Bleach Smell in Brute after cleaning

Skep18 · Jan 31, 2019

Long story short, I used diluted bleach to clean my 44gal Brute last night. I rinsed outside (in the cold weather) and dried it and let it sit over night. This AM, it still had a little bleach smell so I rinsed thoroughly for like 10min in a hot shower in steaming hot water. After drying and letting it sit, it still kinda smelled. I took it outside later in the sun for a bit. Now, it still has a very faint smell of bleach.

Q: At what point am I being paranoid? Does the faint bleach smell need to go away to be safe or do others tend to still smell faint bleach after this kinda cleaning?

Andrewalex11 · Jan 31, 2019

Use some aquarium water conditioner (any will do) and add a good amount to the container filled with cold water, letting it sit for an hour or so. This should get rid of any bleach smells.

I used to work for a place where we had a system for bleaching things regularly, if it smells like bleach DO NOT USE IT PERIOD and re-do the water conditioner method if you have any suspicion there is any remains of bleach.

Skep18 · Jan 31, 2019

Andrewalex11 said:
Use some aquarium water conditioner (any will do) and add a good amount to the container filled with cold water, letting it sit for an hour or so. This should get rid of any bleach smells.

I used to work for a place where we had a system for bleaching things regularly, if it smells like bleach DO NOT USE IT PERIOD and re-do the water conditioner method if you have any suspicion there is any remains of bleach.

Oh wow. Makes sense but I'm curious how much of the hobby abides by that.

That said, it's been inside now for a few hours since sitting in the sun. I just checked it out again and I can't detect any bleach smell anymore. And I'm really looking for it.

I might put a dab of Prime in to feel better but that's likely my own paranoia.

Skep18 · Jan 31, 2019

With the above said, Prime is reef-safe, right?

sandswhitson · Feb 1, 2019

Yeah a little prime and you will be fine. I bleach our filter socks every time we wash them and they always have a slight bleach smell. Let them thoroughly dry and have never had an issue.