How often completely clean tank

Hi,
How often if at all should you completely clean a tank? By this I mean, take everything out, scrub all the gravel and replace everything back. Keeping in mind NOT to replace the filter items,pad,media.

55 gallon, Fresh water, Gravel bottom. Twenty neon tetras, one stick catfish, 3 ottocinclus, Driftwood, six live plants
The plants I have live mostly on the driftwood.

 

I would say never. Beneficial bacteria grows on everything in the tank. I would just do gravel vacs in sections when you do your regular WC’s. And maybe take one piece of decoration out per WC if it’s becoming unsightly.

 

I never completely scrubbed my tank, but every water change I would choose a different decoration to lift up and clean around and under.

 

Never. Not needed at all.

 

Perfect. Thanks everyone

 

I take nothing out, between fish and snails, algae gets cleaned off all my stuff eventually.

 

Keeping in mind NOT to replace the filter items,pad,media.

-> this is probably the only thing I would actually clean, if I had any media

 

Everyone has a different plan of attack and a different set up, there's not a "one size fits all" answer to this question.

You should never need to remove the gravel but you should vacuum it out once in a while to get rid of waste breaking down which will trickle out nitrates over time. but depending on planting, you might not have an issue with nitrates. but nitrate build up and release from waste can sneak up on people.

You might want to just clean the front glass, or you might want to keep all the glass clean and just let things build up ion the gravel and structures.

you might want to remove your filter media to a bucket of tank water and deep clean your filter, pipes and all that jazz then rinse the media and put it back. You might never want to touch it.

Also the stocking and filtration makes a difference on how often you need to do things and how in depth you need to do them when you do them.

Like my bare tank, I keep 2 adult angels for breeding, and I clean everything 1x a week with a 50% water change, it never exceeds 5ppm nitrates, but it looks bad being a bare tank, the glass needs cleaning and it needs the poop and uneaten food removed to look neat, so while doing that I water change and it just hangs really low between 0 and 5 nitrates.
gravel lets everything settle in and hides the mess, but it's in there breaking down.

 

I would say the same as others also, never as there would be no need to. You can clean different parts of the tank at different times and over the span of a few months that would be considered the complete clean of the tank. No need to do it all at once as any big changes in a tank can ruin the cycle and balance of beneficial bacteria.