Deno Posted April 13, 2009 Report Share Posted April 13, 2009 In a few days I will be stripping down my african tank to shift to a new address. The rocks (and there are lots) have all gone brown, algae I guess which is probably due to many hours of fluorescent lighting each day. The tank is in the garage in which there is very little natural light. This will be the ideal time to clean up the rocks before I replace them into the tank. Any suggestions on what to use other than lots of scrubbing? which I know I will be doing anyway. I've heard of people using bleach I think. I'm thinking it needs to be killed off to prevent it growing straight back again. I won't have much time to get it done as I'll need to get the fish back in the tank asap Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
supasi Posted April 13, 2009 Report Share Posted April 13, 2009 Cheapest and easiest way is sunlight. Put them outside, although today is not the best, in the direct sunlight. Use a stiff bristle brush and shoul be all good. Make sure they dry out totally. PS, if you need a hand to move any of your fish etc, give me a pm. Be happy to help Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarkLB Posted April 13, 2009 Report Share Posted April 13, 2009 Hi Deno, I've used bleach to clean my rocks. I use about a cup per bucket of water and leave them there until clean....I can't remember how long it took but I know it wasn't long. Then I stack them in the shower or under a sprinkler and leave it running until I can't smell bleach. I then dry them in the sun for as long as I can and give them a good sniff to make sure there's no bleach smell. That took a bit long and always made me nervous, although it never caused any problems, so I now have two sets of rock so that I can put the rocks from the tank straight outside to sit in the sun and rotate sun bleached ones back in. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Romeo Posted April 13, 2009 Report Share Posted April 13, 2009 In the past I've used bleach to clean off incredibly stubborn BBA and it's worked a treat. Used about 5ml per litre and soaked for 48 hours. Came up like brand spanking new, the algae just turned white and disintegrated. Rinsed everything down in cold, and then hot water a couple of times and left in the sun until dry and crusty. The white crusty stuff that's left after it's completely dry is NaCL - Sodium chloride (salt) :]. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smidey Posted April 13, 2009 Report Share Posted April 13, 2009 when using bleach for tank parts use the "Budget" brand stuff. It doesn't have something (can't remember what exactely) in it that the other brands have which lets you rinse it off completely & not contaminating your tank. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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