Do you clean your temperature sensors?

[CampAquarium]

Doing some deep cleaning on our equipment and realized that I’ve never cleaned the temperature probes that drop into our display tank. We have 2 Inkbird heater controllers running titanium heaters, so 4 total temperature probes. They appear to be working just fine, but the probes themselves are coated with a fine algae.

Are you supposed to clean these probes? If so, how? I don’t want to scratch or otherwise damage them, but also don’t want to be setting us up for a slow-brewing temperature catastrophe if they don’t function correctly with an algae coating.

 

[blaxsun]

Every now and then (3-6 months) or if I happen to notice they have a lot of buildup on them.

 

[CampAquarium]

Every now and then (3-6 months) or if I happen to notice they have a lot of buildup on them.

What cleaning method do you use? Wipe them down? Soak in something? Etc

 

[Gtinnel]

My longest InkBird is going on 4 years and I’ve never cleaned mine.

 

[blaxsun]

What cleaning method do you use? Wipe them down? Soak in something? Etc

Just brush them off with a toothbrush while it's in the sump. If I have some heavy duty buildup/encrusting I remove and soak in some EzeClean for a few hours, brush, rinse thoroughly and return.