Hi all After months of stuggling with clado in my main display tank I eventually gave up and stripped the hole thing down. It was time to start afresh anyway so it served a dual purpose. The Tetratec cannister filter I had on this tank got cleaned throroughly and has been standing around unused ever since. I'd like to reuse it now on another tank but don't want any of the clado transferred. I could clean everything in the cannister besides the head unit as it is sealed. One can remove the pump impeller but that is about it. The head unit has a sealed compartment where the water goes through and I'm sure must have been harbouring some nasty algae in there but how do I clean it if I can't get in there? Thought of running the cannister circulating some water from a bucket with some bleach in it for a while? Would that work? How much bleach do I use? Any other ideas? Cheers Neville
Why not run tap water through it?The chlorine should disinfect the filter and media completely,shouldn't it?
I use bleach on filter sponges, ceramic rings - never on power heads but can not see it being a problem maybe if they have a rubber o-ring then that might not like the bleach? 10 water 1 bleach should do the trick ... well that is what I use ;-) \ Later Ferdie
Doing that already but we have very little chlorine in the water here in Cape Town, if any at all. Ferdie, am I reading correctly? For each 10L water you add 1L bleach? Wow! That seems a lot?
"Wow! That seems a lot?" LOL - yeah but as I said sponge and ceramic .. they are really gunky. Thing is you need to flush then very well before putting them back in the tank ... BTW I work in cups not litters - if you want to go more diluted do it and leave it in for longer. Later Ferdie
If you leave the canister dry and empty for a few days surely this will kill the algae. I've also done the bleech trick. I did however let the equipment stand in a very strong anti-chlor solution afterwards for 24 hours. I doubt there will be many live algae inside the housing of the canister, as it's too dark in there for the algae to survive... but your concern obviously about the spores being in there is true.
Yip, its those spores I'm worried about. Even though the cannister has been standing dry and empty for a bit, the head unit is never really empty. I shook it all ways and side up and down etc, but no matter what you do you can get all the water out of it. So I'm worried that its been moist enough in there to keep spores or traces of whatever kind of the algae alive. All it needs is to be exposed to some light and favourable growing conditions to thrive again. And that will happen the moment I hook it up to my nice new setup with new plants and nice clean healthy water... or am I being super paranoid? Clado is such a pain...!
I would rather be super paranoid than be stuck with clado... that's for sure. I'd go with the bleech method.
Agreed. Only concern is that I've read on APSA that bleach does not necessarily kill clado... :-| What now?
you have to find yhe right dilution, do some googling, cant remember the amount i used per 2l of water, but it was not a lot. The water in the 2L in the 2L bottle should be a dark purple, then you again dose with that 2L (the end result should be a very light pink/purple tint to the water)
Potassium permanganate at 10 mg/L for 15 min will kill snails, their eggs and most other things clinging to plants.
I've been banned from using household bleech in our home. Even banned from using the domestos (Man that stuf has strong bleech in it!). Can you imagine if I turned the carpets, walls and towels into purple spots? My fish tank may land up over the balcony!
What about household vinegar? I used it to clean out my tank when I first got it from a guy that had been keeping hamsters in it.
