What to do after fish die

[techrider62]

All the fish i had in my quarantine tank died from ich,can I keep the cycled media or should I just do away with it?I added salt to the water to treat the fish

 

[dalto]

The Ich will die off on its own without fish. Just crank the heat up as high as it will go.

You will need to leave it empty for a little while.

 

[Andy Sager]

The entire life cycle of freshwater ich is between 3 days (@75 degrees) and a month (@50 degrees) so if you don;t add fish back into the tank for that period of time, you should be okay leaving it alone. If you plan is to add fish immediately, I would break down the entire tank and start fresh.
If you can wait, I'd raise the temperature to about 86 degrees and leave it there for 3 days before reducing again. Between the heat and the salt you said you added, this should kill off any remaining parasites.
Here's a good article about the lifecycle of ICH. As you will see, it has 4 stages to it.
Freshwater Ich

Hope this helps

 

[techrider62]

Thanks for the replies.What do I do to keep my good bacteria live?

 

[Andy Sager]

Thanks for the replies.What do I do to keep my good bacteria live?

As long as you don;t cook the tank, they should survive the 86 degrees. Since there will be die off from the parasites, that will serve as the food source for now. Once completed, you will need to monitor the ammonia level once you add fish back in for quarantine. Since you should be not adding a large quantity of fish to any tank at one time, it shouldn;t be an issue once you add some fish back into the QT. If you don;t plan on adding more fish to the QT anytime soon, you can supply the ammonia source as if you were doing a fishless cycle. Just keep monitoring it so you see the conversion to eventual nitrates. Do appropriate water changes as nitrate levels demand.

 

[dalto]

The filter will stay alive for a while on its own. If it is going to stay empty for more than a couple of weeks you should add some pure ammonia.