If you're anything like me, when you started out your new hobby life as an aquarist, you bought a secondSecond hand fish tanks, assuming they don't leak, and sometimes, even if they do, are an excellent choice for the newbie fish keeper because the fact that they are less expensive than a new tank allows you to buy a bigger one, and the most common cause of killing fish is having too small a tank and putting too many fish inSome professionals believe that one goldfish needs 20 gallons to itself, which means even putting one fish in the so called 'beginner's' tanks they sell at pet stores is sentencing your fish to a short life of misery. But let's say you've gotten your second hand tank, its nice and big, you're happy at the excellent deal you got for it, but now you want to wash it. You've looked around online and all you can seem to find are hysterical warnings to NEVER put soap or detergent in the tank (nigh impossible to get out of the

seals and can kill fish over a period of months,) and to NEVER put other cleaners in there either. With all the warnings out there, one could quite easily be reduced to a quivering mass of confusion, but never fear, you have come to the right place. You can safely and effectively clean a fish tank using the following natural (and fortunately, quite cheap) substances. SECOND HAND FISH TANK CLEANING SUPPLIES You're going to need to have a set of cleaning equipment that is only every used for the fish, as even a tiny drop of detergent in an old sponge can get into the water and start whacking your fish like a silent assassin. It is best to use scrubbing pads sold by pet stores because you know for sure that they have not been laced with cleaning products. Vinegar is excellent for removing hard water stains, and salt will clean out a tank nicely. salt, don't be shy, and scrub it around there vigorously. thoroughly and there you have it, a clean tank.

Vinegar will also neutralize a lot of unpleasant fishy odors that second hand tanks can develop if they have been siting mostly empty with a bit of old water and gravel in the bottom of the tank. Now, keep in mind, this is how you clean an empty second hand tank that you haven't put any fish in yet, don't go dumping salt and vinegar into a second hand tank that actually still has the fish in it, or you will soon find them doing the tragic upside down limbo of death. Once you have cleaned out the tank, fill it up and check for leaks. If there are any, you can use aquarium sealant to fix them up. Follow the directions on the sealant precisely, and don't rush things. It is common for new fish keepers to want to rush into getting fish in the tank, but this is how fishThe process from getting a new tank to actually getting a healthy fish that isn't going to die can sometimes be up to a month, but it is worth the wait.

There is nothing more disheartening to going to all the expense and trouble of setting up an aquarium only to find that all your fish are dead.online fish tank canada Once your tank is clean and you arewhat is the best fish tank vacuum sure it is sealed, it's now time to begin cycling the tank, a processfish tank vacuum pets at home which builds up a colony of good bacteria in the filter. aquarium air pump output bacteria will convert ammonia and nitrates which will otherwise buildaqua one aquarium tank ar-980

up in your tank and kill your poor fish. More on Cycling A New Tank, next time. New (18) from $18.74 Sold by Fat Happy Pets and Fulfilled by Amazon.acrylic fish tank buffing Gulfstream Tropical AGU130A Mag-Float Acrylic Aquarium Cleaner, MediumDetailsAPI Algae Scraper Extra Long - Acrylic Add-on ItemFREE Shipping on orders over . DetailsAPI Hand Held Algae Pad - Acrylic Add-on ItemFREE Shipping on orders over . This is a revolutionary magnetic aquarium cleaner, unique because it floats. Its buoyancy makes it easy to operate and is easily guided around corners without sinking. The cleaning brush stays free of sand or gravel, preventing scratching and the strong attracting magnets easily remove algae. Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies) Item model number: 909032 #26,084 in Pet Supplies (See Top 100 in Pet Supplies) in Pet Supplies > Fish & Aquatic Pets > Aquarium Cleaners > Algae Scrapers

5 star52%4 star16%3 star12%2 star10%1 star10%See all verified purchase reviewsTop Customer ReviewsOverpriced, but worksThree StarsWorks Great, But Be Careful.Really works and this model is quite powerfulPLEASE READ: High reviews are BSscratch your tank within five uses hereMag Float aquarium cleanerIt works as advertised.Lately I have added many new species of SPS to my coral collection so I have decided to build a new grow out tank. I picked up a 240 gallon acrylic aquarium off of craigslist for cheap but it was pretty scratched up. Since I would like to be able to take macro shots through the acrylic I did some research on buffing acrylic to improve the clarity. Overall with a few tweaks it worked out great, full credit and thanks to this video on buffing acrylic! To start out you can see here a very scratched up aquarium. This is usually what happens when people try to clean acrylic aquariums using glass scrapers or getting sand trapped in magnet cleaners. Below are a few pictures of what the tank looked like after pickup.

