Used aquarium as hamster cage, how to clean?

[Yamako]

Hi all,

I used my aquarium as a hamster cage for a couple years. But my hamster has died and I'm falling in love again with the fish hobby. The thing is the hamster made a mess( remains of pee and poop) of the glass at the bottom of the aquarium. I cleaned actually all of it out with detergent, a sponge and a glass scraper.

At the moment i'm checking if the silicone is still any good and if the aquarium can still hold all the water ( 110 liter).

If it passes these test how can I make sure all these detergents and possible remains of the hamster that are even invisible to the eye are removed?

Btw, I'm new to the forum and I'm from Belgium!

 

[Brookster123]

I wouldn't use it.. all that waste has been absorbed into the silicone over the years. If you're set on using it? Fill it with a 50/50 bleach water solution to very top and let it soak for a few days, clean and rinse a few times and fill with 10x prime dose for a couple days, let completely dry and rinse a few.more times.. you can leak test in the process..

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[Yamako]

I wouldn't use it.. all that waste has been absorbed into the silicone over the years. If you're set on using it? Fill it with a 50/50 bleach water solution to very top and let it soak for a few days, clean and rinse a few times and fill with 10x prime dose for a couple days, let completely dry and rinse a few.more times.. you can leak test in the process..

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Thanks for the advice ! I will think about what you said about not using it.
Have a good night !

 

[Yamako]

Anyone else has ideas about this?

What if you would reseal the tank?

Greatly appreciated!

 

[ScotJudd]

Given the possible problems you might encounter and the cost and time to clean and/or reseal it, wouldn't it be best just to get a new tank. Tanks aren't expensive, it's all the equipment, decor, substrate and fish that cost the money. Might be better to be safe than sorry.


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[Yamako]

Oke thank you guys ! How expensive are tanks around your place? I pay like 120 euro's for 30 gallon. I'm using the aquarium now to check if the stand i want to use can hold the weight. What is a good waiting period to test a stand when the aquarium is full?

Have a great day all !

 

[Andy Sager]

I wouldn't use it.. all that waste has been absorbed into the silicone over the years. If you're set on using it? Fill it with a 50/50 bleach water solution to very top and let it soak for a few days, clean and rinse a few times and fill with 10x prime dose for a couple days, let completely dry and rinse a few.more times.. you can leak test in the process..

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+ 1 to this. Rodents and fish are a 1 way trip. You can use a fish tank for rodents but not a rodent tank for fish. Rodent droppings are one of the worst to damaging the silicone in a tank. You can reseal if you strip all the old silicone out but as mentioned, better to just buy new ( or previously owned as a fish only tank.).

 

[ImACoolguy]

Oke thank you guys ! How expensive are tanks around your place? I pay like 120 euro's for 30 gallon. I'm using the aquarium now to check if the stand i want to use can hold the weight. What is a good waiting period to test a stand when the aquarium is full?

Have a great day all !

I'm guessing you are in the UK. In the US we have Craigslist for private trading of used items. I assume something is in place in the UK you could watch for a cheaper used tank and stand.

Grab some buds and sit on the stand equal to roughly 350+ pounds. If it holds, it can hold your tank.


Caleb

 

[Mebbid]

Maybe i'm not being alarmist enough, but I don't see a problem with using the old tank.

Bacteria wise it's simple to clean. Just rock out with some bleach out.

For the seals, as long as they look good, aren't cracking or coming apart, and will hold water they will be fine. I currently have a group of fish in a 10g that housed a gerbil for years with no problems.


This is almost as bad as the saltwater crowd stating that you can never use a tank again after you use a copper treatment in it.

 

[Andy Sager]

Maybe i'm not being alarmist enough, but I don't see a problem with using the old tank.

Bacteria wise it's simple to clean. Just rock out with some bleach out.

For the seals, as long as they look good, aren't cracking or coming apart, and will hold water they will be fine. I currently have a group of fish in a 10g that housed a gerbil for years with no problems.


This is almost as bad as the saltwater crowd stating that you can never use a tank again after you use a copper treatment in it.

Not so much an alarmist as cautious. Rodent urine and droppings differ between species and what foods they were fed and silicone is an absorbent so it could leech that stuff out for quite some time. You just never know how a fish is going to react to it. Some may be more sensitive than others. Kinda silly to risk your hard earned money on a rodent tank when they are cheap enough to replace don't ya think? But hey, if the OP wants to risk it, nobody here will say " I told you so" if it fails.

As for the marine tank situation, same applies. HOWEVER, if you use a medication absorbent, such as a polyfilter, the copper that does leech will be removed from the water as it passes through the filter. This, I have personally done before. My anemones were dying in a converted fish to invert tank and stopped dying when I added the filter and it was turning blue. A copper test before I added the filter showed minute traces of copper and it had to have been being leeched from the silicone as everything else was new.

 

[Yamako]

Thnx Mebbid and Andy Sager for your advice ! I had a busy week and work and on top of that I was ill. Too ill to check the forum Today I went to a big animal shop and they had a lot of aquariums. It was amazing ! I'm looking at a 47 gallon (180 liters) now and i'm looking forward to buying it.

It will be awesome. Thnx guys !