# Cleaning hard water stains



## Spicoli (Dec 11, 2012)

Further to my for sale thread, i've got a fishroom tank i just picked up with insane hard water stains/etching. So far i've had basically no impact on the overall look of the tank. These stains laugh off vinegar and water, or even straight vinegar. Windex does nothing. I'm down to my last options so i'm hoping someone here has experience with either options. 

Cerium oxide polish. problem is it's expensive anywhere i can find any is minimum 25 bucks. 

Barkeepers friend. Some cleaner that is supposed to kick butt on hard water stains. Biggest worry is instadead fish. so i'm hoping someone has used this successfully.

Opinions on what i've done wrong with vinegar are welcome, but i've tried the razor blade, vinegar and windex. no results barely at all.


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## Y2KGT (Jul 20, 2009)

According to a few members of this forum you can use Mr. Clean Magic Erasers to clean the glass. They're pretty cheap so you can give them a try.
http://www.gtaaquaria.com/forum/showthread.php?t=42192&highlight=magic

I would personally try laying the tank on its back and pouring some full strength vinegar and letting it sit on the hard water stain for an hour or so. If that works just do it again on the front and then the sides.
--
Paul


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## CapnCaveman (Jan 2, 2013)

Not too sure about Barkeeper's Friend. It's active ingredient is oxalic acid but the only thing I could find was this where it may be toxic to shrimp.

http://www.crustaforum.com/board/showthread.php?35-Oxalic-Acid

Have you tried heating the vinegar? I usually find it works better that way. Possibly place a cloth over the stain and pour near boiling vinegar on it and let it sit until cool. Works well on my sinks and we have terribly hard water here.


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## pyrrolin (Jan 11, 2012)

I have some fishroom tanks with terrible stains on the outside on one side of the tank and I tried soaking in vinegar for a couple days, didn't do much. I also tried using CLR because it was on the outside and it didn't do anything either. The tanks I have could be 10 to 20 years old by my guess.

If your tank is anything like the ones I have, you are probably out of luck.


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## Spicoli (Dec 11, 2012)

The only things i've found are the two above, and they seem like they work on everything so i'm gonna grab the BKF tonight and see how it works.


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## pyrrolin (Jan 11, 2012)

Let me know how it works please


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## Spicoli (Dec 11, 2012)

It worked so well i decided to paint the sides and back, now it looks great. !! lol
But seriously the barkeepers timewaster is OK, but it didn't cut it for me. I had paint laying around so i decided to paint the darn thing and it looks great. Will post pics later of finished filled and painted tank. Also thinking i should re seal it.


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## snaggle (Feb 19, 2010)

I have found the best is a razor blade and vinegar water, I also use a pot scrubber sponge and paper towel. I have never had too much of a problem with my tanks.


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## Fishfur (Mar 4, 2012)

I've bought quite a few older tanks. They always have hard water stains, which are not impossible to remove, using one acidic cleaner or another, but I find that they also tend to have permanent etching along the water line that no amount of cleaning can touch.

For hard water, I've used hot vinegar that's double strength [10%], CLR and even muriatic acid. If you can find it, citric acid also works quite well. Mr.Clean magic cleaning pads do a nice job of getting off bits of other gunk that's really stuck on the glass.

But nothing will work on spots that have actual etching, because etching is not a coating of something. Glass that's etched has had it's surface eaten away. The only thing that will restore the surface is to literally polish the etched areas with suitable abrasives until you restore the shine, just as you would polish any hard surface, like rock or gems or even plastic or paint or varnish.

There are plenty of abrasives out there that will do the job, but it is one heck of a lot of work. And once the tank is filled to or above the etched line, it virtually vanishes, so I just leave it as it is.


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## pyrrolin (Jan 11, 2012)

my two really bad tanks were probably originally from a LFS stock tank and the stains are on the outside over the whole glass. I am guessing there was no access to the back of the tank to clean it for many many years.


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## Ryan.Wilton (Dec 12, 2012)

HOT water and Vinegar. They work better together. Another option is hydrogen peroxide but you'd only be able to do that on the exterior if fish were in the tank. 

Final suggestion for when I have the biggest pain in the *** hard water stains to clean, a razor blade.


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## Newobsession (Nov 17, 2010)

Diatom powder works


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## skyedale (Mar 14, 2011)

*hard water build up- gone like a flash*

This is going to sound like an ad for this product but it really works. *Warning do not use Mother's Choice on anything other than glass .* The other product Pink Solutions can be used on just about all surfaces.

The stuff is called Mother's Choice and it came with a bucket of product called Pink Solution. I got the product at Costco but you can order it on-line from their web site. The web site is: https://pinksolution.ca 
Both products can be used without gloves. The other product Pink Solution does a great job as a glass cleaner for aquariums, plus a lot of other cleaning jobs.

I recently decided to clean the decommissioned glass tops for my 75 gal. I had taken the tops off for better light penetration. The tops had been sitting in the work room and all the gunk on them was dried out. My water is extrmely hard so the build up was quite heavy. I had given up on them because they were so built up. I figured since I was more than likely going to toss them there would be no harm in giving the Mother's Choice a try. It took me less than 30 minutes to clean the 4 pieces of the 75 gl top, 2- 20gl tops and a 36" top.

Steps I used:


Wet glass
Wet cloth
Add about a tsp of Mother's Choice to cloth or sponge
Rub cloth in circular motion covering all of glass 
Add more Mother's Choice as needed
Repeat above for other side of glass
Let sit for 3-5 minutes
Wet another cloth 
Wipe down glass
Rinse
This stuff got off scale build up that even CLR didn't make a dent in.

Hopes this helps and works for others.

Judi


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## Fishfur (Mar 4, 2012)

Very cool. I'd never heard of this product before. Any idea what the active ingredient is ?

Oh, never mind, I went and looked it up. Mother's Choice has pumice in it, which is an abrasive, and that is likely what took off the hard water buildup. Somehow I doubt it would work on glass that has actually been etched, unless it is so fine it can actually polish glass. But it sounds interesting, there's a store nearby that they say stocks it. I'll have to check it out.


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