Cleaning out Advice ASAP

[iforged]

Hey fish lover gang!
I'm in process of cleaning out my old freshwater fish tank right now, I took all fake decor out, and draining the water at this moment. (soo much crap stuck between all of the fake decor plants and rocks! pretty gross!!)

Anyways, What should i do to get my tank and that decor ready for the new equipment and new set up? I heard someone say it would be a good idea to run all the gravel and decor through boiled water (I assume when its still at its boiling point?) What about the tank glass? Should i clean it certain way?

Let me know asap please, I want to do it all today and get the tank ready tomorrow.

I'll be doing fishless cycle too this time around, so any advice would be appreciated as well =)

thanks gang!

 

[shellieca]

Why are you doing such a thorough cleaning? Unless there was some kind of disease I would only suck out the gunk & keep as much BB as possible.

 

[bmckee727]

Water and maybe a little vinegar if the buildup is significant. As for the decor and gravel, water? I don't think you need to boil anything unless it's fresh out of a creek or something. Even if you had an ich outbreak air dry completely and clean it with water afterwards.

 

[iforged]

Why are you doing such a thorough cleaning? Unless there was some kind of disease I would only suck out the gunk & keep as much BB as possible.

Well because i had the tank running for over 3 months and my nitrogen cycle got messed up to the point where i couldnt fix it... plus i wanted to start over with diff set up, diff fish, and diff decor, adding live plants and live rocks and possibly a drift wood. This gave me that opportunity, so i went for it.

 

[iforged]

Water and maybe a little vinegar if the buildup is significant. As for the decor and gravel, water? I don't think you need to boil anything unless it's fresh out of a creek or something. Even if you had an ich outbreak air dry completely and clean it with water afterwards.

Well I washed everything in my tub with hot water, cleaned out gravel with water and ran the decor in boiled water for few minutes. The tank did go through a severe Ich outbreak right before i tore everything down. Never heard anything about adding a bit of vinegar, have you tried that personally?

I want to set everything up as new as possible. I dont care about keeping any good BB in anything because ill have a seeded media to start the new cycle. I want everything to be as clean as possible for me not to go into panic mode if i forget to clean something properly...

 

[bmckee727]

Well I washed everything in my tub with hot water, cleaned out gravel with water and ran the decor in boiled water for few minutes. The tank did go through a severe Ich outbreak right before i tore everything down. Never heard anything about adding a bit of vinegar, have you tried that personally?

I want to set everything up as new as possible. I dont care about keeping any good BB in anything because ill have a seeded media to start the new cycle. I want everything to be as clean as possible for me not to go into panic mode if i forget to clean something properly...

Yes, vinegar works well. Distilled white vinegar, you can soak stuff in it, scrub with it, just be sure to rinse really good.