So I bought a used 29 gallon from craigslist, the owner had never cleaned the tank. There were brown spots all over the glass and it was gross. So not know what I was doing to myself I bought a gallon of bleach and poured it all in. I filled the rest with water to clean it. Ive been letting water run through it for a whole day and I can still smell bleach any ideas on how to get rid of the bleach?
Wow, a whole gallon of bleach in a 29? That's a lot! Try rinsing with extra dechlorinator in the water then letting the tank dry out in the sun for a day or two.
yeah you should be able to get it out. Maybe use running water rinse for a while then fill it, dechlor it, empty it out 3-4 times. As jeaninel suggested, dechlorinator would be the key thing, but since you used so much bleach and it's probably soaked into the cracks, I'd fill it, dechlor it, let it sit, then empty it several times.
Whip it down with vinegar (not 1 gallon, just some ) and wash out with HOT water few times and then do the dechlorinator water in it, soak & drain it, soak & drain it.
Not sure where you're at, but if you can have the tank sitting outside in the sun to dry out after this excerise is done.
Next tank purchase: Just use a LITTLE bit of vinegar to clean
If it's really just chlorine, just rinse it out and let it dry. Chlorine naturally evaporates within 24 hours. That why if any of you have a swimming pool you'll remember that we have to add a stabilizer to keep the chlorine from evaporating. Putting the tank outside in a non-freezing climate will help it to evaporate more quickly. Even after this you may still smell it but it should be safe.
@WisFish Does chlorine sulphate evaporate and leave a residue? (or whatever the compound it is they use in bleach now)... I seem to faintly remember a whitish residue from evaporated bleach ...
not a gallon of bleach, but good enough -- what I did was poured 1/2 16oz bottle of dechlorinator inside the tank and added the rest of the water, have a power head cycle the water while it was in the sun
then removed the water and let it dry out for 1 day
then I did it again to repeat and it did the work -- no more bleach smell..
Hey dustin0... sounds to me like your "very dumb mistake" wasn't so dumb after all... at least there were no fish in there! :-D
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