Tuberculosis

[rtroxel]

A blue gourami of mine died recently of old age and tuberculosis. I'm sure these were the causes because I'd owned him for 8 years and his body had become bent.

He had been quarantined in a tank by himself, and I read recently that the tank should be sterilized to prevent the TB from infecting future fish.

How do you sterilize the tank? Won't that kill all the bacteria, plus make it poisonous for any future fish?

Thanks for any advice.

Roy

 

[wabyrd]

You can use a disinfectant to sterilze the tank, but you need to rinse the tank VERY, VERY, VERY well with water when done. I can't tell you how important it is to get the residual disinfectant out of the tank. If you have a small tank this is easy. It's a little tougher on a larger tank. I used Lysol on the last one I had to clean and it's up with a new family of guppies now with no problems. Of course I rinsed with about 5,000,000 gallons of water to make sure it was clean.

 

[rtroxel]

Thanks for the advice, but...Lysol??? That's scarey. Is it really necessary? This is a 44-gallon tank.

Roy

 

[shawmutt]

Bleach water works, 3/4 cup to every gallon of water--the surface must remain wet with bleach water for 2 minutes. What I do as a final step to tank cleaning is lay the tank on the side, the ridge on the top keeps the water in (this obviously won't work if the ridge is cracked or broken). I do one glass panel at a time. Rinse well after you are done, until you can no longer smell bleach. If you still are wary, use a little extra dechlorinator in the water when you fill it.

 

[tkos]

Bleach is good as it will evapoarte leaving water and salt behind. And a good decholrinator will help as well. Just make sure to give the tank serveral days before resetting it up. And also make sure to buy pure bleach, not one that has extras in it like colour guard and such.