I lost my fish in a very frustrating series of disasters, the last of which being in ich infestation. From what I've read, you need to wait 28 days for all the ich to die before you can restock your tank. If I change all of the water in the tank tomorrow and continuously run my UV sterilizer, can I get away with restocking earlier? How much earlier can I go and still be safe?

Thanks for your help.

How big is your tank Albert? When was the last time you did a strip-down clean?

If it's not too much of a hassle maybe now is a good opportunity to empty everything out and give it a thorough clean. That would probably be the best way to get rid of all those nasties.

Cheers! Annette

That's what I ended up doing. I took everything apart and cleaned thoroughly and disinfected what I could with potasium permangenate. I'm looking into new fish now, but I haven't yet decided what kinds I want.

If you can possibly struggle to have the patience (and I know it is very very hard!), you might want to do a fishless cycle and get your tank up and running before you get any fish. Any problems a fish comes to you with are far easier to cure or erradicate if you are not also struggling with poor water quality.

Yah I ran a quick fishless cycle with Bio-Spira and Cycle, there's still some ammonia of course, but those products really help to speed things up

Oooooh ! you found BioSpira???? We do not have it here, yet.....

It costs more than twice its weight in gold, but I found it. It was $13 for a 3 ounce pouch... ouch. The stuff better be potent!

The two times I actually found it and used it, it did not give the "instant" cycle as advertised. It did, however, give a good start of a cycle - a start that allowed me to have the tank up and functioning in less than a week - far better than the 6-8 weeks with standard fishless cycle!

I think that, as pricey as it is, if you need a cycle in a quick fashion, it is well worth it.

I noticed that it wasn't 'instant' as well, but I didn't really expect it to be. I bought it because it's a different strain of bacteria than the cycle one, so I'd have two strains in the tank instead of one.

Albert, since there are no fish in it, I would dump salt in there until it comes out your ears. With no fish, a 0.9% solution is something that kills all the Ich blindfolded....