Scrap and start over? And why is this nasty creature in my tank?

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Annaliesa

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My previous experiences with cycling fish tanks were limited to taking established media + fish + shiny new tank = fish home. I've been successful at that. However, my established fish tank had a massive amount of algae I did not want remotely near my new tank (do not break open moss balls in your tank...yeah, should have known better), so I thought I would take a crack at fishless cycling for my new 29 gallon tank.

Please forgive my slew of ignorance. And for the record, my established tank is nice and happy - I had to prioritize.

I was two weeks in when I ran into a slew of personal issues (namely physical ones that prevented me from lifting buckets of water), and so I let the tank sit. Ew, right? That was three weeks ago. I had play sand for substrate and water. Very hard city water, though hopefully low on chlorine.

Thanks to the wonders that is the human body's ability heal, or modern medicine's cornucopia of pain medication, I finally took a deep breath and looked in the tank I was cycling with the intent to clean it. I had the filter turned off (gets worse and worse, right? In my defence, we had a broken furnace and were stuck using space heaters in our old house with weird circuits - kept power usage to a minimum). I was turning the light on daily, but trying not to look.

Today I see biofilm, viscous-looking bubbles, and what looks like a copepod. So here are the questions:

1. For the love of all that is holy, why do I have a creepy invertebrate when I did not put any plants or fish or fish tank water or used media or used substrate in this tank? Are these things in my drinking water? My chlorinated, city tap water? Do I need to start boiling my water? Distilling? Spiking with grain alcohol? Ew, ew, ew. OK, so I'm a baby.

2. Since the tank sat and has a nasty viscous coating, do I need to be draining, pulling apart, and bleaching? I'd rather not kill anything by way of toxic bacteria when I hopefully have a nicely cycled fish tank in two months or so.
 
Honestly I would just throw something in there that will eat the algae and will probablly eat the copepod too. Maybe a 50% water change to eliminate any kind of high nitrates
 
You need to drain the tank as low as possible and refill, run filter, and leave the lights off for a few days. Do another good size WC then. Also pick out the "nasty" if possible during a WC and try to see if there are any others. Also if you are wanting to have a cycled tank you are going to have to start dosing ammonia to do a fishless cycle... try reading these articles:

The (almost) Complete Guide and FAQ to Fishless Cycling - Aquarium Advice

Tips and Tricks For Your Fastest Fishless Cycle! - Aquarium Advice
 
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