Will cleaning products with bleach kill fish?

[fwiffo]

hey-
somebody told me at the pet store that using bleach to clean fish products is harmful to the animals.
i use a very gentle solution of bleach and water. like 2 parts of bleach for every bucket of water. the parts are more or less equal to maybe the cap of the bleach container. bucket holds 3 gallons.
i have done it for years, bleaching everything from my ceramic filter media to powerheads to filters.
i just put them back in action on the tank and they work fine, while the fish are always good too, never a health problem with my pets...:dance:

is this guy right and maybe i have just been lucky or what?
what do you guys do for cleaning?

 

[pinkertd]

I'd be careful with anything porous like the ceramic filter media that can absorb. I would swish them through a container of water with dechlor added just to be on the safe side. The other objects you mention, once rinsed with fresh water, should be fine.

As for what do I do when cleaning fish things? Just rinse really well, use a filter scrubbie brush when needed, wipe down and ta-da......I've never had a reason to have to bleach anything. Unless you've been experiencing illness in the fish tank, there really is no need to bleach everything. With a healthy tank, there's no reason to go that far sterile when doing periodic maintenance.

 

[Wycco]

I think I learned from on here that bleach brakes down over time- 48hrs or something like that. So any left over will degrade. You may be using too dillute to hurt them though.

If you're bleaching your filter media- arn't you killing off your good bacteria and hurting your nitrogen cycle?

 

[fwiffo]

thanks pink.

what i did'nt put in my first post is that he said i should toss everything that has been bleached since it will kill the fish.
i was'nt going to do that anyway but its good to know there is a recourse just in case!
interestingly, someone on ebay contacted me about my auction and said in very poor english bascially the same thing.

 

[fwiffo]

I think I learned from on here that bleach brakes down over time- 48hrs or something like that. So any left over will degrade. You may be using too dillute to hurt them though.

If you're bleaching your filter media- arn't you killing off your good bacteria and hurting your nitrogen cycle?

yes, the bleach will kill most bacterium upon contact.

for me, i bleach the aquarium products that will be stored away for a while.
i do it since i like to get rid of the aquarium smell on them and to keep things in my mind "clean".

 

[coach_z]

i bleach stuff on rare occasion....a heater that has very stubborn algae on it that wont scrub off. my fish net that time i dropped it in the toilet. when i receive a used filter and i dont know if the tank had a disease or not. but never the filter media or anything like that

long story short as long as you rinse, repeat, rinse and then rinse some more you will be fine. i also soak in a bucket with a 5x dose of declorinator.

-chris

 

[pinkertd]

You can find a gazillion references on the internet on how to use bleach to clean aquarium items and even to kill algae on live plants. Here's an example:
http://freshaquarium.about.com/od/maintenance/a/bleach.htm

The key is to use a very diluted mixture, rinse, rinse, rinse and if you were putting something directly back into the tank for immediate re-use, I would dechlor with an aquarium dechlorinator.

The one thing that I wouldn't use it on is like I said earlier, porous items like ceramic media. It would be wiser to rinse well and let them completely dry in the sun for several days.

 

[fwiffo]

gotcha. yupper, what i do is put those ceramic rings in the bleach/water solution, then let them air dry for several days. never had a problem whatsoever. good info here everyone, as always i might add!!!

AC ROCKS!!!

You can find a gazillion references on the internet on how to use bleach to clean aquarium items and even to kill algae on live plants. Here's an example:
http://freshaquarium.about.com/od/maintenance/a/bleach.htm

The key is to use a very diluted mixture, rinse, rinse, rinse and if you were putting something directly back into the tank for immediate re-use, I would dechlor with an aquarium dechlorinator.

The one thing that I wouldn't use it on is like I said earlier, porous items like ceramic media. It would be wiser to rinse well and let them completely dry in the sun for several days.

 

[Zaffy]

yes, the bleach will kill most bacterium upon contact.

for me, i bleach the aquarium products that will be stored away for a while.
i do it since i like to get rid of the aquarium smell on them and to keep things in my mind "clean".

I wouldn't worry about it at all in this case.

ps. I love your username/avatar. That game series was one of the best I've ever played.

 

[cris gaston]

Bleach is usually a chlorine compound which can instantly be deactivated by anti-chlorine preparations (usually sodium thiosulphate). Heavy aeration for a couple of days will also deactivate chlorine. Wash and rinse the tank and etc. with clean water and your okay.
I would not, however, use bleach on the filter media because it will kill all your good bacteria. Unless, there is some serious disease, of course.