New And Confused

[Audrey_Bee]

I've had a 20gal fish tank for almost a month now. I'm new to aquariums, the only other fish i had was a beta that lived a good long life. I have just finished doing a cycle with fish (didn't know it wasn't a good idea to do so) the ph is fine. low nitrite good nitrate, and is finally stable. the only problem is that during the past week one of my fish had ich, and i had been curing it with ich medicine and raise the water temperature. The other fish (I had 2 total) had/has show no signs of ich. The infected fish was getting better and this morning looked like he was on a way to a full recovery. when i came home later in the afternoon, the water was a cloudy color and the infected fish was dead at the bottom. I've been doing water changes and the cycling was doing well even though there were fish in it.

Now i'm in a predicament. The still living uninfected fish is currently in a temp tank, with some water from the old mixed with some new, and I'm wondering what i should do with my actual fish tank. The water is completely fogged, and i was considering just doing a really big water change so i can keep my good bacteria, but i'm worried about the ich. I've been using medicine for about almost a week so any ich in the water should be dead right? do i need to completely start my tank over or should i just do a large water change?

I'm new and confused and if anyone can tell me what i should do it'd be great.

 

[Kitty_Nin]

If you raise the water temperature up as high as you can, say around 80 Fahrenheit, then it should kill the Ich parasite. If the fish are in the tank, do it slowly as not to shock them. If not, just crank it up. I'd do a big water change or two until the water is clear, check the stats, and leave the water as hot as you can for a day or two. Lower the temperature back to normal. Sanitize your net, and scoop the living fish back into their old tank. Clean and sanitize the temporary tank that you kept them in. For future reference, it's easier to remove the ill fish from the main tank, not the other way around

 

[Assaye]

If you want to make the tank safe quickly, keep your temp tank going for the moment and do a complete water change on the big one. 100% and scrub everything (except the filter!!) down with hot water. If you do it all quickly and don't have the filter out of the water for long, you shouldn't lose any good bacteria. You'll need to totally re-acclimatise the fish to the tank though, as you would if the fish had just come from the shop.

That said, if you've had the tank free of fish for more than 12 hours and didn't move the filter in with the fish to the temp tank, you'll have probably lost all your good bacteria anyway.

Cloudy water is usually one of two things - if it has a green tinge it is floating algae and if it is whiteish, it is a bacterial bloom. The former tends to happen during cycles because the ammonia + light = algae. The bacterial bloom is caused when there is a spike of ammonia and/or nitrite and the bacteria multiply rapidly.

You might have to re-cycle the tank (sorry) but if you do it carefully it shouldn't harm the surviving fish.

Once the fish are back in the tank, keep up with the ich meds for another course and do daily tests for ammonia and nitrite. These shouldn't be low, they should be zero. If they aren't, do some large water changes to get them down. Also raise the temp of the tank as high as you can without hurting the fish. Some fish will happily tolerate temps as high as 30 celsius but you might need to research the temperature range of the fish you have and put the tank temp just above the highest they'll tolerate. Put a blanket over the tank to cut out any light (except for when you feed/test/water change) and feed sparingly (about once every two days to cut down on ammonia produced).

Good luck!

 

[Shelby]

I believe....but you can double check if you'd like....

Ich only survives with no fish in the tank for about 3 days. If your fish are out of the tank and your temp is cranked up you don't even have to do all the scrubbing down and such. Just leave them out for 3 or 4 days. Keep an eye on them over the next couple days for spots. Check very closely. Even one spot will lead to a major outbreak.

 

[Audrey_Bee]

thank you all very much. I've decided the best thing to do is probably just recycle my tank, since i feel like i kind of didn't do it perfect the first time. I kept the filter, plants and decorations in the old water, would it be okay if i just put them in the new water since they have good bacteria on them? I guess i'll just have to start from step one again XD it'll be tedious, but worth it.

Also, while cycling how often and how much water should i change? and should i treat the water before doing so?
I'm really new at this and i don't want to make the same mistakes as before.
thank you all for so much help :]

 

[Shelby]

You can go to the beginners resource section up at the top of the "your new freshwater... " page. The whole cycling thing is there.

Good Luck.