# Anyone try cleaning an empty tank with CLR



## miogpsrocks (Sep 3, 2015)

Has anyone tried to clean a aquarium with CLR ? 

They say that you can clean your coffee maker with the stuff, rinse it out a few times then its safe to drink again. 

I translate that into meaning there is no residue and that its relatively mild stuff. 

Has anyone here ever used it on am empty aquarium to clean it up for use again? 

Thanks.


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## Ox Maiden (Nov 23, 2015)

I'd be concerned about it leaching into the silicone. I've always used a 1/9 bleach solution, let it soak for 20 minutes or so and rinsed until there was no longer a smell. I also fill it after, overdose with Prime and let it sit 24 hours to ensure I get all the bleach out then drain and fill for fish.


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## lksdrinkerII (Nov 16, 2015)

I wouldnt worry. Plenty of people on this site recommend and seem to use CLR to clean a tank. That and "bar keepers friend" seem to be talked of quite often. I always find that a razor blade and some water work for me though.


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## jrill (Nov 20, 2013)

I have. Did not have any problems.

Sent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk


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## thedood (May 30, 2015)

I clean my aquarium parts in vinegar. I have a few Bio-Wheels and the spray bars get clogged, vinegar cleans them right up. Works on any lime deposits. Spray it on and let it sit for a bit. Dirt cheap works well no chemicals.


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## miogpsrocks (Sep 3, 2015)

jrill said:


> I have. Did not have any problems.
> 
> Sent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk


How much did you rinse it afterwards? 

I have sprayed it with a high pressure hose for like 10 minutes, completely filled it up (75 gallon tank), let it sit for a few days, drained out all the water. 

rinsed it out for another 10 minutes, 

Filled it up with 75 gallons of water again and added 1 gallon bleach and let it sit for a day. 

Then I am going to empty it out and rinse it well. 

How much did you have to rinse to ensure that no CLR remained?


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## PlantedRich (Jul 21, 2010)

Quote: Filled it up with 75 gallons of water again and added 1 gallon bleach and let it sit for a day. 


I am a big fan of bleach and find it quite good and safe for many jobs to disinfect things but I want to add that it does take some care. At this strong level, a lot of extra care is needed. Not that it will kill fish later but just that this is a very strong mix and that makes it necessary to use extra care about where the bleach water goes. Biggie is to certainly avoid clothing or anything like towels that you might use to dry the tank or equipment. When you dump this high concentration, watch where it is dumped. This level will kill grass, flowers, etc. 

I find a cup or even two in 75 gallons is okay but a full gallon runs over into tooo much for me to feel good about it. Like fire or water, they are good stuff for the right use but all three need to be used with some care.


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## miogpsrocks (Sep 3, 2015)

PlantedRich said:


> Quote: Filled it up with 75 gallons of water again and added 1 gallon bleach and let it sit for a day.
> 
> 
> I am a big fan of bleach and find it quite good and safe for many jobs to disinfect things but I want to add that it does take some care. At this strong level, a lot of extra care is needed. Not that it will kill fish later but just that this is a very strong mix and that makes it necessary to use extra care about where the bleach water goes. Biggie is to certainly avoid clothing or anything like towels that you might use to dry the tank or equipment. When you dump this high concentration, watch where it is dumped. This level will kill grass, flowers, etc.
> ...


If you witness the type of diseases that my goldfish which I use to have in this 75 gallon tank had, you would have used 5 gallons of bleach. It was like American horror story bad  

I had my grandmother looking after my fish when I was on vacation and she thought that it would be a surprise to put some feeder goldfish into the aquarium that she got from a ghetto petstore which ended up killing all the fish except for the one I have now.( Maybe 10 or 12 years ago) Hopefully diseases don't live that long without water or fish. I know brine shrimp seem to live forever when they are in the eggs. 

Thanks for the words of caution. The worst thing I did was open muriatic acid and dump it on some corals I had in a bucket while it while it was bubbling and and fizzing like you see in the movies before putting water in it. 

I guess I'm kind of like a bull in a China shop when it comes down from these chemicals. I know better now. 

Thanks again.


