mosquitoes in my fish tank

Question
Please help me... I have a 30 gal tank for 8 1/2 yrs, never had problems before, 8 months ago someone brought more fish and since then, water gets green, my beloved friends-including their babies- are gone... :(...every new fish dies.. I am reading your website and learned about over cleaning, and toomuch sunlight . this week I got mosquitoes!!!, I just took the last (2) fish out and empty the tank...what do I do now? how do I clean it to make it safe for a new gold fish family. I don't want to storage my fish tank :(

Answer
Hey Astrid,

If the tank is completely empty of all living animals, try using a new sponge and scrubbing the tank down real good every day for a week. mix the gravel around, scrub the glass, and clear out the filter a few hours after scrubs. Eventually, the majority of the algae will be filtered out, and a simple water change, reconditioning, and a few weeks to let the bacteria build up in the substrate again should be all you need.

Hope this helps, if not, you can add a capful or two of bleach and watch the algae turn brown and dead, then dump out the whole thing and start from scratch. Only, if you do this, add 3 times the tap water conditioner you'd normally use (or more) to clear out all the chlorine.

Best wishes!