# Cleaning used canister filter



## PlantedRich (Jul 21, 2010)

If I'm setting it up at the same time as a tank. I just leave it running on the tank and do a light bleach soak, just to cut the odds of some unknown jumping up to bite me. When I have fish trouble, I can be facing several questions about what and why it came around so I like to remove any doubt about things that might slip in on used equipment. Kind of like washing my plate before I eat. Maybe not required but I still feel better when I know it is clean. 
For a tank or filter that doesn't have lots of organic stuff left, I might suggest just a tablespoon or so of unscented uncolored cheap bleach and let it run over night or so. If I'm doing the whole tank, I drain and dump that water and refill and I'm then looking at bleach which is diluted to close to the normal tap water.


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## Olskule (Jan 28, 2010)

If you are setting up an entirely new tank setup and want to use a "seeded" filter to quickly establish a nitrogen cycle, you can do it. If the filter was in use up until recently (a few days), it may still contain some of the good (aerobic) bacterial culture from its previous tank, but if it smells bad when you open it up, like sewage or rot (a sign of "bad", or anaerobic bacteria), then you're better off cleaning it thoroughly and starting from scratch. Best case scenario is that it was kept running (with water circulating) with only a few hours of being idle, in which case you should replace or rinse the mechanical filter media (filter floss, sponges, pads, etc.) just as you would when doing regular filter maintenance. With floss and pads, depending upon the degree of "dirtiness", you may want to just rinse and reuse it, but with sponges, almost always just rinse them or squeeze them out gently a few times, and when rinsing _any_ media that you want to keep a beneficial bacteria culture in, such as sponges or ceramic or plastic biomedia, _always_ use water removed from the tank it was on if possible, or at least room temperature water that has been treated to remove toxic Chlorine or Chloramine (bonded chlorine and ammonia used in some public water systems). But as I said previously, that is _only_ if the filter was in use until a few hours ago, or a few days ago, at most. In the latter case, make sure you rinse any sponges well (again, with tank or treated water) before reusing them (to remove the majority of any anaerobic bacteria), and you'd probably be better off just tossing any heavily soiled floss or pads unless you can get the pads pretty clean.

Also, in case you're not aware, NEVER use detergents or household cleaners on your aquarium equipment, except (in extreme cases) liquid laundry bleach, which can be neutralized with a heavy dose of aquarium water dechlorinator in a bucket of fresh tap water. (Just use a good bit more dechlorinator than you would normally use for water you're adding to your aquarium, enough until you can no longer smell the chlorine in the rinse water or on the pieces themselves.) Then let the pieces air-dry to remove any slight remaining traces of chlorine, which will "off-gas" as it dries.

Be aware that any time you use equipment that has been used with someone else's aquarium, you are running the chance of introducing any pathogens they may have had in their systems into your new, "clean" setup, so be sure you trust that person's aquarium husbandry enough to risk introducing problems into your own system, or else use the laundry bleach method to sterilize whatever secondhand equipment you plan to use. (This can be said for accepting anything--equipment, fish, plants, invertebrates, etc.--which is why it is always a good idea to carefully look over (animals and plants), rinse well (plants) or quarantine (animals and plants) any living things you plan on introducing into your aquariums. You may get away without doing it many times, but just one time without these precautions may cause you more problems, and sometimes costly ones, than you want to deal with.)

I hope this helps answer any questions you may have. 

Olskule


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## PlantGate (Aug 23, 2016)

Soak it in vinegar overnight.


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## Nordic (Nov 11, 2003)

That or very high concentration salt solution.


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## PlantedRich (Jul 21, 2010)

A question about using vinegar to sterilize? I know it is often mentioned but i have doubts about it working. 
Since vinegar is made by fermenting apples how are the bacteria which ferments the apples removed since obviously they are not killed by the vinegar? Since vinegar spoils when stored too long what indicates that vinegar kills bacteria? 
Pickles spoil so how does this work? 

I find this in a quick search but do we want a low level cleaning or do we want to actually KNOW we have cleaned things?

Cut and copy:
Vinegar can be used as a safer bleach alternative for some applications, like cleaning. It is also biodegradable. However, vinegar is not a registered disinfectant and does not kill dangerous bacteria like staphylococcus. Hydrogen peroxide has antimicrobial ingredients and can be an effective household cleaner.Mar 21, 2013
Disinfectants: A guide to killing germs the right way | MNN - Mother ...
www.mnn.com/health/healthy.../disinfectants-a-guide-to-killing-germs-the-right-way

I want to know It is clean and that I have killed any snails.


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## PlantGate (Aug 23, 2016)

PlantedRich said:


> A question about using vinegar to sterilize? I know it is often mentioned but i have doubts about it working.
> Since vinegar is made by fermenting apples how are the bacteria which ferments the apples removed since obviously they are not killed by the vinegar? Since vinegar spoils when stored too long what indicates that vinegar kills bacteria?
> Pickles spoil so how does this work?
> 
> ...


