What is this?

I'm very sorry for your loss.

I just finished fighting off a horrid bacterial disease in my 55 gallon. I lost a lot of fish but I'm not adding anymore for a while. I want to make sure this stuff is gone.

I would wait at least 2 weeks before adding any new fish. The disease/parasite could still be in the water.
 
I was just ich, and some of them developed fungus. I have the tank temperature at 88F, and I'm still treating, and there are no more sources for it to drop from, it won't be able to survive. I am still giving it a few days justs to be careful, but I am confident that it is gone, or cannot survive at all.
 
I thought that once they dropped off, they became a cyst for 24 hours, then divided into 1024 new parasites, but need to attach to a fish within 24-48 hours? At the temperature my tank is, they can't even survive free swimming, let alone for a few days. Plus, I have the medication still going. I actually plan to add the fish in on Saturday, so just under a week.
 
They do hatch out in the substrate, but they may not all hatch at the same time. It could be over a period of several days.

That's why vacuuming the substrate helps a good bit, by removing the cysts that lay on the bottom.

The minimum should be 4 days after the last speck drops off, and that's if you don't have the heat and salt resistant Ich protozoan, as I did have. My tank was going 87 to 88 degrees, with .3% salinity, which is 3 level teaspoons per gallon.

I personally would go 10 days past the last visible speck.
 
Sorry about your loss, I lost several fish my self. Two days ago I did a massive water change 75% and started treatment with coppersafe and melafix. As of now the fish seem to be doing a lot beatter, my big Festivum is swiming around and looks a lot happier. He still has some white stuff on the tip of his fins butt overal looks better. I think they first got Ich and then Velvet since the white stuff looked less grainy the second time. Coppersafe treats for a full month so that should be enough time to kill the disease cycle. The tank is at 85 dgs, I keep you posted as the days go by...
 
Coppersafe and Melafix have done it, my fish are back to normal. I will wait two more weeks before adding carbon to the filters to get rid of the meds. Coppersafe treats for month so it should get rid of any left overs.
 
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