Acrylic Disinfection

[SS]

Hey, any ideas on how to disinfect acrylic tanks after disease? Bleach?
Will the bleach enter and stay in the acrylic and leech out later? Help
much appreciated.

SS

[dc]

SS > wrote in news:TYKHg.458511$iF6.229380
@pd7tw2no:

> Hey, any ideas on how to disinfect acrylic tanks after disease? Bleach?
> Will the bleach enter and stay in the acrylic and leech out later? Help
> much appreciated.

What disease have you experienced?

Chances are there is very little need for you to go overboard and try to
sterilize your tank after experiencing what you presume to be a contagion.
Most often than not potential pathogens will die back to the point of being
harmless once the environment is clean and healthy and the animals are free
from stress.

Many potential pathogens always exist in any healthy aquatic environment.
It is only when fish are stressed that they are vulnerable to infection.

Unless you've properly identified something potentially a lot more
infectious than a common bacterial, fungal, or simple parasite (such as
Ich), than bleaching your tank does little except wipe out your biological
filer and force your fish to go through the stress of toxic nitrogenous
wastes all over again.

[swarvegorilla]

"dc" > wrote in message
. ..
> SS > wrote in news:TYKHg.458511$iF6.229380
> @pd7tw2no:
>
>> Hey, any ideas on how to disinfect acrylic tanks after disease? Bleach?
>> Will the bleach enter and stay in the acrylic and leech out later? Help
>> much appreciated.
>
> What disease have you experienced?
>
> Chances are there is very little need for you to go overboard and try to
> sterilize your tank after experiencing what you presume to be a contagion.
> Most often than not potential pathogens will die back to the point of
> being
> harmless once the environment is clean and healthy and the animals are
> free
> from stress.
>
> Many potential pathogens always exist in any healthy aquatic environment.
> It is only when fish are stressed that they are vulnerable to infection.
>
> Unless you've properly identified something potentially a lot more
> infectious than a common bacterial, fungal, or simple parasite (such as
> Ich), than bleaching your tank does little except wipe out your biological
> filer and force your fish to go through the stress of toxic nitrogenous
> wastes all over again.

You could empty the tank
dry it
and leave it dry for a few days
then rinse it out again
should work against most aquatic nastys
but yea what nasty are you trying to wipe out?

[Ron Clon]

On Fri, 25 Aug 2006 22:37:39 GMT, SS >
wrote:

>Hey, any ideas on how to disinfect acrylic tanks after disease? Bleach?
>Will the bleach enter and stay in the acrylic and leech out later? Help
>much appreciated.
>
>SS


I've put a fairly high concentration of bleach in my acrylic tank and
let it soak over night. I was sure to rinse it extremely well, but
never had a problem with the acrylic outgasing any stored bleach.
Despite cautions from other users against it, when I need to clean
something very well, I will use bleach. I've never had fish die
around the time I did it.
YMMV

[dc]

Ron Clon > wrote in
:

> On Fri, 25 Aug 2006 22:37:39 GMT, SS >
> wrote:
>
>>Hey, any ideas on how to disinfect acrylic tanks after disease? Bleach?

Just a follow up...

If you're still really gun-ho on sterilizing your tank (still a paranoid
move in most cases IMHO) be sure to use chlorine based bleach (aka
Chlorox). Chlorine evaporates quickly and any lingering traces of the
chemical can be neutralized with any standard aquarium water conditioner.