Newbie Help with Cycling, Questions about water changes

[michaels]

Question about Bacteria infections

My whole 29 Gal tank is infected all my fish have cloudy eyes , my parrot Cichlid seems to have a swim bladder infection , she has been upside down for 3 days I am amazed she was still alive this morning.
I have placed her in a 10 gal hospital tank and medicated with melafix and pimafix (great stuff by the way Thanks Tankgirl for that advice)
She seems to be swimming right side up after just a few hrs in the hospital I checked on her just minutes ago and she has more strenght and has taken food after 3 day's
Since I cant place everybody from the 29 gal tank in the hospital I have been treating the 29 gal tank.
Here is my questions

Will the bacteria ever go away with treatment?

Shall I clean out the tank and boil my gravel and rocks to sanitize the tank? And basically start from scratch?

How can I clean my plastic plants? Can I use rubbing alcohol to clean out the tank and sterilize the plants?

Is it safe to use bleach?
The 29 gal tank has it bad should I just treat the tank and over time the bacteria will get whiped out? Or should I just sterilize everything and start again?

 

[TankGirl]

If you are dealing with cloudy eyes then I would treat with a broad spectrum antibiotic (like Maracyn) and that should take care of the bacteria in the tank and on the decorations, if you follow the treatment as directed. It also might "take care of" your good nitrifying and denitrifying bacteria in the process, so you might initiate a cycle after treatment, but in a well established tank this is not always the case. Daily water changes prior to dosing is a good idea, and cut back just a bit on feeding.

If your round of treatment fails, then you might want to consider nuking the tank and starting over, which would mean washing the whole tank, decorations, gravel, filter chamber, etc. with a weak bleach solution, then rinse, rinse, rinse, rinse...... and overdose with dechlor in the filled tank. Then you will need to cycle the tank again. I hope that won't be necessary, but sometimes it is, unfortunately.

Good luck!