Treating And Cleaning Tank After The Ich No Fish Left

[stacey3272]

Well I think the ich got my tank and all fish. Question us cleaning and trusting my 55 gallon for ich after all fish are gone. Wednesday I got The tank temp up around 84 85. Clean out gravel ounce good. But it's still in tank. I read to run this high temp for a few weeks. My question what else do I need to do. I added a bit of ammonia yesterday to feed the tank while there are no fish to keep. Bacteria fed. Is this what I should be doing. My tank has been running for close to 2 years. Is my filer medias ok? I added the small filter media thing from my 5 gallon to harvest bacteria to cycle my small 5 gallon tank for a place to put new fish in before adding to new tank. Also gravel or sand that is a off topic q sorry. With starting over I am trying to update equipment. Any suggestions on lighting adding another filter system and run two. Heaters I seem to not ever find a good air stone grr. Ok you get my drift. Thank.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

 
White spot disease (Ichthyopthirius multifiliis) is caused by a protozoan with a life cycle that includes a free-living stage. Ich grows on a fish --> it falls off and attaches to gravel or tank glass --> it reproduces to MANY parasites --> these swarmers then attach to other fish. If the swarmers do not find a fish host, they die in about 3 days (depending on the water temperature).
Therefore, to treat it, medicine must be added to the display tank to kill free-living parasites. If fish are removed to quarantine, parasites living in the tank will escape the treatment -- unless ALL fish are removed for about a week in freshwater or three weeks in saltwater systems.

from http/fins.actwin.com/aquariafaq.html
 
Every 2 to 3 days add enough ammonia to your tank to get a volume of 46 gallons to 2 ppm until you add fish. before adding fish do a 50% water change to insure you are at or very close to 0/0 for ammonia/nitrite. Use the site calculator here to calculate this amount http/www.fishforums.net/aquarium-calculator.htm
 
If you can raise your tank temp the ich dies off sooner.

 

[stacey3272]

I have the temp at about 84.6 seems that is the highest My heater will go..Little confused. When it says in top paragraph about the water needing to be treated? I do not have any fish so I still need to find a med in it to kill off the ones that  are swimming ?

 

[TwoTankAmin]

It is saying that if there are no fish in the tank, the ich will die off in one week on its own. If you raise the temp this will happen faster. You have no fish. If you have had no fish for 7 days, you have no ich. Therefore, you do not need to do anything. If you have not had 0 fish for 7 days, do nothing until you have had no fish for 7 days and then you will be free of ich and will need to do nothing.
 
Follow the instructions for dosing ammonia. 

 

[stacey3272]

Thanks that is on the lines of what I was understanding . But nice to have that back up. I figured out does to keep the cycle for a few weeeks until I figure out what i want to do . I like to change a few things maybe swap out gravel for sand. maybe a glass canopy then that old ugly plastic back top. what is better lighting... on man then what kind of new fish. would like to go with s few bigger ones rather then a bunch of all community ones. sucks starting over again after a few years you have to research all over again. well I do any was i like things right.  THANK everyone for help