Loaches Online Forum

Hi guys

I have an old 2' tank that was once set up but has been empty and disused for well over a year, I'm looking to reactivate it and bring it back to life but some of the old features in the tank have grown some of that white hairy mould over it and I was wondering would I have to totally scrub that off? or can I use a combination of filtration and refuse eaters like snails to clean it up once the tank is back online?

I would suggest you do a pretty good job of cleaning it up. Some of the fungi and other things that can grow in damp places cannot grow underwater. This stuff will likely die and add too much ammonia etc. to your tank water.

You can clean an old glass tank and all the parts with salt:
Dissolve salt in hot water, as much as will dissolve. Allow the water to cool until it is tepid.
Use dry salt as an abrasive, and the salt water to help slosh it around. Eventually the dry salt will also dissolve. This is safe for the silicone as long as you do not scrub too hard. It is safe for plastic and glass equipment such as heaters, filters and ceramic merpeople. You can clean the gravel this way, too, buy rinsing it well in a bucket with strong salt solution.
I would not use dry salt on an acrylic tank, though. Make sure it is all well dissolved. Use only acrylic approved products for these tanks.

Salt rinses off very well, completely water soluble. If there is any lingering trace that little bit is not toxic to the fish.

Thanks for the reply Diana, very helpful, I'll see how well I go setting it back up, I'd imagine several water changes will be required fairly early once water is put back in to that tank .

Once it is cleaned with the salt and well rinsed all the crud will be gone.
Do the fishless cycle to get it ready for fish.

Yeah I'm on the fishless cycle now, been told I should run fishless for 3weeks or something, is that right? Anyway I'll be monitoring levels and doing appropriate water changes and treatments to get it semi stable before I add fish

The instructions are here at Loaches, top of this forum. These instructions were derived from a couple of scientists who studdied how to do this in a lab using varying amounts of ammonia and varying time schedules. By sticking to the instructions the Fishless Cycle will go as fast as possible.
Under average conditions the Fishless Cycle takes about 3 weeks. You can post your results as you go, and get more input, if you want.

First Week:
Day one: very few bacteria, add ammonia to 5 ppm.
this week: bacteria grow, and as they remove ammonia you add more. If for some reason they are not growing you will not need to add ammonia. (This would be a sign of problems) The first couple of days, you will not need to add much ammonia. Small bacteria population. By the end of the week though, you ought to be adding ammonia daily. Maybe nitrite shows up by the end of the week.

Second Week:
You will be seeing a little nitrite now, and the bacteria are getting better and better at removing the ammonia. When the nitrite shows up allow the ammonia to drop to 3 ppm. The bacteria are probably able to remove this much every day, especially by the end of the week. If the nitrite gets over 5 ppm it can stall the cycle. It should not, if you add less ammonia (to 3 ppm max.) once the nitrite shows up. Do a water change if needed to keep the nitrite under 5 ppm.

Third Week:
Bacteria can remove the ammonia every day. Nitrite is still up there, but by the end of the week it should be dropping.
In the last couple of days of the week you might follow the rise and fall of ammonia and nitrite over the course of a few hours (if you wanted to test that often).
By the end of the week the bacteria can zero out the ammonia in a couple of hours, and the nitrite overnight.

If your Fishless Cycle does not follow this schedule then lets see what might be going on! Test the tank for all the tests you have, and describe everything you have done.

thanks Diana, I'll see how I go and give updates where necessary