How to kill off all microrganisms in tank??????

[Flutterby21782]

I think I still have a parasite in my tank. I want to know what I can do that will kill everything in my tank. I put the remaining fish in a QT tank. Can I OD the tank on strong meds, something to that effect. Thanks in advance.

 

[JDogg]

IME (after removing ALL FISH AND PLANTS) Peroxide will kill everything, even the good bacteria 2 oz or so for every gallon of water...it has the added benefit of turning to water after a few hours....

if your goal is to kill everything, this should do it....never though i would recommend it though :?

 

[tkos]

Remove everything imporant and let the tank dry out.
or
Remove everything important and rinse the tank with bleach solution then use dechlorinator and lots of rinses to clean tank.

But make sure to medicate the fish since they will most definatley being carrying what ever it is with them.

 

[toddnbecka]

Copper sulfate solution (Had-a-Snail) will kill any inverts, but not bacteria. What specific parasite/s are you trying to eliminate?

 

[Flutterby21782]

I'm not sure what I'm trying to kill. I had a crayfish my fish killed and ate it after it molted, a few days after the fish that I know would have ate teh crayfish or somehow gotten bits by sifting through the sand started looking blah. A day later I had my first casualties, then by two days later I lost everyone that I was gonna lose. I waited and then put in a couple new ones, now they aren't looking great or have died.
I don't want to kill off everything, but I don't know how to make sure I kill off all parasite but not my bacteria.
I hope that makes sense. If not I'll elaborate after my nap, I'm exhausted.

 

[hc8719]

you want to kill parasites but not bacteria? thats a problem.

malachite blue will kill anything in the tank, but will also stain sillicone. i wouldnt recommend bleach, as it ruins sillicone after some time. if you have some filter media in another tank, put that in your qt tank, while you let everything dry out in the old one

 

[IceH2O]

Are you sure the remains of the crayfish didn't cause an ammonia and nitrite spike?

What are your water parameters?

What were the symptoms of the fish as they died?

 

[jsoong]

Pretty much anything you use will kill off the bacteria .... But since your remaining fish is in QT, you should be growing a new crop of bacteria there that you can use to reseed your tank. (I am assuming you started with a cycled QT).

If you must save your biobug, I would suggest taking your filter media out before treating the rest of the tank ... use H2O2 or bleach or concentrated salt solution (brine) - whatever you are comfortable with - to sterilize everything else. For good measure, I would also let everything dry out for a few days after.

Keep your biobugs alive by feeding it some ammonia in a seperate tank or container (kinda like doing a fishless cycle with established media). Don't introduce any fish for a few weeks. Most parasites will die in the absence of fish (but not all), and you will have a more or less pure bio-bug culture at the end of this process.

I would not do the short cut of saving your bio-bugs in your QT ..... assuming that your fish in the QT are healthy, you would not want to introduce whatever it was that was left in your tank.

 

[Flutterby21782]

I know it wasn't a spike, I had tested my water afterwards. He wasn't dead for very long, I went to work everyone was fine, I came back and I found part of the crayfishes tail. My readings are in the "myinfo" part I'm anal about keeping my specs there.
So far I'm liking the H2O2 and the malachite, along with drying everything out, the best I can. Sand is kinda hard to dry out all the way.
Thank you all for the suggestions I'll peroxide and drain out my tank tomorrow morning.

 

[SeymourFRESH]

how about a UV sterilizer?

those can help out a lot without having to drain the tank, take decorations out, or kill bacteria

 

[Flutterby21782]

If I can find a reasonably priced one that could be an option. Anyone have any suggestions for one with a Fluval 403 canister filter.