Bacterial infection questions

[Newbie2Tropicals]

Hello all! My fiancé has a 90 gallon flow through breeding system, a 75 gallon tank, 65 gallon tank, 2 18 gallon tubs, 2 10 gallon quarentine tanks, and a 15 gallon tank. He had gotten this new stuff 'smart start', and on the bottle it said to use after each water change. He started using it on the 90 gallon flow through system and the 65 gallon tank. Long story short they got a bacterial infection and about 85% of the fish that were in those two systems. We took the remaining fish and put them in a 30 gallon tank and treated them (way more cost effective to do this way than treating all 90 gallons and all 65 gallons). All the other tanks that this stuff wasn't used on are fine, no death no nothing in them. So we are linking it to that stuff, but no proof for it. After moving all the fish, we drained the 90 gallon system, there seems to be little 'worms' in the tanks. They were green when tanks had water and are brown now that they are dried out. The 65 gallon tank has live plants so we didn't drain it, but have not had filter running and we have been doing 50-60% water changes on it. I guess this is kinda jumpy but just trying to get all info out there before I ask my questions... Which are: would the bacteria live in the 65 gallon with no fish in it? Should filter be running? How long can the bacteria live in a dry tank? How long should we leave them dry? Should we clean tanks and get all brown worms out before refilling the 90 gallon system? Thanks soo much for any and all help. My fiancé is the kinda guy who is just giving up because of all the death, so I am trying to get as many answers as I can... Thanks again :-}

[Lady Hobbs]

Smart Start is a bacteria supplement for the filter. It has nothing to do with bacteria fish get and is not even the same kind of bacteria. When fish get a bacteria, 9 times out of 10 a gram negative bacterial medication is needed, like Maracyn2. There are others, as well. Antibiotics can also destroy your filter system.

If you want to keep the cycle alive in the tanks without fish, you need to start adding some pure ammonia to the tank. Make sure it contains no scents, detergents or dyes.

[Indian Woods Angels]

Hmmm.

Question would be were these tanks established or were you guys starting all of these tanks from scratch?

Then, were all of them started together or some prior to others?

What were the symptoms of this bacterial infection?

If the tanks were already up and started I wonder why you would need this product?

If you were doing water changes, how much in a percentile amount and how often?

Ammonia burning causes secondary infections and these become bacteria based.
Chlorine burning causes secondary infections and these become bacterial.

I'm guessing there was a bit of chemical imbalance that scorched the fish and opened them up to a bacterial type of infection.

Do you have any readings to review to determine if that may be the case?