Cleaning tank from scratch?help!!!?

Question

ive got a 20 gallon aquarium i got from my son,including fish,plecs,sevrums,ruby shark,clown loaches to name a few,,since ive had it ive traeted it twice for white spot,now 1 of the fish has finrot.ive treated it twice now,how long does it take to clear?also how many times roughly will it take to get better(finrot),ive thought of cleaning it from scratch again,,is this a good idea or not,please be kind!im new to all this,,thanks in advance for any answers :)

Answer 1

Plecs, severums, ruby shark, and clown loaches. To name a few?! Just those need a 55-75 gallon tank! If you have a local pet store that you can go to (rather than a corporate chain store) the folks there will usually take in your unwanted fish in exchange for other fish/feeders/store credit.

The thing is that ich (white spot), fin rot, and a number of other diseases are floating around in the tank at any given time- even in the healthiest if tanks. With good water conditions and low stress levels a fish's immune system easily keeps these sicknesses at bay- but with impure water (that is a result of over crowding), and the lack of space- your fish become stressed and their health becomes compromised and illness is the result.

I think that if you trade most of these fish in, you will see a dramatic improvement. I suggest you purchase a testing kit as well so you can better manage toxicity levels in your tank. Ammonia, nitrate and nitrite can all be dangerous if levels become too high.

Answer 2

You must learn to cycle the tank,I suspect that all of your disease problems are caused by ammonia burns. You should start by doing small (small is important) water changes. They should be no more than 20%. Do them everyday,but just one a day. When the "cycle" is complete the fish's health will improve and the water will clear. These instructions are no-where near complete,you have a lot of research to do.  

Never dump a tank and start over,it will only set the whole process back even further. You should learn how to do water changes without damaging the beneficial bacteria in your system. You have so many things to learn that it would take all day to type it in on this forum. You should probably purchase a good introductory book,they're not expensive.

Answer 3

The tank is WAY overstocked. Plecos grow up to a foot, Severums grow up to 10" or so, ruby sharks grow up to 6" (but still, need 30 gallons), and Clown Loaches grow up to a foot long. Find out the other fish's names and then I'll tell you if you can keep them. But get rid of the ones I mentioned.

In my experience, finrot takes 2-5 days to be treated. Place the fish in a quarantine tank and treat it separately in there.

E-mail me for any questions!

Answer 4

Do you know if the tank has been cycled? Do you have a heater? Whats the temp? Ive had a tank that I could just not get anything to live in because it would get all types of things in it. I used it for brine shrimp instead. You might want to think about getting a new tank. Scrubing it will tank all of good bacteria out.

Answer 5

no, never clean it from scratch! unless you are going to put the fish in a holding tank for 24 hours. because you will remove all the bio-filter from the water and you will need to wait 24 hours to get it back in all the water.