20 gal tank help

[sfaber]

I have a 20 gal tank that's been in use for about 15 years now. I has a single cichlid in it for the last 8 or so and it was doing just fine. I recently gave him up because I wanted the tank for a nursery. I put 8 african cichlid fry in it who were a couple weeks old. They all died in a two week period. Afterwards I used the tank to house an adult African who was getting bullied pretty badly and this fish did great in there. I most recently used the tank for a juvenile masked Julie. He appeared fine for a few weeks but then quit eating. I moved him to the main tank and he's behaving perfectly normal now. So, obviously my 20 gallon tank has some water perimeter off. I also have a pretty bad algae problem in there. I'm thinking of draining the tank, scrubbing it all down and just starting over. I'm guessing it would need a period afterwards for the bacterial colonies to reestablish, but that's fine cause I don't have any fry to worry about currently. Would a complete scrubbing of the tank be advisable, or is there a better option to get it into condition for raising fry?

 

[mommytron]

starting from scratch would be the best option, IMO. take it all down, scrub everything (vinegar and hot water or a diluted bleach solution) and rinse extremely well. you say you have an established tank as well? steal a hunk of it's filter media and add it to the new media in the 20g to kick start the cycle. read up on the cycling threads if you haven't already. with enough seed material you could cycle the tank pretty quick.