Cleaning New Tank

[MurkyCrabs]

Hi there!

For some background, I have a 20-gallon tank that I acquired through offer up as I want to get my crabs out of their 10 gallon (not crowded, I just want more building room and to be able to take in some new ones perhaps). The 20 gal was quite dirty though and definitely needed some TLC so I went through with water and OxiClean (looking back on that, not my best choice but all I had and I was sleep deprived) to get all of the grime off the tank as there was some quite stuck on there. Now that it's clean, I need to clean out any leftover OxiClean obviously, but my tap water has chloramine which won't just evaporate out of the tank, and my dechlorinator is a very small scale one. my dad has Campden tablets (sodium metabisulphite, technically meant to remove chloramine to make water for brewing beer) that he's offering for me to use, but even then I don't know if that could harm the crabs once I move them in.

Basically, I'm just not sure of the best way to clean out any OxiClean remnants as well as keep the chloramine out of the tank? or if I need to even worry about the chloramine since the tank is likely going to sit for a week or two before I start filling it?

Sorry if any of this is confusing at all!

[JoeHermits]

You can just rinse with tap water. A little chloramine along the sides of the tank won’t be harmful and will evaporate eventually, anyways.


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[MurkyCrabs]

thanks joe! ik it was probably super extra but I just want to make sure I keep the crabs safe and healthy lol. I'm constantly paranoid I'm gonna mess something up!

[mool]

If you live in a "warm" state, take the tank outside and rinse, rinse, rinse with the water hose. If you live in a "cold" state, do it in the bathtub. Use lots of water and do several dump and refills. Air dry or paper towel dry and you should be good to go.

I sometimes bleach new tanks to get the cruds out of them (after cleaning them with Dawn and water). Then I use copious amounts of dechlor to get all residual bleach out plus lots of clear water rinsing.