My wonderful boyfriend killed our fish. :(

Question
He was doing a reg. clean on our 55 gal freshwater. And forgot that he cleaned the sink earlier that morning, with a cleaner that contains a lot of things you will find in gasoline, (not really but the big worded items) he was cleaning the plants (letting them soak) and it turned our tank into a death tank, 3am our fish started to start seizuring so i ran around got the 5 gal bucket and saved 3 of the 7 we had. Now the tank is looking like milk and very thick particles don't float. I want to clean the tank inside and get everything up and running again but i do not know what to use on the inside tank walls and filter hoses. please help my fish cant stay in the bucket forever. :(

Answer
OMG Amy, I'm so so sorry!  What a shame.  I'm sorry it took so long to get back to you, my 2 y.o. daughter has been real ill.

Wow, you're probably not going to like this answer, but I think you already know it in the back of your head.  In my opinion and how I would handle it if it were my tank, you are going to have to break your tank down and start from scratch.  I would empty the water, then throw away the gravel and everything else in the tank.  I don't know that you're going to be able to get the "gunk" off of the ornaments, etc., and I don't know that I'd want to chance it.  I would not normally suggest using soap, water and bleach on a tank, but in this case, I don't think there is much of a choice.  The key here is going to be scrub scrub scrub and then rinse rinse rinse rinse EXTREMELY well, (every crevice, nook & cranny).  I would then let it dry outside in the sun. It's important that you let the sun dry it (not you) because the sun will burn the rest of the bleach off.  After it's dry, I'd rinse again and make sure you don't smell anything funny, there is no film of any kind on the glass, etc.  Then I'd semi-dry it with paper towels to make sure I don't see anything on the paper towels.  I would replace all the hosing (not too expensive) and, to be honest, I would throw the filter out and get a new one.  Reason being, there are too many places on the filter that you cannot reach, even with a small brush.  I just don't think you can get it clean enough to use.  This is all totally up to you, but this is how and what I'd do if it were mine.  If you were to ask other opinions, I'm sure you would get many.  The main goal though is to get all of the "gunk" out of the tank.

I'd be happy to help you out along the way if you have any other questions or if I can help in any other way.  Please let me know how it works out.  Good luck!!   ;o)