Good question and I don't know the answer. I would think nothing bad could survive a vinegar soak if the concentration was high enough. I usually use about 20% vinegar to water simply because I've found that cleans everything off. Most things come out looking like new after a vinegar soak and rinsing with hot water should get rid of everything else.


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## PlantedRich (Jul 21, 2010)

I find vinegar is a good thing to use but it is like everything we do. It has to be the right time and right situation as well as used in the right way. I find vinegar is great for removing hard water deposits as it is a light acid and it reacts very well with the mostly alkaline deposits. But when it comes to killing germs, fungus and disease it is not listed as an agent for that purpose. It can kill some things due to being a light acid but then it is not what the experts in public health recommend for cleaning and disinfection. They do not clean water supplies and equipment with vinegar as it is not good enough for that. So the point for me is that it can work but it is not what the experts recommend. 
I keep in mind that the experts who do the public water supply decisions use bleach, not vinegar. Like all things, it does have to be used in the correct way. 
For instance, don't splash it on your clothes!


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## Olskule (Jan 28, 2010)

Don't ask me how or why it works, but I recall reading that Johns Hopkins started using vinegar (I think it was specifically Apple Cider vinegar?) to clean their OR when they started having a problem with staph infections, and the commercially available "sterilizers" weren't getting the job done. The vinegar stopped the problem whereas the "professional" products failed. It could be that specific pathogens are susceptible to the particular properties of vinegar.

Olskule


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## PlantedRich (Jul 21, 2010)

Doing a quick search on John Hopkins and vinegar makes me think there may be some confusion. I find they DO not recommend cleaning nebulizers with vinegar but they have found a new use for it testing for cervical cancer! I will let the imagination run wild or you can do the reading on it here:

FAQs: <em>Equipment</em> | Johns Hopkins Cystic Fibrosis Center
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/27/health/27cancer.html?_r=0
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinegar_test


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## DaveK (Jul 10, 2010)

I did come across this short article on using vinegar in treating wounds (offsite) - Efficacy of 1% acetic acid in the treatment of chronic wounds infected with Pseudomonas aeruginosa: prospective randomised controlled clinical trial. - PubMed - NCBI

There are also other articles on the net on the same subject, so vinegar does seem to kill at least some kinds of infections. I don't see why you can't use it as a disinfectant in the aquarium, but I've always used bleach.


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## Felipe (Sep 4, 2014)

I scrubbed and bleached - about 1 cup for 5 gallons for an hour. Stuff looked pretty clean! It also let it run tap water without dechlorinator for about 36 hours. I hope it cleaned everything. I just started cycling the tank.


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## PlantedRich (Jul 21, 2010)

I feel there may be some common confusion about what is used for health cleaning and vinegar. What I read does not tell me they use vinegar but careful reading says they use the main component of vinegar which is acetic acid. While it seems a small point, I think most would agree that there is a difference in using a stock item and using the main component. Lab grade acetic acid is not the same as vinegar. They may have some similar results but they are not what we buy off the store shelf. When we buy vinegar, we are buying a mixture that has bacteria left from the production of the vinegar. That bacteria is required to ferment the apples and it is not removed for food use. Acetic acid used to sterilize wounds is not the same thing as it would require far more processing. 
If we did the same thinking on water, we know that it is mostly hydrogen but we would not expect to run any process that requires hydrogen by using water instead. 
I'm not saying that vinegar is not a good product, just that it should be used in the correct time and place. For sterilizing equipment, the public health recommendation is chlorine. Of course, that does require knowing how and what level to use. Even water has to be used in the right way to avoid it being dangerous.


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## Nordic (Nov 11, 2003)

I also use a product called Miltons, which is a baby bottle steriliser.
You just need to rinse well. But it is quick acting.
It is made of an aqueous solution of sodium hypochlorite and 16.5% sodium chloride.

As you know I prefer to stick to simple substances like salts around my tanks, but bleach is cool. It just can not get through certain bio-layers with a mere wipe , which is why people precede it with an alcohol wipe.

If I want it sterile and clean, I put it in the dishwasher, it does a great job on old looking plastic... any remaining crud comes off with the slightest provocation.

Potassium permangenate will also oxidise the living hell out of any organics.


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## PlantedRich (Jul 21, 2010)

The dishwasher in my house is off limits due to two reasons. 
One is that the wife has a things about mixing our eating and my fish.
The second is even more important to me. Our dishwashing detergent it designed to cling to dishes to make it more effective. That leaves lots of detergent clinging to the inside of the dishwasher and I don't want to mix detergent with my fish! 
:surprise:


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## Nordic (Nov 11, 2003)

Yeah I don't use detergent or the additive when I wash stuff, but I always take stuff as soon as it is done, and still hot and wet, and rinse it under the tap. Then use a little brush for any nooks and crannies. It does an uncanny good job on plastics in my opinion though.


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