Treated the ick, now what?

[TheCheese909]

My HM Psych lives in a 5 gallon tank by himself.

A few weeks ago I changed his filter pad and later that evening (or the next day, can't remember now) I noticed him twitching and flipping around. I went to go see him and he had about 7 different little white dots on him, ick.

I took him out and treated him in a 1 gallon tank with daily water changes and some Aquarium salt. It cleared up in 2 days but i stayed with the treatment till the end of the 7 days.

Today i've cleaned out his tank, threw his gravel away and will soon be boiling his silk plants. I can't boil his arch decoration mainly because it won't fit in any of my pans. I plan on using a bucket and putting it and acouple other things from his tank and filling it with water that i've just brought to a boil and leaving it in there over night. Does that sound okay?

As for his filter, i'm not sure what to do with it.. will I be able to put it in the bucket with his arch decoration? I'm sure it will be okay in there but i'm not totally positive on if it will hurt the machine or not.


I have all new gravel for him, i just rinsed his tank out, cleaned it first with Safe & Easy, then rinsed it out in the tub with hot hot water. I haven't yet filled it back up with gravel because i'm planning on boiling some water to dump and slosh around in it too.


Does everything sound okay so far? I never treated the tank by itself for ick because I figured I would just clean it out anyway.

[Sena Hansler]

What I do for tanks I don't really mind re-cycling or borrowing media to cycle it again:

FILTER: I dismantle it, aka removing the pieces that should come off. I take a damp, hot cloth to wipe down the pieces you cannot submerse and leave the dry. The submersible pieces I clean in hot water with a cloth to scrub it. And let dry.

Heater: I wipe it down and let dry.

Tank: I remove everything, and wipe out with a damp, hot cloth or some people like doing the whole bleach/water or vinegar/water.

Gravel: I use hot water for this, stirring it, then rinsing it a few times. What the hot water doesn't kill, the chlorine surely will

Fake plants and ornaments: hot water again...

Real plants: quarantine.

You do not NEED to boil anything. You can use direct from the tap hot hot water, into a sink that is clean prior to adding the decorations, and then even add boiled water from a pot to the sink and let soak.