How To Disinfect A Used Or Contaminated Aquarium With Bleach



So you just went through the horrors of dealing with a massive disease outbreak in your fish tank and you want to know how to nuke those nasties out of orbit. Keep reading to find out how to use bleach (yes, bleach) to thoroughly disinfect your aquarium, aquarium equipment, and accessories.

Materials for Bleaching

Okay, first things first: gather your materials. I put on latex gloves and old clothes that can get ruined. Also, get some bleach, a measuring cup, siphon or container for emptying out the tank, washrag or sponge to clean surfaces, and spray bottle (optional).

Should I Bleach It or Toss It?

Bleach anything that may have been exposed to the fish water, even accidental drips from your hands. So besides the tank, you'll need to clean the filter, heater, aquarium décor, nets, siphon, algae scrubbers, buckets you used, etc. Be aware that some of this stuff may get discolored because you're working with, well, bleach.

Some people say gravel is ok to bleach, but I personally dump all substrate (especially since I like to use sand and aquascaping soil). I also don’t bleach live plants, biomedia, filter floss, driftwood… anything super porous or closed off that might be able to retain the bleach.

Disinfecting Instructions

  1. First, wash off all the debris with warm water. Don’t use any soap or other detergents (especially ammonia-based cleaners) that may react with the bleach
  2. The next step is to make your bleach solution. Just a safety reminder: bleach is dangerous if not properly handled. Read the bottle for the full warnings, but don’t ingest it, don’t let it come in contact with your mushy body parts, and use it in a well-ventilated area (like outside). The recommended concentration I make is a 1 part bleach for 10 parts water (preferably hot water). In most stores near my area, they only sell 8% concentrated bleach (not 5% regular bleach), so that comes out to about 1 cup of concentrated bleach per 1 gallon of water. See the CDC instructions for more details.
  3. To clean the aquarium, you can fill up the entire tank with the bleach solution and wipe down the outside with a washrag or sponge. You can also use a spray bottle to spray and wipe down all the surfaces. Let it sit for 10 min, rinse with tap water at least twice, and then let it air dry completely so that the bleach breaks down into harmless compounds (mostly salt and water).
  4. To disinfect equipment or décor with lots of crevices, completely submerge and soak them in a bucket of the bleach solution (or in the tank itself). Rotate and agitate the items in the solution to get rid of any air pockets or bubbles. Soak for 10 minutes, rinse with water a couple of times, and air dry.
  5. For a canister filter where you can’t submerge it, throw away all filter media and run the bleach water through the empty canister filter for 10 minutes. Don’t forget to use the bleach solution to wipe the outside surfaces of the filter, tubing, etc. Then flush out the filter by running it a couple of times with clean tap water mixed with lots of extra dechlorinator. Empty out the water and let it dry completely for the next 2 weeks or more.

Lesson Learned

Do not let anything that is even slightly damp with bleach solution back into your aquarium. Remember the canister filter that I cleaned out? Yeah, after a few days of drying, I set up the entire aquarium again and put my axolotl in it. Unfortunately there was a tiny bit of bleach left in the closed-off motor compartment of the canister, and it was enough to kill her. 😭 So the second time around, I let the canister filter sit empty for multiple weeks to make sure it was completely dry. To make extra sure all the bleach is gone, you can buy a test kit that measures chlorine levels. And when adding animals, maybe put a cheap, delicate plant (like java moss or some plant trimmings) or a pest snail in first, kind of like a canary in the mine, before you add your expensive dragon puffer.

The BEEP Rating

So how beneficial, easy, efficient, and proven is this method? In other words, what’s the BEEP rating? Well, given that the CDC recommends it for disaster zones and tons of aquarists have successfully used it for their aquariums, it’s definitely beneficial, efficient, and proven. However, I’m going to give it 3 out of 5 stars for how easy it is. You're working with bleach, there’s some measuring involved, and you have to make sure that everything is completely dry before reusing it. But in my opinion, this method is absolutely BEEP-worthy and I regularly incorporate bleach cleaning for used and contaminated aquarium stuff.

Question of the Day

How do you clean a used or contaminated aquarium? Comment below with your suggestions to share them with the fish fam community. Don’t forget to take time to enjoy your aquariums and I’ll see you next time!

Subscribe to my YouTube Channel, where I share practical fish care tips to help busy aquarists spend more time enjoying their aquariums! 🎮❤️🐟


Komentar

Posting Komentar

Postingan populer dari blog ini

How To Fix Cloudy Aquarium Water For Axolotls

Gambar
Axolotls are one of the messiest pets I’ve ever owned, so how do you keep their tank water nice and clear? Well, there's a lot of different reasons why your aquarium water may be cloudy, but if you have a pet axolotl, most likely it’s because of their poop! 💩 These cute little creatures can produce big ol’ brown logs that look like miniature dog turds. Unfortunately, axolotls just seem to have a knack for stepping right on them and then poof, you’ve got poo dust all in the water column. Yuck! 4 Ways to Fix Cloudy Axolotl Water So to keep your water clean of axolotl poo particles, here are my top four suggestions, listed from least time intensive to most time intensive: Axolotl poo (source: headFeed from caudata.org ) Tip #1: Bigger Tank Get a bigger tank with more water volume. The more volume you have, the more diluted the waste will be and the clearer the water. This advice can also be rephrased as “Don’t overstock your aquarium.” For example, I started off with ...
Baca selengkapnya

How To Raise Cory Catfish Fry

Gambar
Apparently your cory catfish have been, ahem, gettin’ busy, and there are white little eggs all over your glass. Babies! So what in the world do you do now? Keep reading to learn everything you need to know about raising corydoras fry. How to Breed Cory Catfish Okay, for most of you, breeding corydoras was probably an accident, but here’s what you can do to encourage it. For me, I had a 20 gallon tank with 6 adult-sized albino cory catfish (to increase my chances of having enough males and females). To get them in the mood, condition them by feeding lots of good food, and then do some water changes with fresh water a few degrees cooler than normal. Next thing you know, everyone’s gettin’ frisky, the males are chasing the females and doing the T-shaped mating position, and then the female lays sticky eggs on any ol’ flat surface around. Female albino cory catfish carrying newly fertilized eggs in her pelvic fins How to Collect Corydoras Eggs If you leave the eggs alone, ...
Baca selengkapnya

Do Axolotls Need Salt? | How To Make Holtfreter’S Solution And Other Salt Recipes

Gambar
Do axolotls need brackish water? Then why do axolotl websites always talk about Holtfreter’s Solution and other salt recipes ? And why is it so hard to make them? In this article, I cover: Recommended pH, GH, KH, and salinity levels for axolotls Easy recipes for making Holtfreter’s, Modified Holtfreter’s, and John’s Solution (found on axolotl.org) The effect that salt solutions and aquarium salt have on pH, water hardness, and salinity Recommended Water Hardness for Axolotls First off, let's examine the axolotls' natural habitat. They come from high altitude freshwater lakes in Mexico City, but there’s not a lot of isu how on what the water quality used to be like because nowadays the large lakes have been reduced to narrow canals and have been affected by pollution and runoff. Comparison of axolotl habitat in 1500's versus 2000's (modified from Places Journal ) However, I did find a veterinary article titled Water Quality Explained: How It Can Affect...
Baca selengkapnya