglect, in 2021. That's when it got replaced with a 75. So 7yrs without a tear down and honestly if I had kept up on the water changes it'd probably be the only tank in my house right now. Again my own fault...it got away from me with pandemic, kids home schooling, and working from home.

Wife got tired of looking at the 55 empty and claimed it as hers. We washed it down with a hose, added substrate and scaping and its been running ever since.

So I guess it boils down to.....how good is your maintenance??

 

[Demeter]

I keep mine going until I either get tired of how it looks or if it starts leaking and needs resealing. My oldest one that I haven't drained and redone is probably 8-9 years old, just kinda waiting for the African cichlids to die off (only 11 left!) before I take it down and redo it all. I do sometimes take all the décor out and rescape tanks but that's all, perhaps do some musical tanks and move fish around.

Generally I don't completely redo a tank unless the stocking is changing, the last tank I repurposed was a 10gal. It went from an axolotl tank to a black water tank for licorice gourami. This was after the axolotl died so there's that.

 

[MacZ]

The longest-running tank I ever had was 9 years. The longest I know of personally but not my own: 17 years.

 

[A201]

I've had my 65 gallon Oceanic tank up & running for 24 years. Buy a quality tank & keep up on the weekly maintenance. No need to break down an established, well maintained tank.

 

[Itiwhetu]

I had a peat based tank running for ten years

 

[airfix2]

The longest-running tank I ever had was 9 years. The longest I know of personally but not my own: 17 years.

there's a fish store about an hour away from me that doesn't do water changes on their tanks. every single one of their tanks has a walstad setup in it and they've been running for 34 years.

 

[veggieshark]

You never have to reset a healthy tank, if reset means tearing down, cleaning up and start from scratch. I have at least one tank that has been running for about 20 years. I did change the inhabitants several times but never "reset" the tank.

 

[FloatyGimpy]

Ok good to know - thanks! I certainly don't want to break my tank down if it's healthy and the inhabitants are happy.

 

[zERostArk07]

What about tanks with aquasoil though? When is the nutrients depleted? You would be depending on ferts and root tabs to keep your plants going?

 

[MacZ]

What about tanks with aquasoil though? When is the nutrients depleted? You would be depending on ferts and root tabs to keep your plants going?

Another reason I don't like that stuff. It's originally designed for high-end scapers and these tanks usually only stand for a year tops and get broken down. Aquasoil is simply not sustainable. Sadly marketing happened and now for no other reason people think it's required to grow plants. Sand works just as well.

 

[Fishnturtleguy933]

Another reason I don't like that stuff. It's originally designed for high-end scapers and these tanks usually only stand for a year tops and get broken down. Aquasoil is simply not sustainable. Sadly marketing happened and now for no other reason people think it's required to grow plants. Sand works just as well.

I use it when starting up a tank in mesh bags to give my root feeders a good start. I don't mind having to add root tabs once it's depleted. I have 3 tanks with and 3 without. Both running equally as well but, my swords seem to grow better when started in tanks with aquasoil.

As for the op original question. I never tear down a healthy tank. But i do move around decore and plants from time to time as well as change stock like others have stated here.

 

[SparkyJones]

my 20g is on,,, well lets say at least 15 years its been running since I got my Kissing Gouramis as juveniles, that died earlier this year but they were big and I had them in a larger tank and repurposed that 20g tank for a small angel growout and then an angelfish pair for breeding and then a growout for their fry, that project started about 3 years back successful this year though.
let's see, the 20g is my longest running, my 72 g has been running for 8 years, I shut that one down for about a decade between 04 or 06 to like 2015 when I decided to restart it because those gouramis were making me feel bad in the small tank, I got sick of seeing them swimming in place every day.

I'd say my cycle, or my bacteria colony rather, which I jump from tank to tank as needed, it's been running 26 years, and at one point it was on a sponge filter in the 20g only which was the only tank I had running which I would have shut down also if those kissing gouramis weren't purchased, they just wouldn't die. LOL. I started the cycle in like 1996 on the 72g in my wetdry filter, I jumped 2 10gs and the 20g off it, had them all running, one 10g broke, the other started leakking, I shut down the 72g, and the 20g carried on and then I jumped the 72g off the 20g again when I restarted that in 2014-2016.

I was going to replace the 20g this year with a new tank, it's basically a wreck and going to leak or break at some point here soon.

and over the years I really wasn't all that attentive, the 72g, I hated cleaning, I still dislike it but I made it easier than it used to be. the 20g is easy to change 5 or 10 gallons so not a big deal. As long as you don't kill off your cycle some how, it kind of just carries onward and yeah, even neglect can be recovered,I found that out this year too. I'd say that's the most important thing of it all, if you keep your bacteria colony healthy and alive, there is no restart, just redesigns, or repurposing.

I don't do plants or inverts though, just fish and rock and fake plants. not saying I haven't tried to, just saying it's always been failures and I gave up a long time ago.,I've never kept shrimp, crayfish die on me. Fish, I have pretty good luck with though.

.

 

[KingOscar]

I've had several up and running over 10 years. I can't say which was longest as I tossed all my old logs.

I do sometimes take all the décor out and rescape tanks but that's all, perhaps do some musical tanks and move fish around.

Hopefully when the music stops every fish has a tank!

 

[jaysurf7]

I would say as long as things are ok there isn't any need to tear it down and do everything all over again. Now what i would say is what you would have to watch out for is the silicone over time, I had my old tank that was running for well over 20 years and the silicone started to wear down and one day while i was falling asleep it started leaking it was a mess so i had to go out and buy a brand new 65-gallon tank. Some tanks last longer than others it depends my old tank had to be moved 2 times to get a new carpet so maybe that could have twisted it a llittle.But other than that your tank should last quite a long time and there's no need to do it all over, but as with every tank keep a check on the silicone as time goes on.