disinfecting equipment

[brennae]

So I went a little mad and now have to have several QT tanks running instead of just one because I recently acquired a couple new batches of fish from different places. I know one batch was exposed to ich. So my question is this. Can ich live in the sponge filter? If not how do I disinfect the sponge filter and tubing and what about disinfecting my siphon for cleaning? If I need to I can just use a turkey baster and a cup to change the water but then I still need to clean those items or do I toss them? Never had sick fish before and I don't want to spread anything between tanks.

Thanks!

 

[Fishfur]

Ich do grab onto surfaces during one stage of their life cycle, mostly the substrate, before they release all the free swimmers that infect the fish. But they can't live long if they don't find a host.

I would disinfect the sponge and tubing just to be careful. You could boil them briefly, or soak in some bleach/water and then rinse well, and soak in fresh water with a double does of dechlorinator just to be sure all the chlorine is gone.

Or, soak in really heavily salted water, at least overnight. Salt kills ich, but usually the dose can't be too high for the sake of the fish, so there's a limit to how much you can use. But without fish you can really salt the water, and table salt is fine too. I'd toss a couple of cups of salt in 5G bucket and stir it up well before soaking the things. Then a simple rinse is all you need.. squeeze the sponge out in fresh water to remove any salt that soaked in.

It may be a bit of overkill, but I figure better safe than sorry.

 

[brennae]

Luckily I don't have substrate in the qt tanks or I'd really be worried. I think if they turn out to have ich I will just through the sponge filter and tubing away. I have the temp at 80 degrees. They are corys, how long before ich would show up?

 

[bob mccoy]

i totally agree with fishfur. +1

 

[Fishfur]

If they have ich, you will start to see spots, white, like salt grains. Hard to say how soon, but if you raise the temperature of the water to 80 or more, it speeds up their life cycle, which makes treatment quicker. Read up on ich.. it helps to know the enemy. Let me see if I bookmarked that article I read on it.

Nope, not on this browser at least. But this is a link to treating ich in plecos. Cories are catfish too, so it's relevant.

http://plecoplanet.com/?page_id=436

Here's the ich article. http://www.cichlid-forum.com/articles/ich.php