Need help fast

[55newbie]

ok so as the name implies, I am fairly new at this and I have a 55 gal that was up and running for the entire year, some parasite has caused all of my fish to die,I thought it was ICH because I saw the fish scraping up against the gravel and objects in tank, so I treated with medicine for that, raised temp all to NO avail, all fish are gone and I find myself starting over,how long should I wait to start again, should I do an entire water change, 50% ? any advise would be greatly appreciated ...

 

[Samzter]

Take out the substrate , give it a good rinse in boiling,hot water , do a 50% wc. And make sure to give all the ornaments a wash and clean the sides of the tank. By doing the gravel thing though you can lose some beneficial bacteria

 

[55newbie]

thanks for the advise, by boiling the gravel and losing the bacteria, how long should i wait before getting started again ?

 

[Samzter]

Do you mean before adding fish?

 

[Samzter]

If so maybe a week or two

 

[Mumma.of.two]

If you don't know the cause of the deaths it's advisable to sterilize the tank and start again. You don't want to potentially expose any new fish to why killed the old. Was the tank cycled? Did you test the water? The meds could have killed off the bacteria causing mini cycle.

 

[55newbie]

If you don't know the cause of the deaths it's advisable to sterilize the tank and start again. You don't want to potentially expose any new fish to why killed the old. Was the tank cycled? Did you test the water? The meds could have killed off the bacteria causing mini cycle.

so true ....so i should just start all over, never found the cause, the last couple of cory's i had appeared to have a small brownish spot in the head, but my gourmias had red fins and lips ..so IDK what is wrong...I will just start over , from scratch...