How To Nuke Divided 10 Gallon?

[Synirr]

As mentioned in another thread, Vassago has passed, which means I have an empty stop in my divided 10 gallon. The problem is that a fish who once lived in it had TB, and my policy was that nobody new goes into the tank. Unfortunately, I need all the room I can get, so I've decided to nuke the tank, move all the current inhabitants into separate tanks, and move some of the *definitely* healthy fish in separate tanks into the 10 gallon together. The 10 gallon has sand though, so how would I go about cleaning that? Should I just get all new sand for it? I was planning to scald the tank and filters with water from our 190 degree tap to disinfect them, do you think this will be sufficient? I'll be tossing the old filter media and replacing it with pre-seeded media from the filters of my other tanks so as not to throw the cycle off too badly.

 

[fishykisses]

I would start with new sand - to be on the safe side. The rest should be ok boiled, except for the filter media...which you already said you were gonna throw away.

 

[Synirr]

Well, it'd probably be a bad idea to boil plastic dividers and live plants

 

[fishykisses]

diluted bleach solution should do the tricks for those - live plants no more than 20 seconds but i would jsut do 10 seconds and then rinse, rinse, rinse. The dividers can be scrubbed pretty good with the bleach solution. But really, if the dividers are that craft canvas - i think it might be strong enough to withstand a dump of boiled water...IMO, i could be wrong.

 

[OohFeeshy]

Boil whatever can be boiled, bleach the rest (and maybe the boiled stuff for good measure), let dry out for a few days, rinse off wih hot water and use again. If its filtered though, maybe use ammonia?

 

[Synirr]

I'd feel safer using ammonia or vinegar... how dilute of a solution would you all suggest?
My old men (Raziel, Mikhael, Loki, and Serafino) who have been with me forever are going to be 4 of the 5 going into the divided, so I don't want to take any chances with them

 

[lljdma06]

I'd feel safer using ammonia or vinegar... how dilute of a solution would you all suggest?
My old men (Raziel, Mikhael, Loki, and Serafino) who have been with me forever are going to be 4 of the 5 going into the divided, so I don't want to take any chances with them

To disinfect live plants, I use a ratio of 1 part bleach to 24 parts water, and then dip for 20 seconds, rinsing thoroughly in dechlorinated water. For vinegar, I only use it to clean the outside, have never tried it on the inside glass. It's great for cleaning the lighting fixtures and canopy. I've also heard of Lemon juice, but have never used it. I mostly use bleach, especially in FL. Bleach just has that finality, everything bad will die with bleach. Another thing I have used to clean tanks has been hot water, and course salt to scrub the dirty stuff. Sorry, if I'm not much help. If you don't want to hurt your oldtimers, maybe salt and hotwater might be your best bet.

 

[OrkyBetta]

I have used bleach a lot to nuke tanks, and have never had a problem. The great thing is, if you buy the unscented kind, all it is is chlorine. So, after you soak everything in hot water and bleach, rinse rinse rinse, (garden hoses work well for this) and let it dry, I would soak it all in water with a lot of extra dechlorinator, then rinse and dry again, and when you set it all back up, just put in a bit extra dechlorinator, to be safe.

 

[ral]

I use boiling water to nuke my tanks. I wipe it first with a cloth with hot water to remove any waster material stuck to the glass, and pour hot water, hopefully to kill any bacteria and parasites, than leave it dry for a few days.

Same with the gravel. I discard the live plants.

 

[Silvani]

I personally was super scared to use bleach in my fish tank that I nuked. But I sucked it up and did it. But I was paranoid because I kept smelling bleach. So I ended up rinsing that tank out once a day for about a week before I even thought about using it.

I had river rocks as gravel, and I stuck those in an old pot and boiled them. Stirred them around, dumped the water, and boiled them again. That might work for sand, but it would be rather messy I’d think. You may be better off just getting some fresh sand.

I’ve never had to nuke live plants before so don’t know what to tell ya there.

 

[OrkyBetta]

I would say get all new live plants, I mean, whatever would kill bacteria would probably kill the plants.

 

[blue_ram]

I'd feel safer using ammonia or vinegar... how dilute of a solution would you all suggest?
My old men (Raziel, Mikhael, Loki, and Serafino) who have been with me forever are going to be 4 of the 5 going into the divided, so I don't want to take any chances with them

Actually, bleach the ultimate disinfectant; it pretty much kills everything. It's also is quite safe to use full strength. Just rinse it out couple of times and use 4x dechlorinator to neutralize the remaining bleach. I you're a worry wart, then wash it out again with hot water, and leave it out in the sun for a day. Bleach has fairly low boiling point and is rather unstable. Combination of sun and hot water should break down any trace of bleach rapidly.

I agree with orky. I would toss the plants. I know I certainly don't want to take chances.

[edited for minor grammar]

 

[Synirr]

It's practically impossible to get plants around here, so there's no way I'm tossing those. I've heard of lots of people disinfecting their live plants without problems, so I'm gonna try that as opposed to driving 3 hours to get more that look half way decent.

Thanks for the info guys, I guess I'll use bleach after all. Gotta make a run to the store tomorrow!

 

[JoLtNbolt]

Synirr... if you want i can send you some Hornwort... I've got more than I can deal with.

Here's some info that I found on google about Hornwort:

The plants stems tend to float just below the surface of the water and can reach over a meter in length in the aquarium. Whilst growing best under good light it does not seem to cut out much light to plants below it, these seem to grow as normal. It will survive quite low light levels but growth is very slow or non existent.

It is slower growing a lower temperatures and will form thicker leaves which give it the appearance of a different species. Either can be used as it will adapt to the temperature provided. It grows continually in the tropical aquarium and if conditions are to its likening can form dense forests into which fry may escape, penetration being slow or denied to adult fish. Whilst light clumps will provide a refuge for harassed adults. Fairly tough but long stems will snap if roughly handled. Propagation is by division and is easy as even the smallest piece of stem will eventually grow into a new plant. It excretes substances toxic to algae (allelopathic behaviour) and at good growth conditions it efficiently inhibits most algae growth.

 

[Synirr]

Thanks for the offer JoLtNbolt, but I'm afraid I'd just kill it... seriously, I have three planted tanks going great, and I've tried hornwort in all three of them, but nothing but the very smallest of stems ever survives, I have no clue why. All the leaves just go brown and fall out eventually . Even in my planted 29 gallon with two light hoods I can't get it to work.