View Full Version : Cleaning my tubes??
mtdewlover
03-31-2004, 3:39 PM
I have a 55 gallon aquarium and it has a canister filter. So I have those, say...one inch tubes running from my filter to my tank. They are clear and they are gross. I tried to rinse the gunk out with water in the tub and no luck. It is stuck tight in there. Is there someting I can buy that will clean those long tubes out?
OrionGirl
03-31-2004, 3:49 PM
Most kitchen-supply places sell bottle cleaners--they'll work for tubes, too. If they aren't long enough, get a scrubby that's small enough to fit through with some tugging, tie a string that's a bit longer than the tube to it, and a weight on the other end. Drop the weight through, pull it through.
You can also make a slurry with warm water and oxyclean, fill the hose up, and let it soak for 15-20 minutes. This will loosen up most gunk so you can rinse it clean.
blitzen25bm
03-31-2004, 4:36 PM
the string with sponge idea works pretty good ive done that before. but i dont bother with cleaning since it gunks up agaon pretty fast and repeated removal and installing of the hoses can cause them to stretch out at the ends and they wont fit too good after a while.
anonapersona
03-31-2004, 6:31 PM
You can blow some of that crud out into a large bucket when you disconnect the canister. Just briefly open the valve on the hose and shoot it into the bucket.
If you do it before you remove much water from the tank and the output line is still under water you will be able to run a lot of water through pretty fast before it runs dry, depending on how low the outlet is in the tank.
It is not as clean as cleaning with a line adn brush, or a rag on a curtain rod, but it will help remove some of that junk that shoots into the tank right after a canister cleaning -- isn't that the most annoying thing!
Be sure to not clean hoses when you also are changing much media, those hoses contain a LOT of bio-bacteria and in delicately balanced tanks, simply doing both the canister and the hoses at the same time can cause an ammonia spike.
Most decent LFS have flexible brushes designed to do this task. They are not terribly expensive and do the job quite well IME (and I run a lot of canisters).