Can I Clean My Fish Tank With Bleach Updated

Can I Clean My Fish Tank With Bleach

Whether y'all are setting up a used tank, having a fish illness outbreak or cleaning your quarantine tank, information technology is always appropriate to sanitize it. Sanitize hither basically means cleaning the tank and everything in it (well except your aquatic pets of course!) thoroughly to go rid of any possible parasites. This should include things that you lot use with the tank, such as your siphon likewise.

I never thought this is necessary until I learned information technology the hard way.

Why exercise you need to sanitize the fish tank? – My Lesson Learned

You run into, I had an outbreak of ballast worm in my goldfish tank not too long ago. I thought treating the whole tank with medication volition practice the job and yes, the Fritz Mardel Ascendancy medication did work and my goldfish got improve. Nonetheless subsequently a while, the anchor worms came back!

Why???!!!

Anchor Worm on Goldfish Closeup — *Anchor Worm*

Well… because anchor worms like most parasites become through different life stages. At sure life stages, they are dormant and are just chilling in the substrates, plants, decorations and tank's surfaces, or just swimming casually in the water. So when y'all thought the problem has gone away, it is actually waiting in that location quietly to manifest once more. Furthermore, the medications that you utilise may not be effective for every of these stages.

That'south why the best way to get rid of any parasite once and for all in the tank is to sanitize it, and I used household bleach to practise the chore for me.

Why household bleach?

Household bleach contains the active ingredient of diluted (three-6%) sodium hypochlorite solution which makes it safety for usage. Besides whitening clothes and removing stains, household bleach is too used for disinfecting and sterilizing purpose. This is because sodium hypochlorite reacts chemically with micro-organisms and destroys them.

It is easily accessible, cheap and safe to use with proper handling (delight refer to the precautionary statements of the product). For the purpose of sanitizing your fish tank, please go for the regular ones instead of those that are mixed with other additives for better scent.

How to sanitize the fish tank?

Alright, so at present yous are ready to sanitize your fish tank and everything in it (EXCEPT for your fish or any other aquatic pets). These are what you need to do:

Footstep 1: Remove your fish (and other aquatic pets) from the tank

If you have any fish or aquatic pets in the tank, please motility them to a split tank or container. They should be quarantined and treated with the right medications.

Pace two: Remove objects, filter & Bleed the water from the tank

Drain the water from the tank and if yous have any substrates, decorations and plants in there, take them out. You will also need to accept apart and remove your filter. All these will need to exist sanitized also to remove any possible parasites.

Pace 3: Prepare the bleach solution

In a bucket, ready the bleach solution past mixing 1 part of the household bleach with 9 parts of water. You will need to prepare plenty of this solution as you will be soaking some objects in information technology. Besides that, make full up a spray bottle with this solution equally this will be helpful with objects that are too heavy to motion around, such as your fish tank.

For goodness sake, please wear gloves when treatment chemicals.

Step iv: Sanitize the fish tank and Other objects

For the fish tank: Using the spray bottle that contains the 1:ix, bleach:water solution, spray onto all the inside surfaces of the fish tank. If you have other heavy objects in there that yous could not remove, spray the solution onto them as well. Leave it for 10-fifteen minutes.

For other objects: For most of the objects (except for plants and plastic objects), you can opt to sanitize them through boiling them for effectually 5 minutes in h2o. This applies to the filter media besides.
Notation:
When y'all sanitize your filter media, this will mean all the beneficial leaner will be killed off as well.
Plastic objects will get out of shape in humid water.

However if you can't eddy them for whatever reason, you tin soak them into the 1:9, bleach:h2o solution that you take prepared for 10-fifteen minutes. As for about plants, yous tin soak them into this solution for 1-two minutes.
Note: Non all plants can stand up bleach, so please check it out before putting them in.

As bleach has whitening capability, your colorful gravel or decorations may come out "less colorful", if you know what I hateful. I have white sand in my fish tank, so this is non at all my concern.

Step five: Rinse, rinse and rinse

After leaving them in the bleach solution for 10-15 minutes, you need to rinse them with water many many times to get rid of the bleach.

With the fish tank, what I did was every bit I was filling it up with h2o, I wiped all the inside surfaces with a clean wet sponge. Then I drained all the water from the tank and repeated the procedure for another 2-3 times.

As for those objects that I soaked in the bleach solution, I rinsed them two-3 times as well before leaving them to dry.

So there you get, 5 steps on how to sanitize the fish tank.

As all the beneficial bacteria are killed along with the parasites, you will need to cycle the tank all over again earlier it is safe to put your fish and other aquatic pets back in. Click here for more information well-nigh cycling your tank.

So practise yous sanitize the fish tank often? What practise you utilize and how do you do it? Practice share your experience by leaving information technology in the comments section beneath.