Doing what I did and sterilizing this tank so thoroughly was not necessary but it made me feel better in a time of grief and loss. I discovered my almost three year old betta, Pongo, dead in his tank Sunday afternoon presumably of old age. It was especially hard on me because of the "conversation" and lunch we had shared that same day. I was getting ready for lunch and decided to go have a picnic with him as I ate and I fed him some pellets and bloodworms as well. I can only assume he was telling me it was time and drew me to make those last moments special. He danced around as he and I ate with every bit of youth in his eye as he had when I brought him home almost three years ago.
The materials you will need -
A clean, unused toothbrush (I prefer the cheap ones with super hard bristles you can get at the dentist)
A clean, unused kitchen sponge (I used a good old Ocello brand sponge)
Regular Concentrated Clorox Bleach
Water (tap is good)
Measuring cup
Seachem Prime
Contaminated fish tank/ornaments/equipment
Step One: Algae and Scum Removal
I drained the tank into the sink and carried it outside where I removed the sand (scoop out as much as possible and to get the remainder out, fill a container larger than your tank with water and slosh the tank in and out of the water to get the last little bit) and the ornaments. I threw my sand out because I have some extra that I can use and would rather not go through the hassle of sanitizing it. I tackled the tank first because it would be harder to wet again to scrub well. First, I took my sponge and rubbed off as much algae as I could from the inside of the tank, using the toothbrush if needed. I then scrubbed the outside of the tank with the sponge and used the toothbrush around the rim to make sure I got everything. I took paper towels and dried the tank off thoroughly because we have hard water and I didn't want to leave marks all over my freshly-scrubbed tank. (Though I later realized this was a moot point because I got the outside of the tank wet plenty of times after that.) I then moved on to scubbing the decor (in this case a rock formation with silk plants and a ceramic log) with the toothbrush. Just give it a good brushing and everything should come off! I didn't get all of the diatoms (brown algae) off of the silk plants but I did get a lot of it.
Step Two: How Much Bleach?
I know I am not the only one that was afraid to dump bleach in my tank and all over my ornaments. After a lot of research, I decided on the 1:19 bleach to water ratio. The first thought that entered my mind was "How on earth am I going to do that? It probably comes out to 5/9ths of a cup or something crazy." I went over to trusty Google and asked him (yes, I think Google is a boy) how many cups were in a gallon so I could calculate the volume of my tank this way. He returned an answer of 16 cups per gallon of water so I did the following equation -
16 (cups) x 2.5 (gallons) = 40 (cups of water in your tank)
Now that I knew there were 40 cups of water in my tank, I had to calculate how much bleach to add to the water to achieve our 1:19 ratio. I think this size of tank was perfect for an example because it came out to 40 and we all (should) know that 20+20=40. That means there are two cups of bleach for every 2.5 gallons of water because the ratio is 1:19 and 1+19=20. To calculate exactly how many cups of bleach you need in your tank, do the following equation or refer to the list below -tank volume in gallons/2.5x2
Some common tank sizes and the amount of bleach you'll need -
10 gallons - 8 cups
20 gallons - 16 cups
40 gallons - 32 cups
55 gallons - 44 cups
75 gallons - 60 cups
Step Three - Bleaching the Tank
To actually bleach the tank, I brought the tank to the sink and filled it to the rim, then sat it back out on the porch where I removed two cups of water (the amount of bleach I was going to add) and added in two cups of bleach that I poured evenly around the tank. I made sure my hollow ornaments had no air trapped in them before I did this and left them on their side while I bleached. I let the solution sit for seven minutes then took an old siphon and drained the tank off the size of the porch. Once empty, the tank was brought inside again, where I turned the faucet as hot as I could get it (which is scalding) and let it fill the tank then overflow for a minute or so. I drained, then repeated this step five times. Next, I dosed Seachem Prime at 10 drops per gallon and filled it with scalding water, drained and repeated two more times. At this point, I took the tank outside and let it sun-dry along with the ornaments. Once it dried, I thought it still smelled like bleach so I filled it with Primed water a fourth time and let it sit full for six hours. I then drained and dried the tank. I thought I still smelled bleach but my husband said I was imagining it so be sure to have an extra nose handy for another opinion. I was worried about residual bleach so naturally, I smelled bleach.
At this point, I dried the tank off and started painting my background on. I am snail-testing my tank before I add my intended stock just to be sure but I just added them today and they are holding up fine. I am not getting any readings with my API Master Liquid Test Kit, either. I hope this will help someone and I'll update you all as the tank gets closer and closer to completion.
As always,
dpmom
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