The Puffer Forum

I recently traded a heavy bag for a 55G that is pretty dirty. Water lines at the top, and some kind of film or something that is rainbowish.

What would you do?

Clean with vinegar and a never used before sponge, then rinse well.

Tried vinegar; made it dissapear for about two seconds.

It all depends how good you can rinse the tank... I've used a tiny cap of bleach (please don't get on my case here guys) with a big pail of HOT water. It worked for me. Just make sure you rinse the tank multiple times, let dry and do it again. ( I rinsed mine serisouly 15-20 times ). Also, you might want to use a scrubbie and be prepared to SCRUB. Elbow grease is a must.

Most people will tell you to use hot water and to scrub your heart out. You just might not ever get the water marks off.

I'd probably get the heavy bag back and beat the crap out of it in frustration...

for a total cleaning it is a 2 step process:

1) you can use an oil based solvent to do the deep clean
2) then you use an acidic cleanser to get rid of the oil and remaining dirt.

I use lighter fluid first and paper towel and to get rid of the oily residue and further clean I use vinegar.

This is on a dry tank only.

If all else fails you can use a very diluted mixture of 1 part bleach to 10 parts water to clean and then I would suggest you wash the tank out several times let the tank sit and dry. Then a few days later wash it out 3-4 more times with water and then it should be clean and bleach free.

Barely any rinsing needed with Oxyclean.

x2

Ive used oxiclean to clean all my tanks and it works great

There are some great ideas here.

As long as the tank is glass and not acrylic, I've found that the side of a razor blade (or backside of the sharp part) works well for getting hard water off. I generally use cotton balls for the inside of the tank, and find these especially useful when I'm cleaning a tank still full of water. I have had no problem using either of these methods while water and fish are still in the tank.

One think you could try is drying the tank out and then using a razor blade to scrape if off and use vinegar to clean it up nice