Free Tank. Need FAST advice.

[MyMonkey]

Hello. I came upon a free tank. I want this to be Fresh water. It's a 47 Gallon Bow front. The water was as green as could be. Rocks are covered in agae, driftwood is the same.

What is the best way to clean the tank, gravel, and driftwood? Any suggestions?

Take it all out and scrub it in a 10% bleach solution... Rocks, Driftwood, tank, everythings. Then rinse it all in Dechlor and then rinse rinse rinse until you can't smell any more bleach. Then you can set it up and do a fishless cycle.

[MyMonkey]

Thanks a million. THat's what I planned on. Wanted to make sure.

[rich311k]

Congrats on the free tank. Good luck.

[MyMonkey]

Well, I don't have anyplace for the little fishes. 3 of them. Can I use the filter media from the existing Emp 400 to help cycle with the fish? Darnet. No place for them.

what kind of fish are they? you can use them and just do a cycle with the fish but you will want to do lots of water changes

[MyMonkey]

One is a Swordtail. Not certain on the other two.

[greenmaji]

if the tank is set up maybe you can work with it (instead of breaking it down and scrubbing everything)
do you have testkits for FW?
do you have any PO4 in your tapwater?
if you dont have any PO4 in your tapwater I would suggest just doing water changes to get the PO4 thats making the water green out of the tank.. as long as your not creating big PH swings (test the PH of the tank and the PH of the tapwater after its set out for 24 hours or aggitated with an airstone for 20min) if the PH is near the same you can do larger water changes getting rid of the green water faster.. HTH

i just would start over because you don't know what all diseases could be in it, and it sounds as if it was poorly taken care of, this way you can start with a clean slate... Also i have heard that green water is VERY hard to get rid of.

[greenmaji]

most illness is caused by poor water, not diseases laying in wait. green algae cleans water quite well.. the only dormant illness I can think of might be ich/ick wich is abundant in LFS stock and very treatable. I dont think personaly that breaking the tank down is nessisary. but its your call.

[MyMonkey]

Well. I allready broke it down. Cleaned everything. Discarded all the green water. My bad on that one. Added all new water. Treated it. Tested the PH with my Sw test kit. PH on my tap is high I suppose. I don't use tap for my reef so, I had no idea. Anyway, added some ph 7.0 stuf fby Seachem. Waiting for it to go down. Want to get those fish out of the bag soon. They don't look so good.

[rich311k]

What is the PH from the tap? Most FW fish are fine with any PH within reason. Better in my mind than using chemicals and having it bounce around.

[MyMonkey]

Darn. How do I get the PH to go lower? I have added the prescribed dosage of Seachem Neutral Regulator. Should be closer to 7.0. MOre like 8.2 now. Can I overdose this stuff? Or does it take time? Never had to lower PH before.

[MyMonkey]

You think they will be ok in 8.2 ph?

don't worry about the pH and don't add chemicals.. I have all of my fish in a pH of 7.8 and they are all doing fine.

also, if you add chemicals you will wind up having swings in your pH and that can kill your inhabitants.. also when you do water changes you will have swings. Did you add dechlorinator to the tank to neutralize cholrine from your tapwater?

[MyMonkey]

Thanks Ashley. I did add Dechlorinator/conditioner to the Tap. I am not that new to FW. LOL Thanks again.

[Lonewolfblue]

Another thing, if you used ph 7.0 regulator, it won't do you good. As for the directions on most of those, they say to use ph down first, then use it to regulate it at 7.0. But like others have said, don't use chemicals. I put some Malaysian driftwood in my tank, and my tap is 8.1, but my tank is 7.0-7.2 since adding the driftwood. Not sure if it's the tanic acids that do it, but it's held constant for 9 months. The only additive I use is dechlorinator in my new water when I do water changes. Other than that, I add nothing else.

[DepotFish]

Gosh, for a swordtail and similar fish I'd just put them in a bowl of cool tap water until the tank is clean, they'll be fine. Then I'd just clean and bleach the tank, let it sit full with a heavy dose of dechlor, rinse several times, fill with cool tap water and add the fish back. Those kinds of fish don't need lots of chemicals in their water or any special treatment, they're pretty hardy.

[greenmaji]

most any FW fish can live in water under 9 ph.. so 8.whatever is fine..
chemicals dont really help, what makes your water hard is KH and the chemicals do nothing to remove it.
that said.. FW fish dont need any particular PH so not messing with it is the best option..