Messed up cleaning tank

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Pbass265

Jack Dempsey
MFK Member
Sep 15, 2012
158
1
31
cincinnati
Last week all my fish died mysteriously and I/MFK could not seem to figure it out. The slime coat fell off my fish and they died quickly overnight. The water parameters were normal, no new fish, no feeders, heaters were fine, ect. I had no clue what could be wrong so decided to add bleach to kill anything that could be in there just in case. I put about ½ gallon of bleach in a 265 and let it sit a couple days with the filter running. I know that the media is dead, but will have extra seeded media to get one started again. The problem is I keep adding a couple mollies and they die w/in 24 hrs. I am thinking that some of the bleach may have absorbed into the tank. I have rinsed it out 100% 7 times and added cloramax dechlorinator. I add prime when I change the water and 24 hrs later it smells faintly like bleach. I have pfs as substrate, the usual fx5 sponges, biomax, and some filter floss. What would you all suggest I do go make help keep new fish from dying. The only thing I can think of is time to let it all leech out of wherever it is.

Thanks,
 
Hate to say it but I would go buy all new filter media and clean out the canisters like a crazy person. It wont leech into the tank or the glass, but the filters media is a very real posibility.

As for the trying to kill everything I would of emptied washed with vinigar/water mix. Rinsed twice, let tank and tank components dry for a week then fill... Bleach shouldnt go anywhere near a tank.
 
Clean, rinse, scrub repeat over and over. Including filters, hoses, substrate. Anything that bleach would have touched. Imo half gallon of bleach was alot! A cup would have done the job. I rarely use bleach on anything but when I do it takes alot or rinsing before I can't smell the bleach any more

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I thought I rinsed it enough and after I change the water I can’t smell it until later which is making me think it may be leaching out of something. My main 2 suspects are the substrate or the biomax. Hopefully it is just the substrate which I plan to replace tomorrow since It is the cheapest. With biomax being so pourous and also mostly new I am also worried about it.
 
I bleach my corals all the time, 2x per month. I just add a lot of dechorinator / chloromine remover and the saltwater fish have been fine the last 3years. I agree that fully rinsing out media and such would be a good idea and perhaps a solid water change as well. It should just dissipate out of water. Though I never poured bleach directly into tank. Good luck .


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Pbass265 said:
I thought I rinsed it enough and after I change the water I can’t smell it until later which is making me think it may be leaching out of something. My main 2 suspects are the substrate or the biomax. Hopefully it is just the substrate which I plan to replace tomorrow since It is the cheapest. With biomax being so pourous and also mostly new I am also worried about it.
Click to expand...

Your biomax is probably junk now.. but try taking any filter sponges and filter media out of the filtration. run tank with empty cannisters and see if it smells like bleach again. If it doesn't then you know its your media.. you can get bleach out pf your sponges but im not sure about the bio max. Might be safest to just toss it and get new

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bleach should evaporate fairly quick. If you let the tank dry out and sit for a couple ays with the filter open and dry all of the bleach should evaporate even if it has soaked into something.
 
Thanks guys, I’m going to try the drying out method to see if that works. I worked for a pool for years and if the chlorine pump went down for just a couple hours all the chlorine would gas out so I figured this would be the same but I guess not. I never got the chlorine level the same concentration I did in my tank but in theory it should gas off just as quick I though. I have the lids off as well to help w/ the gassing so there aren’t glass lids holding it in. There is also a strong current at the top for water movement which I don’t know if helps but it can’t hurt I wouldn’t think.
 
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