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Hey, my older brother left a 55 Gallon tank, and it really needs to be cleaned. IT has no fish in it just Brown nasty water and every where.

Can some give me instruction and tips on cleaning this tank perfectly?
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Basically if you want to be safe give it complete strip down. Water that old isnt worth preserving, it wont be cycled, just full of harmful bacteria, so start by ditching that.

To give bacteria no refuge, take everything out, put the gravel in buckets or some other container, and wash the tank in the yard or wherever with a limescale removing bleach and a sponge that isnt too abrasive. Let the limescale remover do the heavy work. Rinse it very , very well and towel dry it.

The gravel itself can be ditched and replaced with new or placed in a 5 % bleach solution, put a pair of marigolds on and mix the hell out of it and run hot water through it until it runs clear. Just when you think youve rinsed it enough, rinse it again.

Take the filter apart, ditch the media and replace it with new. Wipe down as much of the filter as you can making sure if the impellor is accessable and clean that too. Put the filter in a bucket with 25 bleach solution and run it for a few minutes, then put it in a clean bucket of water to get the bleach off it again.

Leave every thing to dry for at least a day to let harmful bleach vapours evaporate off, and then refill, put it all back together.

That should have killed just about anything harmful that could conceivably be on it, and the glass should be restored to its former sparkling glory.

Should be just about ready to cycle the tank after that.

Id never trust a dirty tank, no matter who it came from, just too much disease risk to just give it a gravel vac and an algae scrape. Id gut it and start again.

Pictures aren't working for me but if it has no fish chances are it would be best to just strip it down and start over. Suck out any water, scoop out the gravel, and haul it the tank out into the yard and spray it down with a hose. Then I usually wipe them down with vinegar and spray again before setting them back up inside. You can also reuse gravel if you rinse it out good. If you want perfect I'd also get a razor blade and scrape down all the glass to remove algae before wiping with the vinegar. I cleaned my 90g that way since it was too difficult to get it out into the yard and back again. I scraped with a razor blade, scrubbed off what was left using vinegar, and finished by wiping it off with distilled water on a clean washcloth. Much easier though if you can spray it with a hose.

Pretty gross tank Marvin..
basically everything mentioned above is good advice..
im guessing your new to the hobby so let me say welcome and good luck.. now on to business.
its important and worth repeating.. rinse very very well.
very very wellvery well.
solution of bleach can be safe if diluted and rinsed well..but note do not use any other detergents, ever.. its a good rule of thumb to never let any thing that goes in a fish tank,(gravel, plants, filter, net, thermometer)come in contact with detergents.
one thing i would do differently ..and maybe im just crazy like that, is that i would boil my gravel rather that chemically clean it ...(making sure i slowly heat and cool it)..

Boiling gravel may remove the coating and at the least that will take off any color at worst it may cause the gravel to raise the ph. Not all gravel is actually inert but covered in a coating to keep it from affecting the water.

Vinegar is safer than bleach, kills just as much bacteria, and being acidic breaks down hardwater deposits much better than bleach. Having very hard water I always use vinegar. Takes alot less scrubbing.