Morgan

My father just bought me a used 47.24 g tank. It's in excellent shape, except that it's full of calcification? It needs a good cleaning. What is best used to clean the tank and safe for future inhabitants? The tank also came with bottom filter set-up that needs a good cleaning too.

Morgan

Lucy

Hi Welcome to FishLore
You can usually clean calcium deposits with vinegar. Try diluting it and rubbing with a soft cloth, if it needs more you can soak it over night or use straight vinegar.
If it's glass you can use a non abrasive sponge or scrubby (lol, I don't know what it's called).
Acrylic will scratch very easily and may also cloud, so be careful.
Have fun with your new tank.

Morgan

It's a glass tank. I read somewhere to only use aquarium safe scrubby pads. Can just a regular, store bought scrubby pad be used?

iloveengl

I used the flat line of a razor blade to clean my used glass one. you do have to take it slow, so you don't cause a scratch but it made my tank look brand new and it didn't tire my arm out with scrubbing. Maybe try a corner with whatever you decide to use, that way if it does scratch, it won't be in the front. COngrats on the new tank!

aquarist48

Hello Morgan. If you do decide to use a scrubby pad, make sure there is NO SOAP contained in it. Soap is the last thing you ever want to use to clean a tank.
Have fun and enjoy. I hope you can share some photos with us sometime.
Take care!
Ken

jdhef

If by "bottom filter" you mean an under gravel filter, you may want to reconsider using it. They tend to get a lot of icky stuff trapped underneath of them and occasionally you need to remove the gravel, pull out the plates and clean the gross stuff under them out.

redlessi

see if you can find this post on the forum:

Personal breakthrough cleaning glass haze & mineral spots

this is what I did and it worked great, let me know if you can find it. i dont know how to send the link

Morgan

Thanks for the replies everyone. I actually just finished cleaning it. My dad bought a huge bottle of vinegar and that did the trick. My sinuses got opened up thanks to all the vinegar. . Next I need to strip the old silicone and add the new.

SWilkins

Welcome to Fishlore Morgan. Vinegar is really great for cleaning...I think I will give it a try on my sinuses now that you mentioned that though LOL. Tommy strips a lot of used tanks out and then puts new silicone in them. You can buy the aquarium silicone or you can buy silicone from a hardware store that has nothing added to it at all (plain silicone) no mildew deterrent or anything like that and it is much cheaper and works great.

aquarist48

Hello Morgan. You can do a "search" at the top of this page for "sealing a tank" and you should find some helpful information there. Too, I listed one link below:
http://www.aquarticles.com/articles/..._Aquarium.html

Best of luck !
Ken

eiginh

Old thread but thanks for the vinegar tip! Will try that with a dirty 10g I have laying around.

namehater

its pretty amazing how well vinegar works to clean up tank, really does a number on your nostrils too lol