# Restarting and cleaning old aquarium.



## 93mustangnotch (Oct 15, 2012)

Hello all. I've recently gotten the itch to start my 29gallon freshwater tank again. It has been sitting for quite some time and is pretty dirty. Mold has grown inside as well as just general dirt an grime i never realy took the tank down like i should have. Anyway i want to set it up again. 

My questions are how should i go about cleaning it? Not just the tank itself i want to clean all the plastic plants and gravel. About a third of te tank is filled with water and its been sitting for months. There are several plastic plants and two pieces of real drift wood. I know chemicals are a no-no. I've heard vinigar is safe to use? 

Are any of these decoratations and gravel salvagable? I hope so lol i just want the tank to be set up right and i want to begin cycling it to get it ready for fish. I know i have to dial in the pH level to aroud 7.0 correct? What else should i do? I have a pH testing kit as well as the solutions to adjust the pH up snd down and also some "Aqua Safe" to treat the tap water. 

I have two heaters, a stand, a penguin 170 and another whisper fiter thats rated at 145gph. So i dont think filtration is an issue. 

I'm hoping i didn't ruin the tank by leaving it in this state. Any help is greatly appreciated i applogize for any silly questions i'm just trying to get the tank set up right so the fish are healthy. Thank you


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## navigator black (Jan 3, 2012)

I would remove all water and gravel. Give the gravel a good rinsing with a garden hose. Scrub off the plastic plants with hot water (no soap) and vinegar if you wish - rinse them well and let them dry in the sun. I'd do the same with any rocks.
Rub off any driftwood algae, mould etc with a soap free plastic scrubber and blast it off with a hose.
Take the empty tank out where you can use a hose. Scrape off any easy to get to life on it. Fill it and give it a good shot of bleach, empty it, blast it with a hose and leave it to dry in the sun, to neutralize any remaining bleach. Dechlorinate after you set it up.
Some algae will survive on the plastic plants and rocks, or in the gravel. That's good, as long as you keep it under control. It's part of the life of a tank.


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## AFishNamedCP (Oct 7, 2012)

I just did this. My aquarium had been sitting in the basement and then in storage for years. There was some pretty gunky cased stuff on some things. Even now I was unable to get some of it off. Probably should have used a SOS or some sort of wire pad. Anyway, yeah I pretty much just hosed and scrubbed everything off. I did use some glass cleaner on the outside glass. I imagine you can use pretty much any cleaning agent that isn't filmy as long as you rinse everything good. Anyway my tank looks great and the water quality seems fine to me.


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## coralbandit (Jul 29, 2012)

I would not use "cleaners" or metal pads(scratch glass).Vinnegar,bleach and elbow grease.What doesn't come off during cleaning can be more easily removed when tank has had water in it for a while.NO CLEANERS please!


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