# Tank deep clean using Ammonia



## steph251186 (Apr 16, 2010)

Hi everyone 

I currently have a 10 gallon tank (9.41 gallons to be exact) which I'm going to set up to house two male bettas with an opaque tank divider.

Although I want to give the tank a deep clean using ammonia to eliminate any possible parasites. So I currently have 500ml of 'Kleen Off' multi purpose ammonia at strength of 9-10% (Ammonium Hydroxide).

I read that you would need to leave the tank filled with Ammonia solution for 8 hours in order to have all of the parasite oocysts killed.

So can anyone who had done this kind of thing before advise how to apply the right amount of ammonia to the tank or would I need more ammonia?

I also have a large plastic box which I would like to be sterilized also and the box dimensions are L 52cm x W 33cm x H 25cm which is 9.43 gallons.

Thank you for reading =)


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## hemps123 (Nov 13, 2009)

hi steph 
i'v never used the ammonia way of steralize a tank before so sorry bud cant realy help out on that front .
but i have used milton Sterilising Fluid to clean out big tank,s ie 1000 ltrs plus then flushed out the tank well after .
nice cheap way of killing any nasty's 
hope you get the help you need tho .
: victory:


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## steph251186 (Apr 16, 2010)

Bump.

Sorry for the delay and thank you for the input hemps, I probably will look into that Milton Sterilising Fluid since no one replied as of yet...

So, could anyone please help me out and tell me if the ammonia I have is not enough or what?

Thanks.


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## nicnet (Apr 3, 2011)

I never use ammonia to clean tanks out.

I use a strong bleach solution using hot water and leave it for an hour, then rince well with heavily salted water. Don't use boiling water though in case you crack the tank, just very hot water.

Give a couple of good rinces after that with clean water.

I used that routine on our quarantine facilities in the fish shop we had and never had any cross infections. works a treat.

Also works on decorations.


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## GlassWalker (Jun 15, 2011)

When I was looking up cleaning methods after a suspected incident of crypto, I found that ammonia would kill it, whereas it would survive bleach. So I guess the question is what possible nasties are we wanting to kill here? As an alternative to the smelly ammonia is hydrogen peroxide. That is also effective against crypto. I don't know if they're effective against other things though, and you'll need to look up what concentrations to use. There's plenty of places offering advice against the human form of crypto.


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## steph251186 (Apr 16, 2010)

nicnet said:


> I never use ammonia to clean tanks out.
> 
> I use a strong bleach solution using hot water and leave it for an hour, then rince well with heavily salted water. Don't use boiling water though in case you crack the tank, just very hot water.
> 
> ...


Thank you, I'll keep that in mind if it ever came to needing to clean the tank completely by that method.



GlassWalker said:


> When I was looking up cleaning methods after a suspected incident of crypto, I found that ammonia would kill it, whereas it would survive bleach. So I guess the question is what possible nasties are we wanting to kill here? As an alternative to the smelly ammonia is hydrogen peroxide. That is also effective against crypto. I don't know if they're effective against other things though, and you'll need to look up what concentrations to use. There's plenty of places offering advice against the human form of crypto.


Yeah, I should have already mentioned that the tank used to house a gecko that passed away and I suspect crypto, so that's what I wanted to eliminate the possibly of it, as bleach doesn't kill them and fishes can catch it too right? Anyway, whether if they can catch it or not, I just don't want it lurking around when I add good quality bettas.

I didn't have much luck finding info on what concentrations to use on reptileforums and from google search (must be using wrong keywords). Could you direct me to them please? (hydrogen peroxide also) That would be greatly appreciated!


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## GlassWalker (Jun 15, 2011)

There's info on it more relating to the human infecting strain of crypto. You can try googling _cryptosporidium ammonia_ but one example link here suggests 3% hydrogen peroxide for 20 minutes for 99% kill rate, 6% for 99.9%, or 5% ammonia for 18 hours. As they point out, hydrogen peroxide may be preferred simply as it doesn't stink as much!

When looking at it, the impression I got was that the strains of crypto were more species targeted so may not be effective against other hosts, although I certainly don't want to put this to the test.


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## steph251186 (Apr 16, 2010)

GlassWalker said:


> There's info on it more relating to the human infecting strain of crypto. You can try googling _cryptosporidium ammonia_ but one example link here suggests 3% hydrogen peroxide for 20 minutes for 99% kill rate, 6% for 99.9%, or 5% ammonia for 18 hours. As they point out, hydrogen peroxide may be preferred simply as it doesn't stink as much!
> 
> When looking at it, the impression I got was that the strains of crypto were more species targeted so may not be effective against other hosts, although I certainly don't want to put this to the test.


Thank you, sorry my reply had been overdue as there had been a theft a while ago, so that took all my attention. Anyway, I'll definitely use hydrogen peroxide instead as it's a safer option than ammonia.


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