Hard water stains

[joan]

What's a good way to remove hard water stains (lime-scale buildup), preferably organic/safe to use around the amphibs, as it would be a serious pain to remove them to clean the tanks. Scrubbing seems to be rather limited, lol.

 

[kelly]

Wondered that myself....got a thick line of it where the water evaporates and scrubbing it does nothing....don't like the line on my otherwise nice clean tank

 

[khanh]

what i do is lightly scrape it off with a razor,LIGHTLY, so it does not deal any scrathes to the tank. and after if there is still a line there i use vinigar, which helps a little bit.

 

[jennifer]

The razor blade is the only method I've found that really works. It's OK to use this with the animals in the tank, with the usual caveats about not cutting yourself or the animals. If you hold the blade at juuust the correct angle to the glass (trial and error), you can get most of the scale off nicely.
http://www.caudata.org/people/JM/pics/divtank3.jpg

 

[jeffrey]

I actually have good results with the algae scrapper I have. Mag-Float. Clears the lime scale better than it clears algae.

 

[edward]

If the lime scale is left on too long it will etch the glass and will always be somewhat visible..

Ed

 

[ken]

Mine's all above the water level in my tank so I just put a blue backing behind it and pretend it's clouds.