Soap Dummy!

I will ditto the above posts about lots of rinsing. The vinegar may help to strip away the soap, but you will then need to rinse off the vinegar.

Take the rinsing in baby steps. Do a small handfull at a time and rinse until you don't smell or feel the soap. Rinse some more and then go onto another handful.

A quick test you can do is to put a small portion of the rinsed rocks in a larger container of water with a lid. Shake the poop out of it and see if the water foams from the soap. If it does, you have more rinsing to do.
 
i would say boil the rocks for a few hrs with rock salt, the process of hot water and salt may clean better than vingar and wldnt smell as bad..
as for bleach i have always used bleach to clean my rocks, but not to get soap out rocks,. bleach is a strong and harmfull chemical but if you only put a cap ful or 2 in a 5gl bucket w/a powerhead and leave it for a day or few it comes out clean as a whistle,. and bleach will evaporate when expose to air~! so if you soak in alittle bleach w/alot of water,. rinse very well with water, and let sit out in air,. it WILL NOT harm your fish or mess with your water at all.
i will argue this w/anyone ! bleach is the best, but boiling can work very well also.. remember there is no excact way to keep fish, we all believe what we thinks works best for ourselves and trial and error is the definding factor.
knowy
 
Most soaps are basic. There are a few that are acidic, namely the flashy and expensive (and complete waste of money) antibiotic soaps.

Rinsing thoroughly is the best bet. Adding some vinegar to the mix wouldn't hurt plus it's easy to rinse off. Any potential left over vinegar won't hurt the fish, unless one of them get's fish-stick paranoia ;) . But in the end lots of rinsing.

The point of soap is that it has one hydrophilic (water loving) side that can rinse off and one hydrophobic (water hating) end which clings to oils. I don't believe that the addition of salt will help very much, I can see it potentially stabilizing the charged (water loving) end which is probably a bad thing, but I haven't made a study of it.

So back to rinsing. Plus, if the rocks are porous, after you've rinsed manically you should let them sit in some fresh water overnight, dump out the water and repeat. It sounds like a lot, but better overkill than fishkill.

Oh, if you have "hard" water, buy a jug of that RO or distilled or spring water stuff from the grocery store. The expression "hard" comes from the difficulty at getting soap to foam up, and you want soap as keen as possible to enter the water.

As for oxyclean, I've never looked into what it's made of, but if it's potassium hydroxide (KOH for the chem geeks among us, I know you're out there!) then it's perfectly safe. Using simple cleaners like KOH, vinegar, and ammonia are all fine for aquariums, they rinse off easily and in low concentrations pose no threat to the inhabitants, ammonia of course will be dealt with by your bio-filter. As for KOH and vinegar, measure the pH vs. tap water (left on the counter overnight to equilibrate with the atmosphere) and you can easily see how much, if any, is left over.

knowy may be ready to argue the laurels of bleach, and while it does have its uses, it too is a base and won't help remove the soap. He is correct that a little bleach in a lot of water is a great disinfectant, however in doses higher that say 1part bleach to 2 parts water bleach will not evaporate. In fact, to be precise, bleach does not evaporate. Bleach is a low concentration of sodium hypochlorite and water. Sodium hypochlorite is a solid, white, crystal, just like every other chemical ;) . Some will react to form chlorine gas, and as long as there's ample water left around to allow this to happen, it will, but it's not a fast process, boiling will speed it, but again, only so long as there's still water left around. In short, do not let your bleached articles dry before a thorough rinse and dechlorination.
 
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maybe argue was to strong of a word for im not very argumenative,. i only ment if you use small amouts of bleach and rinse it well after the soaking, it will clean fake plants and rocks like magic,.
maybe i misspoke when i had any clue it might be good for getting soap outa anything,for iv'e only used it for cleaning .. my appoligies~
knowy
 
I use Oxy-clean all the time without any problems at all. Just make sure you don't get any in the tank water if cleaning a filled tank on the outside. If cleaning tank decorations, make sure you rinse them off good.
 
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In my opinion, you should only use water to clean things for ur tank, if you let them soak for a few days in a 5gal bucket, they should be fine, but soap, bleach, and all other chemical like them are usually not good for any fish tank.
 
No need to apologize knowy, I agreed with most of what you said, indeed I think I said that as you posted it, bleach would evaporate, I just wanted to caution against someone letting a lot of bleach dry off on their stuff. Bleach is an excellent disinfectant and when used properly and with care it's one of the best choices since we have dechlorinator handy. You openly admitted that you didn't know whether or not it would be good for cleaning soap, I just wanted to clarify that it wouldn't. You original post was great.
 
well, i've been soaking it in water, and there aren't any bubbles or foam, and it doesn't really smell like vinegar anymore.

I've been procrastinating because I have a pleco, and a chinese algae eater, and i'd be upset if they sucked on the rocks enough to get dead.

...so the moment of truth tomorrow morning!
 
?? Where did my post go?

Ok.....well, today is the moment of truth. I'm putting the ornament and stones back in the tank. Hopefully, my pleco and chinese algae eater won't mind sucking on soap and vinegar rocks. ....I've been soaking them for about a week now.
 
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