Help! Smelly tank of death!

[fishycanuck]

Please help!
I just got back from two weeks' vacation. While away, all the fish died in my 25G. My neighbour, bless him, had been checking things every two days and  did his best - scooped out dead fish and used the python to remove most of the water. He noted that the filter was not working.
That was a week ago.... seems he missed some of the fish and the whole thing was very smelly. Nauseating, in fact.
I have removed all the gravel and rinsed the tank out several times. It now has a few inches of white vinegar sitting in it.

How do I clean things now? Is it safe to use hydrogen peroxide? Plain ammonia? Or just lots of vinegar? I need to clean the tank, heater, gravel and decorations. I'll look over the filter but assume that, after 3 years, it is beyond fixing.

Apart from anything else, what is really galling is that I had a buyer for the tank and all stock. That deal's off, obviously, but if I or anyone else is to ever use the tank again, I really need to deal with the smell.

[sas]

Oh dear , Sorry to hear of your mishap. No fun coming home to that for sure.

I personally like using this product for cleaning,   

http://www.presidentschoice.ca/LCLOnline/products.jsp?type=details&catIds=cat40002&catIds=323&productId=19519

The above cleaner is just a stronger concentration of hydrogen peroxide mixed with
citric acid and water.

I tend to soak items and then wash. You don't get the nasty chlorine smell with this cleaner,
and I find it does a great job.

Hope that's of some use?

[Dorrie]

I remember reading somewhere on the forums that it was ok to use hydrogen peroxyde even in the water of an active tank to combat algea, and I found this article on all the uses of hydrogen peroxyde in the aquarium to be quite informative: http://theaquariumwiki.com/Hydrogen_peroxide.

Hope this helps, and sorry for your loss

[fishycanuck]

Thanks! I've started with the peroxide "bleach". I see a lot of rinsing in my future! 

[sas]

Actually I find there isn't a lot of rinsing required, certainly not as
much if you were using regular bleach or javex.

I actually use peroxide in our water trough( for horses and goats) to keep nastiness and
algae away.
Hydrogen peroxide is a very unstable product and breaks down very
quickly.

Just think once you are all done you'll have a nice new tank that
begs to be restocked , even though it was to be sold.