how long should i keep my tank empty?

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Fahad1028

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Oct 17, 2010
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I have both ich and columnaris in my tank. I setup a 20 gallon hospital tank and put all my fish in there and am treating that tank with macaryn-oxy. My 40 is empty now so how should i go about cleaning that out? how long should i keep it empty for? Thanks in advance.
 
Personally, I would put all the fish down and nuke both tanks with a heavy bleach solution.
 
If the whole or most of the tank is sick, there is no point in moving the fish. Just treat them in their home tank. Now that it's empty, you should either dump everything in the 40g and bleach and restart or treat that tank.
You will have to bleach the 20g after you move the fish out too though.
I would of kept the fish in their original tank and treated them all there...
 
Will I have to bleach the filter, gravel, and plants? How would I bleach the gravel and plants? A couple of my fish don't have any signs of ich or columnaris but I am assuming its still on their body so I don't want to put them down because they do look healthy.

How do I bleach the tank? Do I just fill it up with water and bleach and leave over night?
 
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Before I go out and buy bleach and other supplies, would it be better if i just bleached it all down or leave it empty until everything clears up?
 
so I went ahead and took the move. I bleached out my gravel, plants, net, and filter so far. I still have to bleach the tank. I emptied it but just too tired now to bleach it so I will that tomorrow. The rest of the things I bleached for about 30 mins and are now sitting to dry.
 
Ich will die off after a few days in an empty tank, but the columnaris will hang around for ages.

Nuke from orbit (bleach) is the best solution there and start again. You could treat it with a heavy dose of anti-biotics if there are no fish in there, but that will have the same effect as bleach on your cycle bacteria, so the bleach is cheaper.

Ian
 
Can I just let the tank dry out and not use bleach? will drying it out kill the columnaris or will I have to use bleach?
 
Not sure, but I would use the bleach anyway to be 100% sure. Many bacteria can survive drying out (as spores) and come back to life when you refill the tank.

Drying out will kill the cycle bacteria anyway, so some bleach wont make things any worse, and is not a problem in the future as long as you rinse well and/or let it dry out after using it.

Ian
 
okay, thank you. I will bleach the tank tomorrow then. Just to make sure, i have to let everything dry out after bleaching it before I set it back up, correct?
 
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