advice please...

[frogger]

I have a 55g I use for a Q tank. I was q'ing a butterfly and a bicolor goby. the butterfly died a couple of weeks ago after having a white fuzzy thing on his back. After he died, there were very tiny things slithering across its body (holding in hand.)
The goby was looking good when all of a sudden, whamo. gone. no signs of disease except an overly large belly.
My question is what should I do with my Q tank? Should I let it sit for 3 weeks (or longer) without getting another fish? Should I medicate with something to kill whatever is in there?
Tanks!

 

[kris]

Sorry about your fish Good tthing you had them in the qt though and not in your display I would dump that whole qt and everything in it. Wash it out real good then restart it toatlly new if you need it again.
Good Luck

 

[frogger]

what I had planned on doing was using the 55g as a Q tank when I get new fish. However, in the meantime, I was planning on putting hardy fish in their to keep it going. It is empty now though. So if I emptied and started over, will it need to recycle?? It's a tru-vu with an overflow inside. Basic bio ball with fiber rolls. #1 sand with dead/bleached decorative corals. No LR or LS. Currently doused with copper.
Tanks!!

 

[frogger]

what I meant by empty now is in regards to fish. full of water and fully cycled.

 

[wolfeel]

I would break down the whole system, bleach and dechlorinate all equipment. You need to start over from scratch as far as cycling. For both fish to kick it so quickly...there was a problem in the tank! No sense in potentially harboring parasites for future fish! For an effective quarantine tank you only need hiding places/structure for the fish. Don't bother with substrate or dead coral heads. PVC pipe and fittings are great structure and won't interfere with medications. You want to be able to treat your new fish as necessary and it sounds like all the rockwork in your tank could cause problems if you had to copper for example.
Sorry to hear about your fish, but aren't you glad that you did quarantine them!?
wolfie

 

[ak_reefer]

I agree with what everyone else had to say about dumping out everything and starting all over. The one thing I do not agree with is using bleach to clean any of your equipment. I have never heard of anyone using bleach to clean any of there aquarium equipment especially your filters rocks or anything else. I think a good washing is what you will need. Just my .02 .

 

[crispcritr]

use a 10% bleach solution, kills evrything but is easy to clean up. any filter elements throw away

 

[wolfeel]

You can use bleach as a disinfecting agent for equipment (about 1tbsp/gallon). You can then use a dechlorinator, i.e. Amquel or STS to remove the chlorine. It is used by public aquariums as standard practice. Use two buckets one with bleach, one with Amquel. Soak (after scrubbing with tap water) your equipment in the bleach water for about an hour or so, then transfer all equipment to the other bucket with the dechlorinator. Let that soak for about an hour also. You should not smell any bleach. If you do, you did not use enough dechlorinator or didn't let it soak long enough.
You can also purchase disinfecting agents from pet supply or LPS,i.e Jungle Net Soak.
Regular tap water should work for the gravel and rocks, but I would dry them for a couple days in the sun to kill anything that may have survived the tap water.
wolfie

 

[ak_reefer]

Wow I guess you learn something new everyday. I still dont think I would use bleach, but thats just me.