Cleaning Sick tank

[cranfordrd]

My daughter has a 5 gallon tank with filter (the type that sticks on the side, had carbon and floss). We put in 1 baby Oranda goldfish and 3 white clouds, changed about 30% of the water 1/week while vacuuming and were careful to not overfeed. Goldie got sick (floating on top, tail hanging, no sign of anything else), finally died. Now I wasn to disinfect prior to putting in new goldfish, how do I do that? I will change tht filter but what about the tank itself, can I use bleach?
p.s. I know we will need a larger tank whent he golfish goes over an inch..

 

[luvfishies]

I doubt the tank needs sterilising. Probably what happened is that the oranda was ammonia and/or nitrite poisoned.

Also, those little stick on side filters aren't really enough for a 5g with a goldfish.

Have you read the article(s) here about CYCLING? I would read before going any further.

Good luck and welcome to the addiction that is fish!

 

[mpg]

i agree with luvfishes.

overcleaning or tearing down the whole tank can cause you to loose your biofilter  (good bacteria).  bacteria play a very important role in keeping your tank healthy.

read about cycling.  good luck and have fun.   *celebratesmiley*

 

[cranfordrd]

I am aware of cycling, I set up a 20 gallon freshwater a few months ago and carefully cycled with a few serpae tetras, that tank is 0/0 now and doing great. Ammonia and nitrites in  the 5 gal were both 0. Meanwhile, I broke down the tank and cleaned everything with small concentration of bleach and rinsed, rinsed, rinsed (guess this may have been a  wasted effort but I wanted to make sure there were no "bugs&quot. Since she could not wait a minute to get a new goldie, I used gravel and some plastic plant from my 20 gallon in the 5 hoping it would get the cycle started quickly. Now that I have this "new" tank (with new goldie) should I change the water very often to avoid ammonia/nitrite poisining? This fish is maybe 1/2 inch, just a baby. Any suggestions for a better small filter? The tank is a high 5 gall (I know, not enough surface area... I got it at a garage sale so...) Also, can the white clouds go in a 20 gal freshwater community tank? For fear thye too may have disease, they are in an old bowl now but I will quickly tire of changing the water every day!

 

[blueconvict2]

it is fine to wash with bleach as long as you rinse very well.  some would not recommend this but i have always done it with no proplems. Bleach is great at killing and eating away algea on gravel and plants when ever cleaning a tank and starting from scratch. But always rinse good and i use a water conditioner that removes chlorine and chlorimines .  Regent makes a fairly inexpensive filter that hangs on the back of the tank. Its one of those water fall types...the water goes up the intake tube through the removeable filter in the back and pours back into tank clean. Look for one for a five gallon....It might say 5-10-15 on the package. Its easy to clean because the filter is on the outside of tank. Its very quiet too.  most tanks under 55 gallons come with these type of filters.