Cleaning My Tank equipment

[William Dennis Lang]

Hi,
Once every 2-3 weeks I try to clean the equipment that runs my tank (Protein Skimmer, Hang on the back of the tank type of filter, and the heater). I was told one time that running hot tap water over my hands would work fine for cleaning my hands before putting my hands in the tank. Will running hot tap water over these pieces of equipment to clean them harm anything or in any way possibly get chlorine on on of these pieces of equipment?

Thanks

[leebca]

First and most importantly it is very unsafe to put your hands into the tank water. There are two reasons: 1) The bacteria on your hands must not mix with the bacteria in the marine environment; 2) The bacteria in the tank water must not mix with your bacteria. There are diseases which humans can transmit to marine fishes and there are diseases that fish can transmit to humans. One such is much like tuberculosis, causing lesions in humans. Very hard and long to heal.

An observation is that is you are cleaning your skimmer once every 2-3 weeks then the system is not being properly maintained. The skimmer should be cleaned daily or no less than every other day. This is assuming the skimmer has been sized properly. The sizing is based on water processed/hour and the size of the tank. Info is given in the What is Water Quality sticky.

Mechanical filters should be cleaned out no less than every other day, although if overly filtered, once a week will work too. Just no longer than that or the filtered material begins to rot and adds a different kind of pollution to the water (more ammonia and nitrites).

Lastly, the cleaning of equipment should basically not disturb normal bacteria if per change the fitter is acting like a biological filter. Those filters should be rinsed in old salt water (a use for water exchanged). Other filters can be rinsed in hot tap water, wiped clean, and further rinsed in pure water -- source water.

There is a sticky regarding cleaning in general, which will provide other cleaning methods.

[Original Fin]

Personally, I think cleaning a skimmer every day or two is overkill and impratical, BUT, if you do, I'd just add that it would also be a good idea to keep a spare skimmer on hand. Bubble Kings aside, most skimmers are not designed for that amount of constant handling. Most are constructed of thin gauge plastic and acrylic...bump it too hard, knock it around or drop it and it will break.

[leebca]

If you read Goremans (sp?) booklet on skimmers, you'll find the technical reasons why the skimmer should be kept clean. Once the skimmer works for a short time (a few hours), the plastic becomes coated with fatty acids which in turn reduces its effectiveness. It goes down hill relatively quickly based upon studies Goreman has offered. And, as Goreman has recommended, the clean skimmer is the most efficient. He and I recommend cleaning very often.

One of the criteria for choosing a skimmer is its ease of handling and cleaning, as well as the ease of access when it is placed in the system.

To clarify my previous post, I did not mean to imply that the skimmer cleaning was alone the reason for saying the system was not being maintained properly. That came from a general overview of the cleaning you indicated for skimmer and filters. I will say sorry if "maintained properly" comes across as harsh. Let's just agree that the maintenance can be improved.

[William Dennis Lang]

My main concern for putting this post on here was the chlorine(from tap water) issue. What I have been doing is every time I clean my equipment(protein skimmer and filter) I would get a 5 gallon bucket, fill it with water, put dechlorinator in the bucket, let it sit to kill the chlorine then pour water out of that bucket onto the equipment to clean them. This is a very painful(meaning aggrivating) process. Will it hurt to just use hot tap water to wash these pieces of equipment off or does the water need to be declhorinated?????

[leebca]

There is no need to dechlorinate your water. Use the tap water to wash out whatever. Then use source water (RO/DI, or RO, or DI, or distilled water, or even used salt water) for the final rinse off. If you let equipment drain off the tap water, there isn't enough left to be of a great concern to a large to medium system. If you are dealing with a nano system, it would be worth wiping it off or doing extra source water rinses.

The chemicals used to dechlorinate are no better than tap water and in some cases, the dechlorinating chemical is worse for marine fishes.

[leebca]

Worth noting is that I'm assuming you're not adding the wash water into your aquarium. The equipment is taken out of the system and washed in a sink or bucket like you said, then the piece should be rinsed off after the wash as noted above, without the rinse water going back into the aquarium system.

[William Dennis Lang]

To answer your question, yes I am removing the equipment from my tank to wash it off. I know you said something about I shouldn't be sticking my hands in the tank...the only time I do stick my hands in the tank is when I'm putting the equipment back in the tank(like to push the suction cups up against the glass to make these pieces of equipment stick to this glass). But I try to keep my hands out of the tank as much as possible. Thanks for the tips so far