Tank Steralization

[carsona246]

So I'm releasing a wild caught green tree frog I've kept in my tank in favor of some reed frogs that would be more suited to the tank setup. The problem is the current setup is half water, and half vivarium, so I'm going to have to sterilize everything to make sure the tank is safe.
I was wondering if anyone knew if I had to worry about the new frogs catching anything from the water. I do have some filter media from other tanks I can use to seed a new tank cycle wise, but it would be very simple if I could just re-use the same media and not have to juggle with my filter media.
If I was planning on using the same Pothos as before, would I need to dip the pothos roots in bleach(the roots are submerged for filtration), or just the vine part? The roots also hold beneficial bacteria, so ideally I would not have to bleach those.
Current plan is to tear down the whole tank, move my pygmy cories to a quarantine tank, and just bleach everything that has come into contact with the frog with a 10% solution. The only problem with this is that includes the sand at the bottom and filter media. Would it be ok if I did not wash these two with bleach, and just let them run in the quarantine tank?

[carsona246]

decided to just do bleach treatment on everything(1:20 solution) and will just replace the sand. I'll just seed the tank with some filter media from another tank.

[carsona246]

First time I've ever bleached anything, and it's a lot stronger than I thought a 1:20 solution would be. I decided not to bleach the aquatic plants(wisteria, java moss, guppie grass, and hornwort) because I thought it would totally destroy all my plants. I'm assuming that a little bit of water from the old tank will still be in the new setup anyways(bag of water with fish), so not bleaching the plants wouldn't hurt that much. Is this ok? Just want to make sure there is no chance the new frogs could catch anything

[Mentat]

Sorry if sound like the devil's advocate; but sterilization is a do 100% thing or not. The plants, catfish, a milliliter of water, filter media... anything that came from your previous enclosure that is not bleached, baked, etc. can harbor any pathogens present in old set-up.

The ideal process is to quarantine any new frogs in a hospital like set-up for at least 30 days while a new vivarium is settling down and maturing a bit. The future enclosure (and all none porous decor/equipment) can be cleaned with bleach or Wipe Out. Wood and stones (including filter sintered glass media) can be baked for 1 hour at 250F and leave in oven to cool down through the night.

If reusing plants they should be soaked in a mild bleach solution (as in vivarium section for concentration) and all substrate discarded. Still, I'm not sure if aquatic plants will survive bleach. In case of a known pathogen; would recommend discarding all plants and starting with new ones.

This is probably not the answer you were expecting; but is the only way to minimize risk to new frogs and also prevent the new frogs from bringing any diseases into your redone enclosure. Good luck !

[carsona246]

I ended up just doing a plant swap to be on the safe side. I didn't have a terribly safe way to sterilize the cories, so I just used as little water as possible to introduce them. I don't think I'll need a hospital tank considering these are the only frogs that will be introduced into the tank.
Tank should be all sterilized and ready to go now.
A handy trick I learned for anyone doing this in the future is to dose double the amount of dechlorinator in the tank after using bleach to insure all of the bleach is neutralized. I rinsed everything in a 1/20 solution of bleach and let it sun dry for the majority of the day. Rinsed everything completely, then filled up the tank and put everything inside of it and dosed double the recommended amount of dechlorinator. Then drained/rinsed it one more time before filling it the final time.

[deranged chipmunk]

aquatic plants,with the exception of the moss, will survive a mild 1:20 bleach dip easily. all my aquatics get a bleach dip before going into any of my planted tanks or vivs. but i only use it to kill snails. mosses are a bit more sensitive to bleach and i usually use a 1:40 solution for those.