Bleach?

[Rhiannon]

Say your fish died of fungus, and you obviously fished it out with a net, could you soak the net in bleach, rinse heaps then reuse?

I dont really like using bleach. I clean my toilets with a Harpic Bleach thing, but last time I did it, while I was scrubbing some bleach splashed in my eye and it hurt like mad for ages, so I am kind of put off it.

 

[Majjie]

Speaking as someone who used to work as a microbiologist (many moons ago!) - I think bleach is a good disinfectant to use for empty tanks and equipment but not for dirty gravel/complete tanks/plants. (Pure bleach - not one with any additives/perfume)

Bleach attacks organic material - so in a dirty tank with lots of decaying plant material/mulm lurking in the gravel, you run the risk of all the active ingredient being used up before it kills all the bugs. And you run the risk of killing your plants if they are exposed for any length of time.

You also need to be careful because bleach attacks metal and nylon (so could damage nets) - and concentrated bleach attacks skin and eyes (as Rhiannon found out) - but the diluted solution shouldn't be too much of a problem. You don't need to leave the bleach solution in contact for more than 30 - 60 minutes - that would be enough to kill any bugs.

One of the good things about chlorine is that the human nose is a good guage of it's presence. If you can smell chlorine in your tank or on your equipment - then it needs more rinsing or neutralising. If you can smell chlorine in the disinfecting solution - then it is strong enough to work.

I too have never come across anyone with personal experience of a problem with bleach and fish tanks.

 

[helterskelter]

With my job cleaning aquariums for a living, i used bleach on a daily bases cleaning rocks and dead corals, no other items though. Only use thin bleach, never use thick as stated befor.

Yes off the shelf declorinators will work as I've used this with strong mixes and worked fine. How ever the very best is sodium thiosulfate, i use this all the time and have never lost anything from it...


But if your wanting a horror story about bleach, I'll le tu know when it happens, but as yet 3 years doing it for a living I've never had a problem. Yet....

 

[Michael Buckley]

I once put live plants in bleach to get rid of algae, it kill the algae, and we went on of the longest times with out loosing a fish (about 5 weeks) after that.

I think is is OK to use.

 

[aquaticadmirer]

None the less there is something I have been interested in trying. I would like to get a chlorine test kit, one for swimming pools would probably work well for testing the concentration of my tap water, as well as for a 20:1 mixture of bleach & water. It would be interesting to see how much dechlorinator is needed to neutralize a given volume of this mixture.

I have always used bleach to clean my tank decorations, and I'm also a pretty impatient person. Sometimes I pour straight bleach from the bottle right on the decorations (you can see the algae die within seconds), and then I just rinse them off maybe 2 or 3 times until they're not slimy from the bleach anymore. From that I put them straight back into the tank and just use enough dechlorinator to treat the whole tank. I haven't had any fish die in years, and have never seen any ill effects from the bleach.

The only downside is the artifical plants fade after a while. Having recently revamped my tank, I'm looking for other ways to effectively clean algae off of tank decorations. Anybody have any suggestions?

 

[miss bunkface]

bleach = the devil.
i would say nay.

but maybe i used to much??
hmmm... but i used it and my angel's were gasping for air, and then 6 of them died.

but i have one left.
and that's all that matters,

 

[ImperfectFaerie]

Miss B- how/in what manner did you use it?

 

[crazie.eddie]

bleach = the devil.
i would say nay.

but maybe i used to much??
hmmm... but i used it and my angel's were gasping for air, and then 6 of them died.

but i have one left.
and that's all that matters,

I would have to think something else is wrong, like water isn't oxygenated enough or too much CO2 if you're using pressurized CO2. You shouldn't be using bleach with fish in the tank anyways.

Why waste meds to sterilize a tank. Meds are expensive. Bleach is easy and cheap to obtain. I've used bleach to sterilize a 55 gallon tank, twice.

 

[miss bunkface]

i didn't use the bleach in the tank, while the fish were in it.
jez, im not that stupid.

my betta got some crazy disease, then it got transfered through nets, and my needlenose got it, and on my boyfriend's oscar forum, the advised a complete tear down, and to use bleach on everything.

 

[Tolak]

i didn't use the bleach in the tank, while the fish were in it.
jez, im not that stupid.

my betta got some crazy disease, then it got transfered through nets, and my needlenose got it, and on my boyfriend's oscar forum, the advised a complete tear down, and to use bleach on everything.

The bleach needs to be diluted, then rinsed. I've used it countless times on the same tanks, I actually asked for gallons of bleach for X-mas.