Do I need to "disinfect" my aquarium now?

LindaD

LindaD

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Jan 6, 2000
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Ontario, Canada
I lost all my fish from an internal parasite, and moved the one survivor into my 10g. I didn't see ANY symptoms until it was too late. I noticed stringy white feces on the last fish I lost. They basically just stopped eating and died within 12-24 hours. With no visable symptoms, other than the last fish showing white feces.

I'm worried about re-stocking the aquarium and re-infecting any other fish. I've been looking for pure ammonia to start the tank over without much luck. So if possible I'd like to keep the filters seeded at least. Unless of course they may be harboring some nasties.

What do you all think? Should I do a complete takedown of this tank and disinfect everything?

Thanks.
 
if it were me, I would. Especially now since you've got no fish left and you saw evidence of some kind of parasite on the last fish to go. What are your plans of disinfecting it? What will you be using?
 
If was thinking hot water and bleach on the tank, all decor, filters and media. Rinse well, and let everything dry. Then fill the tank back up, use lots of dechlor and fishless cycle the tank.

I'm pretty sure I found some pure ammonia. There is no ingredient list on the bottle though. But it's clear and doesn't foam when shaken. It's Goldex brand..
 
You could also nuke the tank with a mega-dose of ammonia... then do like a 90% water change to get it back down to 5 ppm... I don't know if it'd work but it's an idea I just had, so remember to view it as such.
 
The feedback on bacteria-in-a-bottle (at least some brands) is good. You could try that.
 
yikes!! I think it might be better to follow the plans of disinfecting Linda. Chico, I'm not confident that nuking the tank with ammonia would kill anything left behind.... then doing a 90% water change, then getting your level back into the 5 range while going for the fishless cycle would do it...... it wouldn't feel "cleaned up" to me..... maybe because I'm in the mid of a fishless cycle and am amazed at the snails doing just great with the levels..... who woulda thought. I just think you would save a lot of time and possible aggravation by cleaning the whole thing out since you are going to be cycling anyway..... and here's your chance to change a few things around such as substrate, deco, plants.... you name it!
 
I'm not confident that nuking the tank with ammonia would kill anything left behind....
Click to expand...

Don't worry I'm not either :p

Bleach would definitely work though. I hear good things about oxy-clean as well.
 
disinfect

As long as there's nothing alive left in the tank. I would remove the media from the filters and either disinfect it seperately or discard it. Then add bleach up to a 10% solution with the filters running. Stir up the gravel several times and make sure the solution circulates freely around & through any ornaments. Being paranoid, I would leave it this way for at least a day. Then gravel vac/siphon as much out as you can and refill with new water. After letting the new water circulate through the empty filters for a couple of hours, i would again gravel vac/siphon out as much as you can and refill with fresh water , add dechlorinator, stir up the gravel a couple of times swish the ornaments around and after an hour, drain again & refill. Add dechlorinator. If you chose to disinfect the filter media, make sure that you dechlorinate it very well. After that , if the tests come back okay, the tank is ready to start over.
 
I agree with fishpoor. A bleach solution (aqueous sodium hypochlorite) is about as powerful a disinfectant as you can find, and can easily be removed to nontoxic levels by sunlight, water dilution, and time. If you want to be sure everything's gone for good, bleach is the surest and safest way to do it. It's surprising how safe bleaching is, considering how powerful a detergent/antimicrobial Sodium Hypochlorite is.
 
Thanks all. I'll go ahead and bleach everything. But I think I'm going to completely tear it down and scrub everything. I want to make sure I nuke every last bit of the parasite.

Now I just hope that the ammonia I bought it safe for fishless cycling.
 
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