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## PlantedRich (Jul 21, 2010)

Did not mean it should not be done in some cases. Just more as a warning that it does take care. Something like being sure any kids standing around a campfire understand that it can hurt you? I try to keep in mind that not all the people who read a forum have read some of the needed warnings. 
One of the tings I do like about bleach is that it is strong enough to cut through the shells on things that are hard to kill. Snails can last through several of the common treatments by simply closing the shell. But bleach does react with the muscle that holds the shell closed and does penetrate to kill the snail, even when used at lower level doses. But the lower levels need more time to do the job. It's always a bit of guess how much bleach to use because we can't really tell how much organic material there is in a given tank. 
That is where I find confusion at times. People really like to have a strict "formula". Add "X" amount to "Y" amount of water to do the job. But it needs to be adjusted for different situations. For cleaning snail eggs off plants we certainly need a totally different amount than when we want to clean some unknown item off a big old hunk of wood. 
How to tell the new user that they need to use "enough" but not so much that it is a hazard to themselves or what they are working on? No standard answer that I see but it sounds like you did have the idea to adjust as needed. 
My hope is that others who have not used bleach much will understand the need for adjusting for the situation they have.


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## miogpsrocks (Sep 3, 2015)

PlantedRich said:


> Did not mean it should not be done in some cases. Just more as a warning that it does take care. Something like being sure any kids standing around a campfire understand that it can hurt you? I try to keep in mind that not all the people who read a forum have read some of the needed warnings.
> One of the tings I do like about bleach is that it is strong enough to cut through the shells on things that are hard to kill. Snails can last through several of the common treatments by simply closing the shell. But bleach does react with the muscle that holds the shell closed and does penetrate to kill the snail, even when used at lower level doses. But the lower levels need more time to do the job. It's always a bit of guess how much bleach to use because we can't really tell how much organic material there is in a given tank.
> That is where I find confusion at times. People really like to have a strict "formula". Add "X" amount to "Y" amount of water to do the job. But it needs to be adjusted for different situations. For cleaning snail eggs off plants we certainly need a totally different amount than when we want to clean some unknown item off a big old hunk of wood.
> How to tell the new user that they need to use "enough" but not so much that it is a hazard to themselves or what they are working on? No standard answer that I see but it sounds like you did have the idea to adjust as needed.
> My hope is that others who have not used bleach much will understand the need for adjusting for the situation they have.


Do you think I used enough bleach for a 12 year old mystery disease? The tank was completely empty for 12 years sitting in my garage. I am not using the same gravel.

Thanks.


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## PlantedRich (Jul 21, 2010)

For drinking water in some areas use a teaspoon in fifty gallons. But that depends on where the water is coming from as the amount of debris and bacteria vary. Drawn from the Missouri or Ohio River, water may need lots more. But in our tanks , the diseases we find are not usually hard to kill when they are not on/in the fish. When we want to kill them in a tank where we can add chemicals without worry about killing fish or plants, we can go strong. So we can bump it up to 10-20 times what is used for drinking water and know there is no worry. I never measure but just pour enough. I consider a cup in 75 gallons to be plenty. What determines how much we need is not so much what disease but how much organic material is on the tank. If the tank had a bunch of dead plants, maybe a dead fish and things like that, we need to clean those out first. I mention this because I once bought a tank from an estate and there was all the fish left as well as massive mold. First step was to scrape it all out and then any remaining disease, fungus and such is pretty easy to clean/kill/disinfect. 
We need enough to have some left after reacting with all the organics like, dirt, dead fish and plants but we can reduce that by not making it eat through a pile of trash at the same time. Since the gravel and such are so disgusting and not terribly expensive, I've always ditched it as taking too long to dry and get clean looking again. 

Short answer? A gallon is way plenty to kill everything in 75 Gallons unless there was a small hog involved!
:wink2:


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## Daisy Mae (Jun 21, 2015)

miogpsrocks said:


> Do you think I used enough bleach for a 12 year old mystery disease? The tank was completely empty for 12 years sitting in my garage. I am not using the same gravel.
> 
> Thanks.


Yeah, you did. 

Two factors for disinfecting- *concentration* and *contact time*. If using lower concentration of disinfectant, increase contact time. And vice versa. 

For most disinfecting purposes, about a 1:30 dilution is plenty. You *wipe on* the solution, wait five minutes, then rinse well. 

You had a 1:75 dilution, but then the contact time that you used was a day. It was more than enough. 

I'd be more worried about the bleach solution degrading the silicone. Especially in a twelve year old dry tank. 

And always always when working with this much bleach make sure the ventilation is good.


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