How to.... Vinegar bath your equipment
It’s not rocket science; however I do remember when I first tried to clean the coralline of my pumps and heaters I’d end up spending hours scraping away, scratching the plastic bits, and hating every second of it, spending hours doing it. This made me want to do it less, which made the problem worse when I did get around to it.
Then I discussed the Vinegar bath.
Here’s a quick how to (at least this is how I do it – fell free to try it at your own risk but I have never had an issue using this method).
1) Go down to your local supermarket and buy the cheapest Vinegar you can. Should be somewhere around $1 - $1.50 per 2 litres. I usually get 4 litres when doing my heaters and pumps (I have a cheap solution for doing the heaters that uses minimal vinegar – see below)
2) Get a container that will hold whatever equipment you plan on keeping.
3) Get hold of an old toothbrush
4) Pull the pumps apart, manually remove any algae you can. Don’t be too fussy.
5) Put all the parts in the container and completely submerse in straight vinegar.
6) Within minutes you should be able to see fine bubbles and the vinegar starts to eat the coralline away. Leave it soak for around 2 hours.
7) Pull the bits out and gently scrub with the toothbrush. The coralline should come off as if you are wiping it – you don’t need to scrub hard. For really stubborn amounts you may need to re-soak for another 2 hours and repeat the process. The example in the picture below was soaked once (for around 2 hours) and took about 2 minutes of light brushing.
8) Rinse the parts, put it back together, give it a final rinse and back in the tank – looking like brand new.
I don’t like removing all the pumps at the same time from the tank, especially for a 2 hours soak so I rotate through them. You can reuse the vinegar for days so take your time if you need to (do 1 pump per night for example).
Basically it should turn this
Into this (it looks a little patchy because it is wet and was drying – in real life it looks like new). You can also see some of the scratches from before I found the vinegar bath trick.
Some people prefer to dilute the vinegar and soak overnight. I have also soaked overnight in straight vinegar with no adverse affects.
Oh – and I nearly forgot. For the heaters just get a piece of 40mm PVC and glue and end cap on it. Stand it up, slide the heater in and fill – only takes a couple of hundred ml on Vinegar for a long 300W ehiem heater.
Good luck with it.
Feel free to add any tips you may have picked up along the way.
It’s not rocket science; however I do remember when I first tried to clean the coralline of my pumps and heaters I’d end up spending hours scraping away, scratching the plastic bits, and hating every second of it, spending hours doing it. This made me want to do it less, which made the problem worse when I did get around to it.
Then I discussed the Vinegar bath.
Here’s a quick how to (at least this is how I do it – fell free to try it at your own risk but I have never had an issue using this method).
1) Go down to your local supermarket and buy the cheapest Vinegar you can. Should be somewhere around $1 - $1.50 per 2 litres. I usually get 4 litres when doing my heaters and pumps (I have a cheap solution for doing the heaters that uses minimal vinegar – see below)
2) Get a container that will hold whatever equipment you plan on keeping.
3) Get hold of an old toothbrush
4) Pull the pumps apart, manually remove any algae you can. Don’t be too fussy.
5) Put all the parts in the container and completely submerse in straight vinegar.
6) Within minutes you should be able to see fine bubbles and the vinegar starts to eat the coralline away. Leave it soak for around 2 hours.
7) Pull the bits out and gently scrub with the toothbrush. The coralline should come off as if you are wiping it – you don’t need to scrub hard. For really stubborn amounts you may need to re-soak for another 2 hours and repeat the process. The example in the picture below was soaked once (for around 2 hours) and took about 2 minutes of light brushing.
8) Rinse the parts, put it back together, give it a final rinse and back in the tank – looking like brand new.
I don’t like removing all the pumps at the same time from the tank, especially for a 2 hours soak so I rotate through them. You can reuse the vinegar for days so take your time if you need to (do 1 pump per night for example).
Basically it should turn this
Into this (it looks a little patchy because it is wet and was drying – in real life it looks like new). You can also see some of the scratches from before I found the vinegar bath trick.
Some people prefer to dilute the vinegar and soak overnight. I have also soaked overnight in straight vinegar with no adverse affects.
Oh – and I nearly forgot. For the heaters just get a piece of 40mm PVC and glue and end cap on it. Stand it up, slide the heater in and fill – only takes a couple of hundred ml on Vinegar for a long 300W ehiem heater.
Good luck with it.
Feel free to add any tips you may have picked up along the way.
