bleaching equipment

[wickedwes]

i have a red sea berlin protein skimmer with a mag 7 running it. the pump quit on me and the skimmer sat for a couple of weeks with no water running through it. it looks like som mold and other misc. black stuff is inside of some of the parts. i fixed the pump and cleaned out as much of the skimmer as my hands could get to. is it safe to put the pump and skimmer in a tub and run water with bleach through it to clean it all out. thanks

 

[grayne]

I have used a 10 to 1 water/bleach ratio to clean very stained, dirty items before. I would definately make sure it is not something that will absorb the bleach and hold it and release it back into the water later. Also, make sure to rinse, rinse, and rinse a few more times before putting anything that was cleaned with bleach back in the tank. If there are other methods available to clean you items with I personally would try that first as bleach in an aquarium seems like a disaster waiting to happen.

 

[wickedwes]

thanks, i just cleaned the skimmer as well as i could and replaced all the hoses and fittings.

 

[shnookums]

you can use the bleaching method. just make sure your rinse and everything is dry. bleach does evaporate. Before I moved to a sump set up. i used a small walmart pool filter, i bought two filters for it.each saturday I bleached the filter, and put the dry one in, while the other sat til next saturday. no lives lost.