I had my frontosa pair in the Q.T. tank. both of them didn't make it. The water quality was good. and they where eating the first couple of days. I'm sure that they where fine when I got them. I did get them from a private breeder. and his tanks look good. It got me to wondering. Is there something in the water. I have put sick fish in there that have passed. And I didn't do anything with the tank after the sick fish where in there. So I took the tank down and cleaned and sterilized everything today. I took the sponge filter out and washed it in really hot water then microwaved it. Do you think that will kill every thing on the sponge? I want to put it back into another aquarium to reseed it.
I have often wondered about the best way to disinfect a sponge filter.
I like your microwave approach. this is also a way to kill things in wood.
After an initial cleaning:
I have in the past tried bleach, but it destroyed the sponge material.
Your hot rinse reminds me that in labs heating things to 180˚F will kill most things. That is not even boiling, but I have not tried that so I don't know if the sponge material would stand up to it.
What I have been most happy with is putting a sponge filter in a 5 G bucket filled with a netsoak-like solution and ran the filter in the bucket to circulate the solution through the sponge for a day or so and then repeated the following a several times over two or three days: (squeezed out the sponge in a sink changed the water in the bucket and ran the sponge filter in the bucket for a few hours).
I don't know if it killed everything, but it should have. The filter did fine with fish after all the rinsing.
That is a good question. I'll be watching this topic as i would like to find out the answer to this to
It actually doesn't take much of a bleach solution to kill the vermin. One tablespoon of bleach per gallon is sufficient, I use 1/4 cup per gallon and it rinses out well, air dry, rinse again and it's clean...it's way too much bleach that is hard to rinse out,etc.....
The recommended microwave time is 2-3 minutes. Cooking recipes usually say "....based on a 1000 watt microwave " so the time would be effected by wattage. Microwaving is also recommended for sanitizing kitchen use sponges.
I like the idea of actually running the sponge filter with a disinfectant of choice. My preference is bleach so after the final rinse the sponge filter could be run through a Prime/water solution.
Sorry you lost your frontosas.
QuoteIt actually doesn't take much of a bleach solution to kill the vermin. One tablespoon of bleach per gallon is sufficient, I use 1/4 cup per gallon and it rinses out well
QuoteMy preference is bleach so after the final rinse the sponge filter could be run through a Prime/water solution.
I think i was probably using too much bleach. I usually use a very high bleach concentration because i not only like to kill unwanted stuff, but also break it down chemically (bleach is an oxidizer). Combining that with running it in a bleach inactivator sounds great to me. Since bleach is involved, you could also check the water with a bleach test.
When I put a fish into QT and the fish does not recover I always dose the tank and filter with enough PP to turn the water almost black. I wait until the bubbles from the filter clears the water, then I replace 100% of the water before I use the tank again. I know that I will have nuked the filter, but I have lots of cycled filters that I can pull from other tanks.
Thanks It was a stupid move on my part. I'm sure the fish were good before I put them in the tank. I just need to clean that tank out after I put sick fish in there.
I don't really like to use bleach solution I'm always second guessing my self if I have done it right and got off all the bleach solution. I have done it in the past. I just prefer not too.
I keep a 5 gallon bucket of mild bleach solution in the fish room. Next to it is a 5 gallon rinse bucket. Nets, syphon hoses, etc get a quick dip and rinse in between tanks. Better safe than sorry, an ounce of prevention......
Dennis
Quote from: BallAquatics on January 21, 2013, 08:17:56 AM
I keep a 5 gallon bucket of mild bleach solution in the fish room. Next to it is a 5 gallon rinse bucket. Nets, syphon hoses, etc get a quick dip and rinse in between tanks. Better safe than sorry, an ounce of prevention......
Dennis
Amen..... ;D