cleaning powerheads w/ vinegar

[fresh]

How much vinegar to water do you usually use? and what type of vinegar? red/white?

Thanks
MO

[jws444]

I usually dilute it to 50/50 and use a spray bottle. Sometimes 100% on tough spots. Use regular white vinegar which is store bought 5% acetic acid. The red stuff is red wine vinegar and though I don't think it would do any real harm once it's rinsed off, it's just much more costly!

[Abbyreefer]

Depends on how dirty or how much coraline is on there you want to get off. But usually I use 1/3 vinegar to water mix (white vinegar) and let it set for about 3 hours then brush off if still on there I add a touch more vinegar and let it sit another 3 hours and then its all off.
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[Matt]

What's this about cleaning powerheads? With vinegar? Why? I can understand taking the impeller out and rinsing out the gunk to keep them mechanically sound, but they look better (more camouflaged) with the coraline on, don't they? JMO, YMMV.

If you must (and I suppose you wish to), use distilled white vinegar. Pretty pure, so it's safest, and thankfully, it is the cheapest too. I mix at about 50:50 when I'm cleaning, but a lot less when I'm soaking something.

Matt

[Beverly]

Had to clean some valonia off two heater guards (that were going back into the tank) plus a powerhead I was putting into storage. All had serious coraline algae on them. Soaked for all parts with coraline on them in 100% white vinegar for 6 to 8 hours, then easily toothbrushed off the coraline. Rinsed well in tapwater. Did not see any valonia left on the heater guards either :biggrin:

[StirCrazy]

I soak everything in 100% viniger (its cheep)

I am going to be running a mix through my system for a couple days after I get the corals, fish and rock off I am going to refill my sump with a 50/50 mix of water and vinager and run all the pumps for 3 or 4 days.
then repeat witha water bleach mix to kill off any algaes in the system.

Steve

[fresh]

thank you all :)

[Beverly]

I am going to be running a mix through my system for a couple days after I get the corals, fish and rock off I am going to refill my sump with a 50/50 mix of water and vinager and run all the pumps for 3 or 4 days.
then repeat witha water bleach mix to kill off any algaes in the system.

Steve,

I think the 50/50 tapwater/vinegar mix will kill your algae.

[StirCrazy]

I am going to be running a mix through my system for a couple days after I get the corals, fish and rock off I am going to refill my sump with a 50/50 mix of water and vinager and run all the pumps for 3 or 4 days.
then repeat witha water bleach mix to kill off any algaes in the system.

Steve,

I think the 50/50 tapwater/vinegar mix will kill your algae.

can you guarentee that though :mrgreen: I must be sure it is all dead :biggrin:

the vinager is only for the sump and main pumps, it won't see the main or secondary tanks. the bleach is going to be a system wide volume (bleach is cheeper than vinager :rolleyes: ) so I am only doing a 33 gal mix of vinager/water, where I am doing a 130 gal mix of bleach/water at about 10 to 15 gal of it bleach to give me a 10% mix.

Steve

[reeferaddict]

Ya .. I'm thinking 10 or 15 gallons of bleach will pretty much kill everything... Acid could work too.... it's aqueous and could totally be washed out too... :mrgreen:

[crusty1]

Last week I took freeform citric acid that you can buy from the health food store, and poured it in water to a pH of 3. Ran the pumps overnight, used a toothbrush to clean everything up and Voila, the pumps looked like brand new again. I think citric acid is even cheaper than vinager.
Chris

[StirCrazy]

Ya .. I'm thinking 10 or 15 gallons of bleach will pretty much kill everything... Acid could work too.... it's aqueous and could totally be washed out too... :mrgreen:

um so is bleach, but it has the added benifit of baing a basic solution inseat of an asidic, which actualy works better on organic material. so the end result is that an asid will kill it but a basic will remove it with out dammaging any equipment.

Steve