What to do with a diseased tank?

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