Resetting up tank

Question
Hi, we moved and totally took down our freshwater tank.  It has been empty for about 3 months.  What should we do to resetup the tank?  Would rinsing and scrubbing everything be enough?  Then running it for a few days before adding a few fish?  Or do we need a cleaner/soap?  Should we throw out the gravel?  Thanks!

Answer
Hi Eden,
As long as the tank hasn't been contaminated and never had a fish illness in it before than a good plain water rinsing and scrubbing  (if needed) is all that is necessary. You shouldn't have to throw out the gravel and just give it a good rinsing as well.

Never use any chemicals or soaps in your tank. The residues are very toxic to fish.

Setup the tank as you would normally. Find a good place for it, put in your pre-rinsed gravel, fill the aquarium up with lukewarm tapwater (dechlorinated with a good water conditioner), add any decorations, add your filter and heater, and let the tank and equipment run for about a day or so. Then you can decide between fish cycling or fishless cycling. Fishless cycling means to cycling the tank by using either PURE ammonia or using fish-food to provide the ammonia source to get the bacteria started. This method is slightly faster and much more humane than cycling with fish.But the disadvantages to it are you can't have any fish in the tank for many weeks and it can be tricky to do.

Cycling with fish is really no problem as long as you follow a few simple rules-
*Add only a few small hardy fish like barbs, Danios, or Black skirt tetras...
*Test the water everyday for ammonia and nitrites
*Do a 30-50% water change whenever the ammonia or nitrites go above safe bounds. This is to insure the fish are not harmed by the rising levels.

*When your ammonia and nitrites have dropped to ZERO then you can start to gradually build up your tank population. Add only several small fish per week or so. And it helps just as a precaution to test for ammonia the day after adding the new fish. Usually it will be OK but if you do get a mild spike, then do a 50% water change and the problem should resolve itself.

I really hope this helps and best wishes!!!
Karen~