How long will it take to kill off saltwater diseases if I switch to freshwater?

[sirtokealot]

Hello.

I bought a tank 2 months ago and went through the motions of preparing it for use.

I went to Jatujak market in Bangkok and bought 1 small and put him in my tank.

4 days later and the poor guy died and his fins looked like they had started to rot away before he died.

I realise my mistake was to not put him straight into the display tank. Now my concern is that I have introduced a disease into my tank.

After reading up, the best option for me now is to go fallow for another 2 months and start again.

Since i am going fallow i want to also take it a step further by running it freshwater for X days first, then add salt and start the process of resorting my biological filter and having the tank run fallow at the same time.

So my question is, how many days of running it in freshwater will wipe out all the marine dieseses that could have possibly been introduced?

Also, will the switch to freshwater wipe out my bio filter? if yes then is there a minimum salinity level that will keep my bio filter alive and still kill off any marine diseases?

Thanks in advance for your advice.

 

[Ryan Darilek]

Sorry for your hard lesson. I wouldn't recommend going to freshwater... If I were in your shoes, I would just keep running it salt water (no less than 1.021) so you don't kill off all of your beneficial marine bacteria. Just wait 8 weeks before adding fish. As long as your nitrites and ammonia are down, you can add invertebrates like crabs and shrimp to your system and they won't be affected by any dying off parasites or bacteria. Same goes for coral. Use the time to do research and plan out your successful path in the hobby and it'll all go great! Don't be discouraged by this bump in the road my friend

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[Lfunnyfarm]

I believe that the suggested minimum fallow period is 72 days to make sure any marine ich organisms have died.