about half a cupful of prime directly in the aquarium
Hello; I forget the tank size, A 55 gallon? If so this seems a lot of PRIME. If I recall correctly PRIME in an overdose will bind oxygen when it runs out of ammonia to bind.
Those more up to date on the chemistry of PRIME may be able to add to this observation.
Could it be that too much PRIME is binding all the available oxygen and this is killing off the bb?
I clean out the aquarium, do I just rinse out the bleached stuff? Do I also clean the aquarium filter with the bleach solution? I plan on using a tea spoon per gallon solution as you mentioned.
I soaked everything including the parts of a filter that tank water touches. I put the substrate, gravel in my case, into 5 gallon buckets and added some bleach and enough water to cover. I put all the other equipment including nets and siphons into another bucket with water and bleach.
I filled the tanks with water and added bleach. I did not submerge the motor part of a filter due to the electronics. I may have simply run the bleach solution thru the power filters just as they would operate on a tank normally. (without any media inside. The re-useable media was in a soak bucket.
After soaking for a day or so I gave everything a good rinse. I drained the bleach solution from a tank and refilled with water and drained again.
I took the opportunity to clean my grave substrate as well. I cleaned it by rinsing it in buckets with a hose and stirring it with a an old broom handle. After it was cleaned I soaked the gravel in a bleach solution for a day or so. Then poured off the solution.
If I need to disinfect a tank with gravel in the future I may do the bleach solution soak first and then clean the gravel later as this should better rinse the bleach solution away.
I set a tank back up in place. Added the substrate and the other equipment. I filled the tank with water and got the filters running and the heaters. I learned my first lesson by throwing a few snails in the newly set up tank. The bleach residue was still strong enough in the gravel to stun the snails. That was when I added the PRIME.
The PRIME took care of the bleach residue.