salt sterilizing equipment

Hey all,
well...it was bound to happen...one of my tanks has come down with ich...hands down the most annoying thing haha.

Well I took all the neccessary precautions now, but my hospital tank started leaking like niagra falls so I have to treat my pickerels in their main tank, which isnt a big deal.

my question is...I took my equipment that had been used in that tank and dropped it all in a 5 gallon bucket with hot water, and made it into a salt brine using iodized salt (the water isnt being used on fish, no one hang me for using table salt) to purify the equipment, has anyone else ever done this? i know salt kills ich, so I figured this is probably a decent precautionary method. Just curious

xraycer said:

Just go the extra mile and use diluted bleach instead.

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that was my first thought but I didn't happen to have any bleach or peroxide soooo I figured wth lets try salt lol.

duanes said:

It is probably a good idea to treat the entire tank, because if one fish had ich, the parasites are already in the tank.
The idea that iodized salt is bad, is a myth.
And anything you can do to kill the parasites on equipment is good.
But bleach is a much more thorough option.

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Ya the tank only has two red fin pickerel in it (albeit the occasional feeder who dodges them for 10 or 15 minutes) so aside from my hospital tank leaking, I just thought it better to treat the whole tank. It was crazy, one day they seemed fine, the next one of them had between 8-10 cysts and was acting really strange, and staying in the airstone area so i knew immediately he was having trouble breathing. the other has 2 spots and is acting fine.

I didnt really figure iodine in that small of a dose was going to hurt the fish but you know the internet and its ability to hang you out to dry for myths and overexaggerations haha

I agree bleach is, I was just wondering i this was a viable option for sterilization, partly because I've never seen it done and partly because its what I had to work with haha.

ya...was just reading about salinity resistance as your comment came through haha...
bleach it is then

No no I know ich is a sneaky infection for sure. I've just never seen it affect a fish so rapidly as it did this time. I mean it went from eating and hovering in the plants to swimming like crazy, and missing food, and all the normal visible signs overnight. usually I can catch one or two cysts on fins or the body of fish before the dangerous symptoms begin appearing...not this time though.

thanks for the info!