Cleaning Tank Sealant

[greensparrow]

Hey Guys,

First of all I apologize if I am posting this in the wrong section. I just bought a used 135 gallon tank cheap. They had it filled up with a FW stingray in it when I went to look at it. It looks like it is in really good shape. The only problem is it has a lot of hard water spots and the sealant on the insides is real dirty. It looks there is a lot of algae and hard water spots around the sealant. The waters spots were not too hard to remove, but I am curious how I go about cleaning the sealant inside of the tank to remove the algae and crud that is on the sealant. I heard that putting bleach water in the tank and letting it sit overnight might help. Another thought I had was to remove the sealant on the inside and reseal it. I have no experience when it comes to resealing the tank and am not sure that would be a good idea (since it is going to hold alot of water). Is there any other tricks that I am not aware of that might help? Other than that the tank seems to hold water well. Once I got it home I filled up and left out for a couple of days to make sure there weren't any leaks. Just don't like the cruddy looking sealant on the inside. Any help would be gratefully appreciated.

Thanks

Josh

 

[Bretzz]

Happened to me, I bought one used and there was algae built up under the silicon. I wouldn't advise taking the sealant off and resealing, it would be hard and you probably wouldnt want to do it yourself to be safe. What I did was fill it with lukewarm water, put some dishwashing liquid in, gave it a good scrubbing and let it sit for the night. In the morning, I scrubbed it again and emptied/rinsed it. The silicon washed off nicely, although the stuff under the silicon came out a little, but not fully (Dont know if that can even come out..)

You can use a sponge to scrub, make sure you dont use anything too hard that will break up the silicon, a sponge was fine if you dont scrub too hard. A cloth would also work great.

 

[greensparrow]

Thanks Bretzz!