Preferred tank disinfectant?

[lmhicks101]

I use white vinegar for the tank and for te equipment 70% iso alcohol. I hear bleach is safe as long as it has no additives and you rinde it out and use declorinator. What’s your guys opinions?

[lefty o]

id stick with vinegar. for me, bleach has no place near an aquarium.

[Guppysnail]

Water and a water activated streakless microfiber towel are the only things I get near my tanks. Vinegar to clean and remove hard water buildup on items I remove from the fish room to clean ie lids) hydrogen peroxide to disinfect things I remove from the fish room to do nets etc. I’m with @lefty o bleach has no place in my hobby. A side note hydrogen peroxide is much more effective against most bacteria and such than bleach. Bleach is in effective against mycobacterium (fish tb) only when soaked concentrated for 20 minutes.  Peroxide starts breaking it down immediately

Edited December 24, 2021 by Guppysnail

[Andy's Fish Den]

Due to a sensitivity to bleach, I can not use it for any cleaning, either aquariums, or around the house. So, I use hydrogen peroxide and white vinegar to clean. I also have my hot water tank set hot, and will use straight hot water on things as well. 

[Wonder Boy]

White vinegar and elbow grease for me. 

[lmhicks101]

Some people may not like this but I wanted to know. I’m redoing my tank and while some decorations were out a few plenaria worms came off. I decided this would be a great time to test how effective each disinfectant is against them. 
 

white vinegar - less then 1 second

peroxide - 3-6 seconds

70% iso alcohol - 1-2 seconds

I also repeated this test on both rams horn and bladder snails for an effective way to dispose of them when I get them out of the tank so they don’t escape and infest my local ecosystem. Tests were about the same except peroxide took 5-8 seconds. Alcohol and vinegar causes immediate hemorrhaging of the rams. 

 

[Gator]

White vinegar is good for removing the Calcium carbonate crust on your tops and anything that protrudes out of the water. Peroxide breaks down very quickly, if you were to use it on a cut on your finger, when it stops fizzing, it's nothing more than water, but you can't drink it. Alcohol should never be used near an aquarium. 

I hope you're placing even dead snails in the trash; dead snails will still carry parasites that can infect the fish in your local ecosystems. Please place all of your dead fish, plants, and plant trimmings in the trash for the same reason.

[lmhicks101]

@Gator I put them in sandwich bags and all plant clippings I put in my snail tank for them to munch on. 

[BuzzDaddy21]

50/50 vinegar - water.

[dasaltemelosguy]

On 12/24/2021 at 10:36 AM, lmhicks101 said:

Some people may not like this but I wanted to know. I’m redoing my tank and while some decorations were out a few plenaria worms came off. I decided this would be a great time to test how effective each disinfectant is against them. 
 

white vinegar - less then 1 second

peroxide - 3-6 seconds

70% iso alcohol - 1-2 seconds

I also repeated this test on both rams horn and bladder snails for an effective way to dispose of them when I get them out of the tank so they don’t escape and infest my local ecosystem. Tests were about the same except peroxide took 5-8 seconds. Alcohol and vinegar causes immediate hemorrhaging of the rams. 

 

Thank you for this. I find this very interesting. May I ask, how do you determine, or at what point do you feel confident that you've totally cleared plants in QT of snails and eggs?  I ask because I've been looking into a chemical-free approach to effect this but as of yet, I'm unclear on how to verify if it is indeed successful. 

[lmhicks101]

@dasaltemelosguy for me I haven’t quarantined them as they all come from the same 2 lfs and I already had a snail infestation. Someone in another post told me about a spice called Alum at 3 Tablespoons per gallon in a 5 gallon bucket. He suggests 9 scoops to 3 gallons of water leaving room for water to rise and leaving them in for 3 hours. Snails and other creatures die instantly and snail eggs take 3 hours to get breached by the alum. He said he was told about by a biologist friend. Here’s the screenshot of his comment about it.
 

However if I was to get them from anywhere else I would do 3-4 weeks if you want to be safe without any chemicals or additives just like with fish. From what I’ve seen snail eggs take roughly 2 weeks to hatch and about a week for the snails to grow big enough to see. 

[dasaltemelosguy]

Thank you so much. I'm glad they're visible, that certainly helps! My LFS has a huge selection of aquatic plants he keeps in several QT tanks so oddly enough; I plan to ask him for snail infested plants!

For a control, I'll add several more and use the methods you sited above in concert with the experimental method. I also always monitor the solution microscopically to monitor the bacteria.

If the latter works, it will clear the snails, eggs and bacteria in several minutes without chemicals, but I don't know if it works yet! So, I need a control tank and I think I'll try your methods for that. That and enough time should reveal its success or failure. Thank you and @Gator for the help!

[Guppysnail]

On 12/25/2021 at 11:03 AM, dasaltemelosguy said:

Thank you for this. I find this very interesting. May I ask, how do you determine, or at what point do you feel confident that you've totally cleared plants in QT of snails and eggs?  I ask because I've been looking into a chemical-free approach to effect this but as of yet, I'm unclear on how to verify if it is indeed successful. 

