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Depends upon how thick the rust is...
Minor rust patches with mostly clean metal can be removed with phosphoric acid (Naval Jelly). Can be found at Home Depot as concrete-cleaner/rust remover. This is only acid with preferential attack on rust while leaving good metal alone. Follow instructions on bottle. It leaves a mildly protective phosphate coating. Coat with POR-15 sealant.
Thicker rust must be physically scrubbed off. Many people dump handfuls of nuts & bolts, chains, etc. into tank and spin on tumbler for several hours. Then do chemical process above to finish job.
There's also electrolysis method for really bad rust. I haven't had rust bad enough that neded that method. Although in my more ignorant younger years, I've cut out bottom of tank to wire-wheel & sand off all rust. Then brazed bottom back on.
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