Starting over, question?

[patrick]

After a difficult summer dealing with a shipment of sick discus and an up-coming adoption of a child, I've decided to quit the discus business.

This weekend I sold all my healthy discus. Over the last several weeks I sold all my tanks, except for one 300 gallon tank.

Question?

What is the best way to sterilize the tank and get it ready for some non-discus fish?

I am going to get some hardy fish that does not require as much TLC as discus.

Thank you, Patrick

[Carol_Roberts]

Bleach run through the tank and filters then a fishless cycle with ammonia.

[wyang76]

How difficult is it to remove the bleach residues?.. Bleach is extremely strong and toxic.. it seems a little residue can be very damaging.

[Carol_Roberts]

Lots of rinsing and a dechlor product. letting it run for a few days should disapate any left over chorine. Chlorox is really hard on sponges.

PP (potasium permanganate) is another option to sterilize the tank and filters. Hydrogen peroxide in the antidote for that. It will turn your sponges brown.

What ever method you choose I would pull the sponges out and nuke them in the microwave rather than run chorox or PP through them.

[Mykiss]

Yup, Carol has got it. To sterilize my tanks, especially when I get an algae problem, I take out all living things (plants and fish) and pour bleach in the tank. stir up the gravel and what ever else you have got and let your filter run the bleach water for atleast a day. This will kill anything and everything. Then, I empty all the water, add new water and let run with canopy open for at least 2 days. Repeat another time but add a lot of chlorine remover. If you have thiosulfate, use it. It helps remove chlorine. If not, then do a few more whole-tank water changes and presto, a new clean tank! good luck
pt

[Debbie]

Patrick, do you know what your discus had? It may not be necessary to completely sterilize everything if you are going to be keeping hardy fish. I have used tanks that were previously for discus and changed them over to another type of fish. I didn't sterilize but my discus hadn't been sick either. A very dilute ammonia (plain ammonia not the scented kind) would be sufficient in that case.