Surely this would leave a residue that will poison any fish?

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

This is a show that aired on TV a long time ago, mum and I used to love it. You get to see gobsmackingly gross houses, with dramatic music and zooms, and gotta love Kim and Aggie. They usually know their stuff, too, I picked up a load of useful cleaning tips from this show, and once you've seen the house transformation and the amount of work it took, your own household chores seem so easy in comparison!

But just came across this while watching an episode last night, and was disgusted that the show bought a bag of fish just to show on camera, then placed them in the bag next to a clearly long unused aquarium, so not his fish, and left there while she sprayed a pretty toxic chemical to the insides of the tank. Surely it could leave a poisonous residue. I hope no one followed that tip!

Skip to minute 16:35 if you just want to see the tank bit.

Any thoughts?

 

[Colin_T]

Kettle descalers are usually an acid like phosphoric acid or mild hydrochloric acid. They dissolve organic stuff and calcium but don't affect glass and don't normally affect silicon. Acids can be washed out easily with water and you can neutralise them by adding tap water and a couple of tablespoons of sodium bicarbonate.

As long as the product doesn't have any weird additives, it shouldn't leave a residue behind.

 

[Seisage]

Hmm.. Depends on how you define "pretty toxic". Descalers simply use acids to react with the calcium carbonate (limescale) buildup. There are a variety of acids used, some stronger than others. The woman uses a product meant for kettles, so it has to be safe for use around food and drink. The calcium salts that are created by the reaction are soluble in water and easily washed away. I wouldn't say it's a particularly dangerous thing to use on a tank as long as you rinse it really well afterwards (and make sure there aren't any other additives like Colin mentioned). That said, I'd personally just stick with using vinegar. You still have to rinse the tank well afterwards, but it's much milder, and cheaper than descaling products.

I can't say I'm pleased with the bag full of feeder goldfish though. Amusing that they tried to pass them off as that man's fish.

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

Good to know that my favourite cleaner and personal role model didn't do something terrible to a tank! Now I can continue watching old episodes and worshipping her as a domestic goddess.

I had no idea idea what else might be in kitchen descaler, just saw the masks and her going on about it being toxic, when I'd have just soaked paper towels in vinegar draped over and stuck to the worst bits, then gone at it with a carefully angled stanley blade. At least, that's always worked on my second hand tanks in a hard water area that leaves marks like that. Scrubbing the waterline area during water changes usually keeps it manageable in a set up tank.

Yeah, I hated the feeder goldfish too. They sometimes do little obviously scripted skits of course, but gross buying live animals and treating them like that, when it wasn't needed at all. But to be fair, that's very much a TV show producer thing to do, and they're soulless ghouls, so I won't hold it against Kim and Aggie!

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

Dang. I carried on and watched the rest of the episode, and when they do the "hey, look how transformed your house is now!" reveal, saw they'd set up the tank in the living room. Cloudy water from new gravel/just filled tank and all.

First few shorts I didn't see any movement, so hoped they'd bought the fish for the shot, then sent a runner to return them and just set it up to look pretty for the final shots.

But then at the end they show the fish from the bag in the tank, along with others Wonder how long those fish were stuck in that bag while they cleaned out the tank, then set it up and faffed about with fake decor, filled the tank and chucked them in. Urgh.

 

[Colin_T]

The fish in the bag are gold rosy barbs, a yellow form of the normal rosy barb.