Fish may seem to be simple pets to care for, but remember how to sterilize fish tank after fish died that you must prepare years ahead of time and start from the beginning when setting up your aquarium.
For example, it’s better if you set up an aquarium that hasn’t been used before (i.e. new glass).
It is also ideal if you use a special cleansing kit that can get rid of bacteria and microorganisms that might harm any living creature in the aquarium, including the fish which is of course the most important part.
This process is known as “sterilization” and some people believe this sterilization should include extreme measures like using a mixture of acid to rinsing everything 2 or 3 times – however If you keep or clean your tank properly on a regular basis then it won’t be necessary for you to go through all these steps.
A well-balanced fish tank means nothing is left to chance!
When you find one of your fish dead in the tank, try to remember the following five steps:
- Fish carcass should be removed from tank.
- Check the aquarium water for elevated amounts of ammonia.
- Replacing some of the toxic water.
- Add a starter of good bacteria to the tank.
- Investigate into the reason of the death.
I am starting out by totally cleaning out the tank.
I began this process because shortly after I finished quarantine, my fish unexpectedly died.
It was a dojo loach who had only been in the tank for about 2 weeks and he was one of three that I got to repopulate it after quarantining so he was fairly new.
Before setting up the tank to get ready for guppies again, I’m going to thoroughly clean and scrub it down; this will leave no room for microbes (and hopefully nothing else) to hide in any crevices!
To prevent any kind of bacteria or fungus from growing, I employed the use of triple-sulfa as a treatment against several bacterial and fungal infections.
Consequently, a few changes will occur.
First of all, I’m doing this outside, where it doesn’t matter if I get any diseases.
The third thing is that you’re going to need some supplies, so you’re going to need a measuring cup of some sort because we’re going to be mixing a solution of bleach and water.
If you google it or look online, you’ll see many people saying different ratios of bleach to the water.
Some people say to do a 10:1 ratio, and others say to do an 8:1 ratio.
I’m thus in the center, and the bleach is mixed in a 9:1 ratio.
Avoid getting it in your eyes or doing anything similar. I also have a pair of plastic gloves on hand because if the siphon doesn’t get all the bleach out, you could add a little bleach to your new tank.
After that, now that I got it all drained again, we’re ready to start putting in the bleach and the water.
So over here, I have this measuring cup, so this measuring cup that I have right here can fit two cups of liquid in it.
One gallon is sixteen cups, so I’m going to fill this thing up eight times for each gallon of bleach I want to put in here, so basically filling this thing up with bleach 16 times and adding it to the tank.
After that, now there’s pure bleach inside the tank. I’m going to start adding the water right now.
I’m going to start adding all the stuff in the tank. I’m also going to go ahead and bleach that five gallons bucket.
I use that a lot, and I just put water from that in there. So I’m going to bleach that five gallons bucket.
Now that the tank and bucket have been sterilized. We’re just going to let them soak for about 10 minutes before we drain them all.
So it’s been 10 minutes that I didn’t think of how I’m going to dispose of this bleach water now because you can pour it down the storm drain.
But if I just poured it into this canal, I’m in right here. It would just go into the storm drain, so I can’t do that.
It’s safe to dispose of diluted bleach down your sink drain, toilet, and shower.
You know, something that goes into a sewer system. A storm drain just pretty much goes into another body of water.
It’s not going into the sewer system. So I’m going to go ahead and dispose of this property. It’s my suggestion that you all do the same.
Afterward, you know, I’m going to let this stuff dry out completely 100 percent. I’m probably going to leave it out for like a day or two.
So I’m pouring the last bucket of bleach that I have to dispose of down the drain in my shower. If you guys have a white bathtub, I’d rather recommend doing this inside your bathtub because you can dump it straight into the bathtub and down the drain.
I’m seriously exhausted. It is so tiring, but I’m almost done. Alright, guys, so now what I’m doing is filling it back up with fresh water.
Like sponge filters, they are not actual sponge filters. They are part of the filter media like this clear aqua filter.
I’m gonna go ahead and squeeze those out. You know, to get out everything on the inside of those, and then add like a very, very small amount of dechlorinator to this.
Now go ahead and add some, actually a lot of dechlorinator to both of these inside this bottle. I have a really concentrated dechlorinator. It’s not actually the API goldfish protects.
I filled it with another one that I have that’s concentrated. Now I’m going to start taking all the stuff out of there and putting it into this bucket.
And empty everything inside this tank. It was becoming too difficult with all the gravel there, so I took it out and put it into this bin.
I was thinking about getting a new substrate for this anyway, just continuing to rinse and letting this overflow again.
Then I’ll fill it up again, probably one more time. I’ll empty the entire thing out and just let it dry completely. Same with this stuff right here.
I’ll empty this and let it completely dry, all right. So, I brought everything here where I could leave it to dry for a day or two. Additionally, I’ll probably keep it outside to ensure complete dryness.
If you want to be cautious, I suggest purchasing a chlorine testing kit before re-establishing your tank.
You can be certain that there’s no more chlorine from the bleach. Anything that could kill any fish or whatever you’re putting in there.
All these fish are in the way down there at the bottom. And that’s how you sterilize a tank using bleach. If the dead fish had parasites, full tank sterilization is unlikely.
Conducting a water test immediately after your fish has died is pointless. You will experience an ammonia increase as a result of the decomposing fish.
Testing your water would have been prudent before their demise. Diseases cannot spread without hosts, and parasites have a cycle that seldom exceeds two weeks.
Without the fish component of the cycle, the parasites will die off. Numerous newly constructed aquariums suffer from “new tank syndrome.”
Testing your water after a sick or dead fish is a good idea. Fish die mostly due to water issues. Perfect water reduces the likelihood of an inflection. The aquatic life span is limited.
I recommend OZPOLISH Bio-Cure to ensure helpful bacteria populate the biological filter. I’d also like to use OzPolish H2O to avoid recurring troubles. I’ve been doing this without any issues for a while now.
We recommend buying one or two guppies at a time when you set up your aquarium because they are tolerant of different water conditions. If they survive, you can add other types of fish over time to create a customized underwater world!
I hope that helped you guys out. If that did help you guys out, I’d really appreciate it if you comment.
