starting again?

[Guest]

Well i had my fish tank running with fish for about 3 month's then my filter died on me, and i had to buy a new one. during the time of the new filter, the nitrate had a huge spike, resulting, in all my fish from dieing over the next month from such things as "internal problems", and "NTD" and "ICH" and finrot and pop eye, anyway i did everything i could and sadly no luck. So my question is, i wont to start again but how do i disinfect everything, such as the gravel, filter, tank, rock, ect

any advise would be great.

cheers
Andy

 

[dskidmore]

If you can leave the tank empty for two months, most everything that uses a fish as part of it's life cycle will die off. (feed the tank a serving of fish food every week to keep the biological filter alive.)

Do you have live rock in there, or is absoluely everything in the tank dead? There are more stringent methods that could be used, but they will result in you having to re-cycle the tank, so you might as well just be patient.

 

[Guest]

nah its not live rock, and anyway i did a dose of crustacean and its got ride of the bio anyway so i was thinking of just washing it with hot water but that's difficult with the gravel ect, any other suggestions?

 

[dskidmore]

Some people would hang me for this:

You could use bleach. 5% solution, set for one hour. Use a pure bleach without scents or colors in it.

The trick is getting the bleach back out. You have to rinse really well, then overdose with a chlorine detoxifier, rinse, repeat, until there is no trace of clorine left.

I still vote for just leaving it be for a couple months. Much safer.