You can see the many scratches and why I had to do research on buffing acrylic in the first place. From the videos suggestions I picked up the 3M 2000 grit and 1000 grit sandpaper. These are used with an electric handheld sander. A polishing tool which is used in an electric drill. Polish for buffing Acrylic. This has made me a little nervous to use on a future reef tank, but with extra rinsing and cleaning on the acrylic before adding saltwater and corals I’m sure it will be fine. Before you start with the sandpaper I would recommend starting with the polishing tool and seeing if you can buff out your scratches before anything else. This didn’t work for me personally since the scratches were so deep but if there is no reason to tear into your tank with a sander then all the better. I decided to start with just a small section and work through all the steps of the video in case something went bad I wouldn’t have destroyed the whole tank. As mentioned above I tried only buffing out the scratches first with no luck.

I then moved to the 1000 grit, which I unfortunately still no luck. In the end I had to buy 600 grain sandpaper as well since you can see the scratches were still to deep for the 1000 grit sandpaper. Once i figured out I was going to have to go through all steps outlined in the video above here is how I did it. Step one of polishing your acrylic is getting a spray bottle (pictured above) and coating down the acrylic where you are going to begin sanding with a mixture of water and a very small amount of soap. This keeps your electric palm sander from snagging in one spot and allows you to wet sand. Next you will want to put your lowest grit sandpaper onto your electric sander. The lower the grit the rougher the sandpaper. This will allow you to get the deeper scratches in your acrylic but it will also make the tank more cloudy to see through. This is why you will have to sand your tank multiple times from lower grit to higher grit. In my case I went from 600 grit to 1000 grit to 2000 grit and finally polish, with each new sanding round the tank became clearer to see through.

Begin sanding your tank. I found what worked best for me was long top to bottom strokes of the sander over one area working from one side of the aquarium to the next. After my first round of 600 grit sandpaper I noticed that the left side of my tank (where I started) looked much better than the right side of the tank. I attributed this to me starting out very carefully on the left side of the tank but rushing by the end of the first round. I went back and made sure that i have each section of my tank at least 15 strokes of up to down sanding. This helped me sand the same amount on the whole front pane. Once my 600 grit round was completed i went and wiped away all the soapy water and acrylic with a microfiber towel as instructed in the video. I assume this is so that any acrylic filaments you created do not cause scratches on the next round of sanding. After wiping down the front pane I began another round of sanding with the 1000 grit using the same up and down method I used before.

Once that was completed i wiped everything down with the microfiber towel. One last time for sanding with the 2000 grit and finally the sanding stages were done. I would like to say this was a quick process but I spent many hours sanding out scratches on the acrylic. After giving the acrylic a very thorough wipe down with the microfiber towels one last time I was ready to begin polishing the acrylic. Using the polishing tool I put a small squirt of the Meguiars Plastx on the Powerball Mini and began polishing the acrylic. Spending as much time in one area as I did with sanding, I would move the Powerball Mini in a circular pattern over one area until all of the polish had begun to clear onto the acrylic. I buffed the inside of the front pane and the outside of the front pane both. After I was finished polishing I wiped down the pane with a clean microfiber towel. I then filled the tank up and drained it a few times wiping more on the acrylic while dry and also filled with water making sure to get any left over residue from the Meguire Plastx.

The images below is what I ended up with, I am pretty happy with the results. There are a few scratches that I have found but since 600 grit wouldn’t get them out I am just going to live with them for now. I am in no way an expert on the subject of acrylic work but by following the instructions in the video I think this tank was restored pretty well! After looking at the acrylic more and more I had decided that while it did look nice it was not clear enough to take pictures through. I spoke with a local acrylic tank builder and they suggested sand the tank by hand. So I did the whole tank again, still using the methods found above except for the power sander. Started with 600 grit and sanded in an up and down pattern. Next was 1000 grit paper and per the acrylic this one was sanded side to side. Next was 2000 grit paper up and down again then finally 3000 grit side to side. I spent about two hours on each different sand paper, so it was a long and exhausting process.