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View Full Version : how do you clean and maintain your pipes


hoooop54
03/30/2013, 07:24 AM
I am curious on how people clean and maintain your pipes. I am moving my 90 gallon tank to my basement before a new tank arrives in about a month. I will eventually sell the 90 gallon, but would like to do a good cleaning of the flexible pipes before I sell it. On my new tank, I will be using PVC. So how do you clean the flexible pipes and maintain the PVC?

bnumair
03/30/2013, 07:36 AM
on a broke down tank u can dip the flex pipe in vinegar water but n a running tank i dont do any cleaning on pvc pipes.

saltysailor2329
03/30/2013, 08:37 AM
+1^

hoooop54
03/30/2013, 10:59 AM
So I dip the flexible tube in vinegar/water mix? Do I soak it for a time period? Do I need to run anything through the tubes to clean or will the vinegar mix do the trick?

Sk8r
03/30/2013, 11:01 AM
Vinegar will do it: takes about 24 hours, and when done, whack the pipe against something to jar loose any bits that remain, and rinse.

Caronte
05/16/2013, 12:45 AM
And for those of us who are not moving our tanks, How often is recommended to clean the pipes or replace the hoses from the return pump?

asylumdown
05/16/2013, 02:15 AM
I'm not sure that replacing or cleaning those things is ever 'recommended'.

You'd need an awful lot of bacterial mulm build up in your pipes to really need to worry about it. I can maybe see some people with very small small pipes who dose liquid carbon needing to worry about this over the life-time of a tank, but I have yet to see a thread in which someone with a 10 year old tank posts about how their narrowed, sludge filled pipes caused any real or noticeable problems.

Your pipes are one of the few places in your system you can guarantee that no detritus will ever build up. At the most you'll get bacterial mulm that sloughs off when it gets too dense and sponges/tunicates that are adapted to the highest possible flow conditions. I doubt you'll ever experience system issues because you didn't clean your pipes.

Not cleaning your return pump.... that's another story.

Savant
05/16/2013, 05:41 AM
Vinegar will do it: takes about 24 hours, and when done, whack the pipe against something to jar loose any bits that remain, and rinse.

Hmmm.... thats how my wife tries to get the money out of me thats left over after a visit to the LFS. I didnt know it worked for cleaning plumbing as well :headwally: