Did I do it right?

[wrs]

I used my 5 g for my qt tank. It had some fish with ich in it. i now need to use the 5 for some bettas. I need to divide it. Well, first I am not sure if I will be able to divide it 3 ways, or if I should just keep it two sections.

Second, my mom said that we should clorox the tank, diluted of course, to get all the ich out of the tank and gravel. I am not sure if it is safe, and how to dilute it, like how much water, how much bleach, etc. So i dumped out the water and the gravel and put it outside to dry. I am hoping that that will be okay and that I will be able to have it all ready to go saturday.

 

[jimbooo]

fill it up and dump a load of dechlorinator in it (much more than usual)

do this a couple of times and the bleach will be gone.

 

[BettaMomma]

Did you bleach the tank yet?
Or no?

 

[wrs]

nope, just dumped out the water and put the gravel on a bag to dry.

I dont want anything to happen to the bettas, so I am hoping just dumping it and airing it out will kill the ich that was left from the fish in there.

 

[BettaMomma]

Well, if it's just ick you're worried about, it will always be present in the water. The condition of the fish is what causes the ick to attack the fish. If the fish get it, it is because their immune systems are down for some reason - either stress from a new environment, poor water quality, or a number of other things.

So, you should be just fine! You might want to consider getting some aquarium salt and dumping a bunch of it into the tank with a couple of inches of scalding hot water, then sloshing it around for a while - that will help kill any other bad bacterias you have in there too. Then, you'd just need to rinse it out again with hot water and then it should be ready for its new inhabitants!

I'd also rinse off your gravel with hot water again before putting it back in but it sounds like you're on the road to a happy home for them!

 

[GSD]

yeah steralise the tank and mabe change the gravel or really clean it.i would divide the atnk in 2 or 3 for bettas depending

 

[sylvia]

Actualy, the idea that ich is always present in the water is a myth. It IS very difficult to completely irradicate and that's why this has become such a common misconception. Sometimes a fish will carry ich without showing any effects. If the fish becomes weak, the re-activates and may attack the fish and then spread to other hosts but this isn't because there's always ich present. You should try to ensure that any ich left over in the 5 gallon has died. Lots of salt and hot water can destroy it if you want a safe, natural method. I don't know how effective dis-infectants and the like are as ich is a protozoan parasite, not bacterium. In future, BTW, you should treat ich in the main tank, not isolate the sick fish and treat them seperately, as ich will have often spread to the other tank-mates and you'll end up having to treat all the fish anyway.

Here's some info on ich : http/www.fishdoc.co.uk/disease/whitespot.htm

 

[wrs]

Yeah, i know that now, My tank probebly would have been cured if I did treat it when the swordtail had the ich, that was like a week and 1/2 ago.

I am thinking maybe two ways divided, so that they have bigger spaces, and prehaps a catfish like an otto for algea control, or a corry or two of the small kind to clean up extra food, i know some of them are quite picky and dont always eat what they are given.

 

[rdd1952]

If the tank is acrylic and you let the bleach stand in it for any period of time, some of the bleach will be absorbed by th acrylic. You will need to get that back out before you put fish back in. Here is another thread from back in January. The last post in it has a pretty good step by step on cleaning with bleach. This person (happened to be my son) was trying to clean a tank after losing a fish to dropsy.

http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?showtopic=72606&hl=

 

[BettaMomma]

The fact that ich is nearly impossible to get rid of is the reason that people say it's pretty much always present in tanks.