How to disinfect/reboot nano tank

[Brett S]

Ironically, my 220G display tank has been doing really well for years, but I’ve got a little 8G nano tank that I want to use as an invert q tank that I have been struggling with for a long time. First I had issues with very cloudy water that I eventually decided was a bacterial bloom of some sort. After spending months and months trying to clear it up I finally got a little UV sterilizer for that tank and that cleared up the water within a week or two. After running it 24/7 to initially clear the water I lowered the run time to just 2 hours a day. However, even months later I discovered that if I turned it off, or even further reduced the runtime that the water would start getting cloudy again, so whatever was causing the problem was still there and we just being held in check by the UV light.

I was ok with that for a while, but as time went on I started getting slimy grey masses growing on my sand and rocks and even the glass. I could manually remove them or siphon them out, but they would come back fairly quickly. I think that this was also some sort of bacteria, possibly the same one that would cause the water to be cloudy when I turned off the UV light.

I tried keeping up with it manually for a while, but eventually I grew tired of it and it took over the tank, with huge masses of slimy grey stuff covering all of the rock and most of the sand.

I finally decided that it’s time to fix this and I wanted to completely reboot the tank. I took the rocks out last night and rinsed them and scrubbed them with a brush and they are now soaking in a bleach solution. I’m planning to replace the sand entirely, but as I was looking at the tank and the pumps and other things in the water I started to get concerned that some of this bacteria or whatever it is could get remain hidden in a crevice of a pump or something and reinfect the tank as soon as I put water back into it.

What’s the best way to make sure that I disinfect the tank before I restart it? I’m thinking that I’ll remove the existing sand and wash out the tank and pumps and such as best I can, then maybe I’ll fill the tank with a bleach solution and turn on the pumps and let everything run for a few hours or even a couple of days to try to disinfect everything. Does that make sense? Is there a better way to do it?

 

[andrewey]

You can use bleach to disinfect the actual tank and equipment. It's probably overkill as it's likely not the indiivdual bacterial species at fault- it's the conditions that increase their population numbers to levels that cause bacterial blooms. Nevertheless, you can wipe things down with bleach wipes or rinse your equipment in bleach. No need to soak for days. I'd make a diluted bleach solution and run that- just make sure you rinse well. You can either air dry everything, or if items are still wet, use a dechlorinator (like prime) in your final rinse to remove the bleach solution. You'll want to do the same for the rock- it takes a bit longer to remove the bleach. Remember, if you can smell any bleach on any of the rocks, they aren't ready to be used yet.

 

[Brett S]

And the reboot is complete:

I let the rocks sit in a bleach solution overnight, then I rinsed them and put them in an acid solution for about 15 minutes, rinsed them again and soaked them in amquel for a while. I removed the old sand and cleaned the tank and equipment, then filled the tank with a bleach solution and let the pump run for a few hours. I rinsed the tank and equipment and then filled it with salt water with a large dose of amquel. I added the new sand and positioned the rocks. The water is still a little cloudy from the sand, but that should settle down soon.

I discovered that my little 660gph eflux pump had failed, so I ordered a new pump as well as some bio spira. They should be here tomorrow. I’ll put the new pump in tomorrow and add the bio spira and then give it a few days before I add a few inverts and maybe a couple of small frags from my big tank.