What to do with a diseased tank?

[mooby]

I'd like some advice about a diseased tank I have. No, I don't need treatment advice.

All 30 of my fish died within about 3 days as a result of some sort of incredibly virulent fungal infection. My first question is this; what do I do with my tank? What's the best way to disinfect everything? Finally, and this may seem a little silly, but is it possible for this fungus to infect either me or my dogs?

Thanks in advance!

[TKOS]

Probably won't affect you or the dog but I would wash my hands really well. If it were up to me I would probably take the tank apart and use a mild bleach solution to clean everything, then make sure to wash well (without soap) and allow it to dry. Bleach will break down once dry, into a gas and salt. Then you will need to start the cycle again of course before adding more fish back in.

That is just the way I would do it. I am sure there will be other ways from other people.

[ewok]

it might actually be beneficial to figure out what the disease was before you go cleaning, but more than likely any way you would have to treat the disease would have wiped out the bio-filter anyway........ wondering if it was columnaris.

so, i would go with the bleach method too i suppose.

edit: when rinsing before use, you might want to use some dechlorinator to be on the safe side.....

[wetmanNY]

Well, my first question is, what was recognizably fungal about the way the fish died?

If it's Saprolegnia you're talking about, there's no way to eliminate it. It's like trying to get the kitchen so clean, that bread doesn't even go moldy.

Efforts at "sterilizing" an aquarium can't help being fruitless. You can't keep nature at bay.

[kveeti]

I once came across this article regarding sterilizing with chlorine. The author says her experiment wasn't scientific but it is very interesting, really deserves a read.

Excerpt: In older publications (20 years ago), bleach was commonly recommended as a cleaner. No claim was made about sterilizing. I suspect that somewhere along the line clean became synonymous with sterile.

http://www.mn-aquarium.org/masart35.htm

[ArkyLady]

I use 1 part bleach to 19 parts water. Don't use any bleach that is scented or anything, just plain ole 100% bleach. Don't use any types of soap or cleaners or anything like that, just rinse thoroughly with water and I use some dechlorinator in the rinse water just to be sure.

It may or may not actually kill all the bad stuff, but it makes me feel better anyway :)

[Mulla]

What about using alcohol? Something like Metholated Spirits (sp?).??

Just wondering....

[Dragon_Lord_Tia]

does the hell out of the tank then use a fish tank disinfectant you should be able to get at any LFS.

[mrbigisbudgood]

One thing that hasn't been mentioned is your rocks. I would ditch them or use them as some sort of landscaping and start over with new rocks. Cleaning will help them, but there are way too many nooks and crannies and other surface imperfections that you'll never get rid of everything. I guess you could always boil them to ensure all bacteria are dead?

[ewok]

Originally posted by Mulla
What about using alcohol? Something like Metholated Spirits (sp?).??

Just wondering....

i would be afraid of fire or cracking. alchohol ignites extremely easy, it has a very low flash point. another odd little thing i found by accident one day working on something was the evaporation of the alchohol (cool) on one side of a piece of plastic and the heat from my fingertips on the other side caused cracks. i would imagine this would also hold true for glass, especially in thinner sheets.

i know this might sound like some sort of strange blasphemy, but i wonder if an ammonia mixture would work. i use it around the house for alot of cleanups, it has a pretty high germ and bacteria killing property i think? :confused: if the tank is empty and being totally cleaned i'm not sure if it would ever affect your tank later. it also has a pretty good evaporative property so i think it would be gone pretty quickly if you left the tank to dry..... then rinse and start over.

anyone else want to chime in on this? this is sort of a wild thought that seems to make sense........

[wetmanNY]

When you rush to kill things in an aquarium it always helps to have a clear idea of what it is you're planning to kill.

Has the Invisible Nastie here mutated from a fungus, as it was first, to a bacterium?

Is something hiding in the rocks too?

What is the biology of this Invisible Nastie? What is it living on right now; what is it metabolizing? Or is it in a spore state, just waiting for a fish to swim by?

[mooby]

Thanks for the advice everyone!

Whatever killed the fish started out as tiny white spots over the entire body. Shortly thereafter, the fish would die. By the time I found them, they literally looked like a big cotton ball. I assume it was fungal, but I have no idea. I treated the tank with something branded as Super Sulfa and intended to treat 'white cottony growths'. Needless to say, it didn't work as expected.

I'm planning on throwing all the rocks, driftwood, and plants into the trash. I'm not going to take any chances on killing more fish. Bleach looks like the way to go, so I'll give the tank a good soaking. Any ideas on cleaning the filter (Fluval 404)? I want to fire it up with a bleach solution running through it for an hour or so to make sure I get everything. Will that damage any of the internal bits & pieces?

Thanks again!

[superjohnny]

What happens if he just dumps a cup of bleach in the tank and keeps it running?

If it's still running it'll clean the substrate, tank, filter heater etc shouldn't it?

I have a lot of plants in my aquariums so this wouldn't work for me... just a thought.

[125gJoe]

If bleach is too concentrated, will it affect the silicone joints of the tank?

[wetmanNY]

Wait up folks! Everybody's getting too radical here!

Mooby, this is what I think happened: Your fish were suffering from a single-celled parasite, Ichthyophthirius multifiliis You need to understand this parasite (it's a ciliate) and know how to eliminate it, to have fun keeping fish.

What you need to know right now, is that without a fish host, the parasite dies within a very few days, at aquarium temperatures.

The cottony "fungus" was Saprolegnia. It's everywhere all the time. But it only attacks fish tissues that are already compromised. Its regular "job" in the aquarium's ecology is breaking down dead tissues-- it's the same "halo" of fungus that surrounds a flake that the fish didn't eat.

The tank isn't diseased any more than a house is "ha'nted." Don't start over. Don't throw out the gravel. Don't boil the rocks. Don't fill the tank with alcohol and set fire to it.

I wish you'd look around at www.skepticalaquarist.com There are many links at the site, too.

Hope this helps.