Using bleach to disinfect aquarium

[jaydawnsin]

I figured this would probably not go in the disease section just cause this isn't a question about disease itself, more of using bleach to nuke a tank and everything in it.

So I made a bleach solution last night and let all of the equipment for the tank as well as the aquarium sit with it over night. I woke up and siphoned all of the water out with the two siphons I have for the fish room because both had been in contact with this tank before and after I realized that the fish that lived in this tank was sick. I rinsed out the tank with steaming hot water about 3-4 times and then with cold 1-2 and lastly with enough water conditioner for 100 gallons in total a few times. Siphoned the water out all of those times so that the water would run through the siphons. The items that were sitting in this tank were 2 siphons, three nets of various sizes, a floating breeding box, and an aquarium coop sponge filter (no air stone in the middle, just an air tube).

My questions are should all of these items be safe to use after all of this, bleach wise and disease wise or should I throw some of these items away, and if the siphons are safe to use right now or should they dry? All of these items besides the siphons will be sitting to dry for the next 3 days at least. I need to siphons for a quarantine tank that needs a water change today for some medicine. I did a sniff test of all of the equipment and none of it smells like bleach or anything other than water and plastic.

TLDR; Should the tank and all associated equipment for the tank be safe to use with fish after nuking with bleach, rinsing 1000 times, and using a crap ton of dechlorinator the last two rinses after the aquarium and equipment sits for a few days.

[nabokovfan87]

Something like this might be of a good help for you.
 

I think rinsing a bunch, dechlorination chemicals, and air dry is about what will work best for your situation.  There's a lot of videos around that go through different bins for nets (co-op has a few but it's hard to search/find them) and it's been a topic on live streams and other podcasts and stuff. 

This is also a good time to mention purigen and videos on how to "recharge" it might be a good place to look as well for any advice for you.

Here is another. 

 

[jaydawnsin]

On 4/21/2022 at 4:36 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

purigen and videos on how to "recharge" it might be a good place to look as well for any advice for you.

I'm unsure what you mean by recharge and I've heard of purigen but I'll look into it. I'll also watch the video you linked, thank you so much! I also usually use different nets for my "clean" tanks and my diseased tanks but I had a bit of a panicked moment and grabbed the wrong net when scooping the fish out to move to a hospital tank. I decided to just nuke both of the buckets that I had for clean and diseased supplies because it had been a minute since I did maintenance on my equipment.

[nabokovfan87]

That makes total sense.  If you have any further questions please feel free to ask.

Another thing I've seen people use for sterilization is salt and/or sunlight.  It all is depending on how much time you may have to do so.  I think you're doing everything right. The big question is just concentrations of bleach and how much rinsing/dechlor might be required.

[jaydawnsin]

On 4/21/2022 at 4:45 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

That makes total sense.  If you have any further questions please feel free to ask.

Another thing I've seen people use for sterilization is salt and/or sunlight.  It all is depending on how much time you may have to do so.  I think you're doing everything right. The big question is just concentrations of bleach and how much rinsing/dechlor might be required.

I used the recommended ratio for the brand of bleach that I used, which was about 7.5 cups per 10 gallons. I used seachem prime and used about 4-5ml (a cap full) of prime for the 1st rinse and the same amount again for the second. I have the nets and siphons hanging up to dry right now and the filter is taken apart and drying on a towel.

I'm glad you think I'm doing this right. I've only been keeping fish for almost two years and luckily disease isn't something that has come up often. This is the first time I've had to nuke a tank and it was upsetting losing all of the plants and substrate but I was already beyond done dealing with that tank. It had been having so many issues and I'm glad to start over. All of my other tanks are luckily looking great, just have a sick fish in one of the quarantine tanks that I'm looking to medicate so hopefully I've rinsed everything off good enough cause I need that siphon soon.

I'll look into the salt/sunlight sterilization. I figured out last night that I have a pretty severe sensitivity to bleach. I'm not gonna rule out using bleach in the future, but I appreciate the alternative! Thank you!