rileyrk190

Its about that time to get my tank all ready to move back to school, and prepare my little guy. My tank however has gotten a bit grungy due to a MASSIVE algae bloom. so its just kind of sitting there, with my betta in a different tank. Now i would like to clean it before i get back to school, but some of this algae almose seems to be imbedded in the glass lol..not to mention mineral deposits and such. How can i take this stuff off? I plan on starting fresh, taking a few gallons of tank water with me to jump start the cycle..but this tank needs a hard core cleaning. how can i go about making it sparkle again?

rainman

If you dump out the water, set the tank in the subn and let the algae bake dry, than get it a little wet and then use a razor blade aannd remove all the thick baked algae, than soak it in a highly dilluted bleach mix, than a little rinse with hose, scrub with sponge. bam done. But be sure to realy dillute the bleach and rinse many times afterward.

rainman

If the calcium and lime deposits do not come off than use some ammonia

clinton1621

I agree bleach or ammonia will both work well.... DO NOT use them together though, it will kill you

Lucy

If the tank is acrylic, I wouldn't recommend a razor blade and be careful what you scrub it with. Anything but the softest cloth could leave terrible scratches.

If you use bleach OD the tank with dechlorinator.

Shawnie

taking some of your old tank water with the betta in it will help, but MOST of your beneficial bacteria are in your filter media , deco n gravel..the media being the better of all..so if you can take that as well or even cut off some of it, that will really help with the cycle...sometimes moving fish is stressful so the more clean the water is the better..I dont envy you college kids having to move everything all the time its gotta be stressful on you guys as well as the fishies...goodluck!!

rainman

Yes, Good Luck!

kieley

hahaha that got a giggle out of me

rainman

Yeah I was kinda cutting it close. But i didn't say mix them both, Because a local person did that once and was on the local news. She was about a mile from my house. Pretty crazy huh!

rileyrk190

So i cleaned my tank today with dilluted bleach, and it worked very well..its all sparkly again..lol. I was already at petsmart today, so i bought some black gravel and reassembled my tank.
Shawnie, I kept the filter cartrige in a ziplock while i was cleaning it so dont worry..
At least now it will have time to get the bacteria in the new gravel, that way i can put it in a ziplock bag while transporting. I got a few new decorations today as well. I put 5 gallons from my 55g in there so it really shouldnt have to cycle at all. However, i will still test it for the next day or two.