I use straight hydrogen peroxide in a mister bottle for 1 minute then rinse and qt 2-3 weeks I seldom ever see snails in qt. I have a select gold color bladder snail i keep and don’t want to add incorrect colors. I also use alum (spice isle grocery store or order pure alum powder). Im not scientific  these two usually get the job done. Peroxide also works for me on worms and leeches as well as pathogens. 

Edited December 25, 2021 by Guppysnail

[lmhicks101]

@Guppysnail I found a white/grayish blue bladder I might keep now if I see them again. 
 

@dasaltemelosguy I got some assassin snails that have been doing pretty good so far though I just tore my whole tank down and switched to sand and a lot of the snails I had are gone but they’ll keep what’s left in control. 

[dasaltemelosguy]

On 12/25/2021 at 8:43 AM, Guppysnail said:

I use straight hydrogen peroxide in a mister bottle for 1 minute then rinse and qt 2-3 weeks I seldom ever see snails in qt. I have a select gold color bladder snail i keep and don’t want to add incorrect colors. I also use alum (spice isle grocery store or order pure alum powder). Im not scientific  these two usually get the job done. Peroxide also works for me on worms and leeches as well as pathogens. 

Great, thank you. I'll try that as well. The more techniques I run in parallel, the less errors there will be in the results. 

[isaly]

On 12/24/2021 at 11:27 AM, Andy's Fish Den said:

Due to a sensitivity to bleach, I can not use it for any cleaning, either aquariums, or around the house. So, I use hydrogen peroxide and white vinegar to clean. I also have my hot water tank set hot, and will use straight hot water on things as well. 

A good friend of mine uses isopropyl alcohol instead of bleach for things like sanitizing kitchen counters, etc.

[lmhicks101]

@dasaltemelosguykeep us posted on what you find. 

[Gator]

@isaly; Yeah, I guess rubbing alcohol would be good to sanitize kitchen counters, rubbing alcohol is used in hand sanitizers, so why not kitchen counters. I personally use Lysol on kitchen counters, but rubbing alcohol is a cheaper alternative. I've never thought about it before, thanks.

[dasaltemelosguy]

On 12/25/2021 at 9:22 AM, lmhicks101 said:

@dasaltemelosguykeep us posted on what you find. 

I'll certainly post all results, be it successful or not. There's often a great deal of information in failure. I get most of mine via that route! Thanks for all of your help.

[rjv23]

Hydrogen peroxide in my water conditioning tank 30% .25ml/L aerated 24 hrs before adding to tank. I also add 3% - 0.5ml/L if I have some bacteria out break in the tank or for a bath for new fish. I don't sterilize a tank unless there is something really wrong in it - then 30% 1ml/L. I keep snails in all my tanks, MTS in planted tanks, Jap. trapdoor snails and nerite snails in fry and grow out tanks, apple snails in adult breeder holding tanks. you can quarantine snails and deworm them before you bring then into the system to get rid of any parasites. For me, the benefit they provide out weighs the little bit of trouble you have to introduce them. Once they are stable, there is no problem. I deworm my fish regularly anyway along with the snails. Feeding some live foods or frozen foods is a more likely source of parasites in my opinion. Bleach is good on rocks and wood that you want to change color on, then soak in water a couple days before putting back in the tank. Actually, I have found that making a snail trap is a pretty easy way to get populations under control if you are worried about it.

Edited December 25, 2021 by rjv23

[lmhicks101]

Found something interesting. Still doing finishing touches to my rescaled tank and I found more plunaria, snails, and a small copepod. I did the whole vinegar to get rid of them and the copepod survived a tablespoon of vinegar for over a minute where as the snails and plunaria died near instantly. Now this was on a 5 gallon bucket lid on the cracks on the sides where there’s little pockets for water to collect in. Water was already there so it wasn’t straight vinegar. @dasaltemelosguy just something you might wanna look into. 

[dasaltemelosguy]

On 12/26/2021 at 8:50 AM, lmhicks101 said:

Found something interesting. Still doing finishing touches to my rescaled tank and I found more plunaria, snails, and a small copepod. I did the whole vinegar to get rid of them and the copepod survived a tablespoon of vinegar for over a minute where as the snails and plunaria died near instantly. 

Really. That may be valuable information as this removal technique will factor in the compliance of the animal's exterior vs the plants. That the copepod was different at all is very significant. Thank you for letting me know. 

[lmhicks101]

Not a problem. I’m curious what the difference exes between the copepods and snails would be. Both have hardened shells and the snails are all closed up when I put them in. Their shoe would prevent most from getting to them. However they died quickly.
 

I tried dipping the snails in for a few seconds then putting them in clean water to test how long I needed to soak them to make sure they were dead and they never came out of their shell after a few second submerged. Yet the more exposed copepod lived way longer. I wonder if they have a tolerance or if this was just a one of.