Bought a used tank, sterilization?

[BELLUR]

Hey guys, I have been a long time lurker on this forum and what a wealth of information it is as well as a very friendly bunch!! i have kept tropical fish in the past successfully but I have always had a fascination with Discus. So now fortunately I am in a position where I wil be purchasing my own house, which inevitably means my first foray into Discus! I have been researching and reading for years!! I feel confident around my knowledge but now its a case of putting it into practise!

Anyway onto my main question: I have purchased a great 2nd hand tank, Juwel, this will become a bit of a project for me. I want to go for the minimal look but I'll keep all this for another thread. Being 2nd hand I want to fully sterilize the tank, what is the best way to go about this, fill with hot water and add some Milton and allow to soak for 24 hours then rinse thoroughly a couple of times? Also I would like to remove all filter media and replace with new and carry out the same sterilization on the filter internals? Does this seem adequate, after which I can begin cycling?

Apologies for the rambling and thanks in advance for any help!

[John_Nicholson]

I always use bleach and water. I normally put about 2 to 4 gallons of water, 1 gallon of bleach, put my hand into a couple of good fish bags, get a wash rag, and make sure that every surface in the tank gets wet. I then flush it 3 times and it is ready to go.

-john

[rickztahone]

When I did it for my 50g I filled up my tank and used 5 gallons of bleach and ran that through my whole system, filters and hoses and anything I had planned on using for that tank. My situation may be different from John's though, in that I needed to disinfect filters as well, I would not have been able to do that by just doing what John explained, I had to have the filters running.

You basically do a 10% solution 10:1 Water:Bleach respectively.

[John_Nicholson]

Yep....I just use sponge filter...not smart enough for the other types.....

-john

[Keith Perkins]

Chlorine is pretty potent stuff. John's dosage is excessive, but it sure will kill everything. Allowing the tank to completely air dry is all that's really necessary, but most people seem to rinse the tanks just to be safe.

[Crunchy]

Yes chlorine is fine, can be removed by prime just to be safe.

[dagray]

After using the bleach to clean and rinsing just fill the tank and crush 1000mg vitamin C per 50 gallons and run air stones for a couple days in the tank. This will bind the chlorine/chloramine making it harmless.

I use a four to one ratio of bleach to water to disinfect and a 10 to one to clean decor, remove algae from sponge filters and plants and then soak in used tank water for a while before adding back to the tank.

[Tankster]

Chlorine is pretty potent stuff. John's dosage is excessive, but it sure will kill everything. Allowing the tank to completely air dry is all that's really necessary, but most people seem to rinse the tanks just to be safe.

Keith, this is what I was thinking. The 75G I am going to be using for my sump has been sitting dry for about 3 months. I would think a good rinse at this point would be sufficient. My only concern are things like parasitic worms. I thought some of these could reanimate, especially if in the egg stage when the tank was last drained.

I did some research but was unable to create a search string that gave me the info I was looking for. Does anyone have information with sources on reanimation?

[Dneitzelt]

Even if there were eggs for worms, will the bleach do the job? im not 100% sure

[Swordsman]

I would go along the lines of what John said. The minimum I would use is a 10% solution (about 1.5 cups per gallon) but I never hesitate to error on the side of caution so a gallon of bleach to 4-5 gallons of water is a very good recommendation by John IMO. I would also wear some protective gloves when washing out the tank because the bleach is readily absorbed by the skin and can cause irritation issues. Additionally, I would let the solution set over night and during that time, go out wipe the solution around in the tank a few times throughout the day/evening, then rinse several times til you feel confident youhave flushed it enough.