General Care Discussion :: Cleaning the tank

[Rickiew04]

If I am going to use white vinegar to clean my tank, should I dilute it in water? And if so, how much?

[steve]

I don't dilute it, but I do make sure it dries off before I refill the tank.

[Rickiew04]

So should I just soak a rag in vinegar, ring it out and wipe down the tank. Do I need to rinse out the vinegar?

[steve]

I just moisten a paper towel and wipe it where there are water stains. It dries up by itself pretty quickly, just make sure you have some fresh air so the smell doesn't get too bad.

[Rickiew04]

I'm using this to clean my tank because I had a turtle die a few months back because of a RI. I'm also going to clean all the objects inside the tank as well. Is this all I would need to do? I'm just leary of leaving the vinegar in the tank and not rinsing it out.

[industrial_girl_2000]

Hi Rickiew04,

Glad to see you are still around on the forum!

If I were you, I would soak the tank with bleach (as well as any of the rocks, plastic plants, or anything else you had in the tank). Throw away any filter media (buy new filter materials later) & soak the plastic filter parts in bleach water too. Reason why I say this is that you want to make sure everything is completely disinfected before you get another turtle in that tank. I don't often use chemicals in my house (I've had the same bottle of bleach for the last 4 yrs...!) but when an animal dies, you just want to make sure things are completely bacteria-free.

I did the same thing after my baby turtle died a few months back & it worked out really well. In my case, I wasn't sure what kind of strange parasite the turtle died from so I let everything soak for several hours in bleach water (overkill, I know!). Then I rinsed everything really well in my bathtub (turned the shower on) & allowed it all to dry. This worked out great, and now my aquatic frog lives in that tank.

[marisa]

If another turtle that had the tank was ill, it would be better to disinfect as well as clean it. You can used diluted bleach (2 oz to a gallon of water makes a weak solution) to do this. Just rinse really well afterward and let the tank and objects air dry (24 hours is good---the chlorine will dissipate).

I do this whenever I buy a used tank and sometimes use a bleach/water solution that's a bit stronger. If there's crud stuck to the glass/on the objects, clean them before disinfecting so the bleach solution gets on the actual surface of the object.