Help

[Orange Crush]

My well intending mother-in-law has been caring for me since my surgery 2 weeks ago and has been helping around the house too. She ran out of projects and volunteered to clean an empty, but dirty, tank. I told her to use only water and paper towels however, she grabbed a scotch brite sponge to clean the tank. I looked and it says "not for aquarium use". Can anything be done to make the tank safe for fish?

[pitdogg2]

well rinse out the tank very well. It may have some sort of anti-microbial stuff in the sponge so it don't stink or grow mold and bacteria. I wouldn't think it would last long, more of don't use inside the tank while fish are present.

if you are real worried I fill the tank and bleach it and drain and rinse out very well and set it outside in the sun to kill the residual chlorine.

my .02

[Larry Bugg]

I've read in the past that someone contacted scotch brite and asked about this and was told the issue was with the possibility of the scrubbing part scratching the glass. I've used these for years now to clean out tanks, with and without fish in the tank. No issues. Maybe I should have investigated better, lol.

[pitdogg2]

first thing I thought of also Larry, but then again many sponges are "treated" to inhibit growth of microbes so that was my take

[brewmaster15]

I would just rinse it out well It should be okay. Id be more concerned of any soap residues if they were used with the sponge.



Al

[Orange Crush]

Thank you all for your responses. I contacted 3M (company of scotch brite sponges). The person I talked to on the phone said that the sponges contain a "sea water humectant" to keep the sponges soft and it is known to kill fish. She described a long procedure that might make the tank safe but should be tested with cheap fish for a couple of weeks to make sure. Problem with that is, if the fish lived, I would be stuck with a tank of cheap fish.
Later, I got an email stating that the sponge contains "antimicrobial chems". This is what they wrote......

"The following are the recommended procedures to make sure a tank is safe for new fish after contamination by an antibacterial sponge:

1. Remove all live plants and critters from the tank.
2. Empty the water as completely as possible.
3. Fill the tank with fresh water and add a chlorine bleach, such as Hilex(TM), using 4-5* drops of bleach per gallon of water.
4. Allow water with bleach to circulate through the system, using whatever pump and filtration system the aquarium has. This will deactivate the anti-microbial agent.
5. Refill with fresh water and allow to circulate. This time a standard anti-chlorine agent, available at any aquarist store should be added to remove the chlorine.

The tank may be used as is, after appropriate adjustments for pH and temperature, for tropical fish. For marine fish, it may be necessary to replace the water with marine water or just add whatever salts and other additives are required for a proper environment.

Before restocking the aquarium with valuable fish, add several inexpensive fish to the aquarium and maintain the tank for about one or two weeks to ensure the health of the fish. If the trial fish remain healthy, the aquarium can be restocked with more valuable fish. If the fish do not remain healthy, the decontamination procedure listed above should be repeated.

Note that some fish are very sensitive to impurities while others are not. Therefore, it is always wise to add a few fish at a time and observe them for several weeks before adding more fish. This is a standard technique used to help avoid fish-borne disease in the tank as well.

*Note: adding approximately 4-5 drops of bleach per gallon of water is sufficient to deactiva te the anti-microbial in the tank. The water circulating in the aquarium should have a very slight bleach smell to it. The amount of bleach needed will depend on the total amount of organic material in the tank since bleach is deactivated by organic matter itself."

I decided it was too much of a hastle and still had a risk so I went and bought a new 55 gal tank at LFS.