tank problem

[nitrous]

well now my 15 gallon is relatively empty from my 1st real fish mishap. i thought it was ich but it turned out to be marine ich just for brackish fish idk if its different but they had all the symptoms, well now my 2 puffers are dead and all that is in the tank is 1 tetra, 1 black apple snail and a plant along with decorations,

well to not spread this ich to the other fish i put in their i think ima need to redo it,

should i buy a new filter cartridge, get new gravel, clean the ornaments off real well and clean everything else. do i need to do all of this and also what should i do with my plants and bio balls?

 

[TankGirl]

I don't know how marine ich is treated, and perhaps you could post over in the SW forum, but what I would do is heat treat the tank for about two weeks to kill off the parasite. The plants are not going to be thrilled but they should bounce back. Get your heat up to 86F and leave it there, and that way you don't have to "nuke" the tank and start all over with a cycle.

 

[nitrous]

so what just keep it hot and then all the bad parasites in the tank should go away and be fine for new fish even non brackish?

 

[nitrous]

or should i buy new gravel and new filter cartridge so im sure its all gone?

 

[TankGirl]

so what just keep it hot and then all the bad parasites in the tank should go away and be fine for new fish even non brackish?

If it is FW ich (I don't know at what point between fresh/brackish/marine the parasite is considered "marine ich") then yes, you treat the tank with heat and then you are good to go for whatever you decide to put in there. You need to do gravel vacs with PWCs every two days or so during treatment to collect eggs that settle in the substrate, and you might want to lower your water level to create splashing during treatment since oxygen concentrations go down as the heat rises.

If this is full marine ich then I am not sure if the above treatment will work.

 

[TankGirl]

or should i buy new gravel and new filter cartridge so im sure its all gone?

If you buy new gravel and a new filter cartridge you will suffer a cycle in the tank, which will be hard on the fish you have left, plus there could be parasites left behind. If you pulled out all of the gravel you could simply soak it in boiling water or treat it with a weak bleach solution. But then you'd probably leave behind cysts in the tank, so then you'd have to remove the fish and sterilize the tank completely, and that is a huge undertaking that would require cycling the tank again. Heat treatment will save you all of that trouble and will not kill your beneficial bacteria.

 

[nitrous]

alright ill just try keeping the keep up and i do have an air pump running so that creates good oxygen