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Posted

Intuitively I'm sure many people will say not to use them, and I'm not saying they're wrong, but I'm curious to know if anyone knows for a fact that using rusty implements in a tank will cause problems.  I have doubts that it will.

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Posted

You could probably buff/sand the rust off the tweezers, but that would just further the wear on the coating. I doubt a small amount of rust would hurt. Are you leaving the tweezers in the tank for extended periods of time? The only experience I have with rusted aquarium tools is my scissors are a bit rusty on the inside of the blades and I can't say that I have seen a correlation between using them and anything negative in my tanks. Although the scissors are only in the tank for maybe a minute every couple of days.

  • Like 1
Posted
11 hours ago, FriendlyLoach said:

The metal underneath is a bit rusty.

Rust can be removed by soap. I have cleaned various metal items (pliers "frozen" because of rust, a cup damaged by baking soda,  rusty old scissors) using just soap and water. Stick the rusty tool into a piece of soap or let it sit in a very thick soap solution for a day or two (maybe more if there is a lot of rust) and the rust comes off very easily and cleanly after that, just washes away with water. I don't know whether this method is safe for coated items though, soap might remove even more of the coating if it is already damaged. 

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Posted

I'd be more concerned about the soap residue than the rust.

”Back in the day” people used to bury nails in their tank gravel to supplement iron.

Wipe the rust away with a new scrubbie reserved for your tank with some water and keep them dry between use to help keep the rust from coming back.

Have fun with your tank!

  • Like 3
Posted

Unless the tools is extremely rusted, the rust is not going to come off and poison the water. If you're worried, tools are cheap enough to replace, and piece of mind is priceless. There is more iron in most well water than you could release into the tank from tools with surface corrosion.

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