I have no choice.... :(

[Bill M.]

So I put my two clown loaches in the ten gallon quarantine tank... For some reason I decided to test the water for trites and trates.... no trites, but trates were like... above 40.... I freaked out, and took out about 1 gallon of water and replaced it with aged water to last them till the morning * this was at 12 am and I had to be at work by 5, so no time to do much* As soon as I got home, 10am... I netted the little buggers,* which was darn near impossible, thier so fast!* put them in a plastic bag, and floated em in my 29, which is almost nitrate free. I am adding water from the 29 every ten minutes for an hour, in order to acclimate them properly.... I just have to take the risk of adding disease to the 29 because I dont want my new babies to die! I am going to the store later to get some sinking shrimp pellets for em, heard they love em! Opinions???

[RobbieG]

The loaches are probably much more likely to get sick than anything else. They are susceptible to Ick. This is present in pretty much every tank on earth and fish lose their resistance to it when they get stressed. I'd keep a real sharp eye on them for a bit.

[gm72]

Agreed to keep a very close eye on them. You are acclimating them well enough, so time will tell. Loaches are fairly sensitive fish.

[Lady Hobbs]

You could have just did a water change on the 10 gallon.

[gm72]

I was hoping there was some other reason he didn't do that, but agreed that a water change would have solved the issue.

[Bill M.]

I did a 30 percent water change, approximatly 3 gallons, and even after so, the nitrates were up at 40ish. I got fed up, and knew my parameters were amazing in the 29 gallon, so I decided to take the risk.... At first sign of illness both with be put back into the ten gallon....

[gm72]

Good thought, but unfortunately fish can have illness before overt signs and symptoms of such. Hopefully this is not the case here, but just remember in the future that this kind of practice may lead to disaster because they may have already introduced an illness You wouldn't even know it until you end up with a tank full of sick fish. My recommendation would have been to do significantly more than a 30% change. Try 50 or 60%, those nitrAtes would definitely have been knocked down.

[Lady Hobbs]

Yes, and loaches are very stressful fish. First they're hard to catch so go thru the terror of that ordeal, then put in a 10 gallon and moved again into a vase then moved again.

[zackish]

Is there any kind of general medicine for fish that just really cleans the tank of all diseases and bad bacteria?
Like something that can prevent ick and any other diseases.

[gm72]

Broad spectrum antibiotics are a good choice but are obviously not antifungals, but why treat a tank as such? Treat the core illness, nothing more. Otherwise you are unnecessarily adding meds to the tank.

Diseases are inherent in any given tank. Control of the environmental parameters will however render any inherent infections irrelevant as they will not actively infect the fish. Does that make sense?