Bleached Tank

[Guest]

Any way to find out if the bleach left the water? Wish they could have those detect bleach tests.

 

[krap101]

dunno some bleach is chlorine and you just have to use dechlorinator but i dont know what they use these days

 

[oscarbreeder]

After you bleached the tank You need to rinse rinse rinse and then rinse again.
After that I usually fill it with water and ALOT of dechlorinater and let it sit then rinse again.

 

[Guest]

Well I bleached it in the garage & rinsed it for a half an hour then brought it back to my apartment with help of cource (man was that tiring) then let it sit dry for a couple of days then filled in & filled out then filled in & filled out the water again. I didn't add dechlorinator. don't have that much dechlorinator to spend...you think it's enough?

 

[Voodoo Chilli]

Chlorine will evaporate: a very thorough rinsing and the use of a dechlorinator will help eliminate the bleach even faster.

If you've added water back to the tank and don't smell the bleach, I'd say you've gotten rid of it.

 

[urville]

oh yeah i bet your okay. you could use a dechlor and that should work, but i bet your all right. if i may, WHY did you bleach?
once i had to and everything in the tank. i did exactly what you did, bleach, rinse, rinse, rinse, dry out, rinse tinse.
never had a problem

 

[Guest]

I had to bleach it because the tank was used & who knows what could have been in there. I sniffed the tank like a dog & no I don't smell any bleach....maybe I ll just buy some cheap tiny fish & put them in there to see if they survive so I know the tank is okay but I don't really want to do that.

 

[QTOFFER]

Any way to find out if the bleach left the water? Wish they could have those detect bleach tests.

I did some internet searching, and apparently, there is a test for trace amounts of chlorine bleach.

http://www.eagletribune.com/news/stories/19990107/BU_001.htm

I think it's neat that they can use this test to catch people who tamper with live-caught lobsters in an attemp to get around catch-and-release laws.

"Specifically, the new test involves dipping a cotton swab into a liquid mixture of starch-iodide and rubbing it onto the lobster's tail. If the lobster has been previously dipped in bleach, the cotton swab turns blue. If the lobster has not been bleach-dipped, the swab remains colorless."

I can't see why this test wouldn't work on aquarium-related equipment that has been bleached to sterilize it.
I'm going to try to find out the exact composition of this starch-iodide solution.
The two ingredients are readily available. Potassium Iodide solutions can be purchased in a drug store, or a camera store that sells photographic developers. Corn starch can be bought at the supermarket.

 

[TankGirl]

Might as well spend a few bucks and get some dechlor. Chloramines do not evaporate out like chlorine, so that would be my worry, but it depends on your local water system and how they treat the water.

 

[Guest]

That's an intresting article.

No I do use dechlorinator before adding fish but what I meant to say was I didn't want to waste dechlorinator when cleaning tank knowing I had to get the water out anyways and rinse the tank again.

 

[TankGirl]

I don't think of it as wasting the dechlor, since all this rinsing is actually an effort to remove chlorine, after all.

 

[Guest]

It wouldn't have been a waste if decholorinator actually removed bleach...but I didn't even think about it when I was rinsing/changing water.