starting over

[jonnyb1425]

I have been battling a nasty case of fungus that systematically wiped out all of the fish in my 25 gal. I am at the point where I am going to have to start over fresh with new fish. My question is what I should do with a diseased tank? I don't want to infect any incoming fish, but I am also not keen on losing an already established tank. Is there a way to treat the tank and not lose the beneficial bacteria? Or should I just give in to starting over completely (with the whole nitrogen cycling and replanting the tank)?

 

[TomK2]

When tearing down a tank to eradicate disease, EVERYTHING gets torn down and disinfected! Thus, your biofilter needs to be discarded too. Bummer. Now, before you tear down the tank, you have to make sure your diagnosis was correct, and that the fungus was not opportunistic, meaning that it only hurt your fish because they were susceptible for other correctible reasons. Did your fish get stressed and weakened by some other events (such as a rough cycle with high ammonia and nitrite)? If so, perhaps new stock would not have the same problem?

And if you have another established tank, you could disinfect your 25 gals filter, run it on the other tank for several weeks, then disinfect the 25 gal, add water, add fish (not too many) and move the recolonized filter over to eliminate or greatly abreviate the cycle.

 

[Zagz]

Do you still have fish in your tank? If you still have fish in there, what are you treating them with? I wouldn't necessarily tear the tank down. Depending on what you are treating the tank with, it might be time to try something else. How often were you doing water changes? Fungal infections can be brought on by water parameters being off. It's important to figure out the cause so as to not go through it all again.

I agree be sure of your diagnosis before tearing down your tank and starting over as you will have to start the cycle over, unless you have another tank to run the filter on as Tom suggested.

 

[jonnyb1425]

I have been using Melafix to no avail.