Cleaning used equipment.

[Clay B.]

What is the best way to clean used equipment to prevent the spread of something potentialy nasty into your tank?

 

[Krish]

Hot water and vinegar usually does the trick when it comes to cleaning used tank equipment. Atleast that's what I do with a nice scrub brush depending on what it is I'm cleaning.

 

[BigAl07]

I agree... Vinegar & Water for equipment. The harder the "scale" the longer the soak. For rock etc I used bleach and water then scub till clean and soak/rinse again.

 

[chickenofthesea]

I have used vinegar and it works great. Gets rid of the nasty smell too if you bought equipment that wasn't cleaned properly. I have also used bleach on my rock. I always rinse them several times in clean, fresh water after and then soak them in water with a little water conditioner to get rid of any traces of chlorine. I haven't had an issue yet.

 

[user 26995]

Here too, I use vinager and water. I put the equipment in a bucket of 4 parts fresh water & 1 part vinager with powerhead to keep the water moving. Leave it for a few days then clean them off with a small brush and they usually come out looking almost new. Some plastics will get soft if left in too strong of a vinager bath. I have heard of others comment on that, but have never had an issue myself.

And welcome to RF

 

[jrgilles]

Vinegar and water. The mixture of acid (vinegar) and fresh water (very low osmotic pressure compared to salt water) should be pretty lethal to salt water pests. Hot water can also aid in the cleaning.

If it is nice and dried out and you clean it, I wouldn't think you would get any sort of biological contaminarion and the cleaning should remove any chemical contamination.

 

[user 2204]

Definately vinegar and water solution works awesome. But don't do a full vinegar bath with plastics or rubber, as it will cause issues with the items if left to soak for to long. For plastics use a mix of vinegar and water, maybe a 50%-50% mix or a 60% (H2O)-40% (CH3COOH) mix.

Cheers,
Alex