Restarting a tank after yet another failure!

[Lmacbeth]

Hi,
I need help. A while back, I lost all the fish in my aquarium due to what I believe was 'White Spot'. I did treat the condition but it was obviously too late. The tank has been sitting idle for a while now as I didn't have the heart to start again. I didn't feel it was fair on the poor fish!!

But I also hate to see the tank just sitting there getting no use so I am going to try again.

I just want to know the best way of cleaning it out and reducing the chance of any disease remaining etc....

Any advice will be very much appreciated.......

 

[CRaZeeeBiTcHisH]

i recently cleaned a tank with bleach after a columnaris epidemic, and it has been up and running with fish for a couple weeks now and all seems well....you can use 1/10 of bleach to water--make sure you clean everything, pump, filters, ornaments, etc....i ran mine with the bleach water for a few days and then drained and rinsed, and rebleached to make sure i got all of the gravel stirred up in the bleach...i filled and drained it many times until i couldn't smell bleach anymore, then a few times more ( i am pretty paranoid, don't wanna kill any fishees ).then i filled it with water and a lot of dechlorinator and let that run for several days--be sure to clean anything you used with the tank to be safe-nets, etc. then i filled and drained a couple times more and put in my 'tester' fish--they were fine, so now i have it repopulated and haven't lost anybody yet...of course, you know that the tank will be completely devoid of the nitrifying bacteria, so you will have to fully cycle it again--do you check your water chemistry? it is very important, especially when cycling, because too high ammonia or nitrite levels can severely stress or kill your fish. (stress lowers the immune system and leaves them vulnerable to infections such as white spot, etc.) if you have an established tank that you can take some filter media out of to place in your filter , you will have a jumpstart to your cycle...hope this info in helpful, you may already be aware of it, but if not it should help you out some.

 

[Lmacbeth]

Hi, thank you so much for your advice, sounds great...... I willl definitely give it a go. To be honest, I hadn't been checking water chemistry, I tried to ensure a decent water change weekly... and kept the number of fish down. I will definitely invest in a water testing kit this time though, any particular brand/type you would recommend?
Some of my problem is that where I am in Ireland there isn't a dedicated aquarium/fish shop, it's a basic pet shop. So it's hard to get the right information/advice etc. although I'm not passing the blame, I should have made it my business to get the right info.
Anyway, I hope to do better this time and get things right.
I feel guilty when anything happens to the poor fish!
(I think they all hide in the shop when they see me coming )

Also are there any good internet resources for buying aquarium products etc?

 

[fishfreek]

Well I dont know how many of the internet stores ship internatinally but I like www.petwarehouse.com for general pet supplies. They sell fish supplies as well as supplies for other pets aswell.