10 gallon quarantine

[dax29]

I'm getting an old 10 gallon tank that I plan to use as a quarantine tank. What are the qualities or "must haves" for such a tank?

 

[Fishyfanatic]

Air stone, heater (for salt treatment and water temp maintenance), hood/light, and filtration unit. The filtration unit can be a small one for $10. Don't bother with gravel.

 

[mattrox]

Get a seperate hose dealy bob for water changes. And a seperate net to deal with the fish that don't make it. If you run an air driven sponge filter in an existing tank you will have a precycled filter (not needed if treating with edication that will kill filters). That would be handy when you bring home healthy fish and you don't need to stress them with ammonia in a QT.


It must hold water too...... If it is an old tank it wouldn't hurt to keep it full for a while to check for leaks or weak seals. You don't want to to fall apart when you are out leaving a mess and a cracked heater sitting in water waiting to shock you!

 

[dax29]

Thanks all. Good information!

 

[TomK2]

I just set up two 10 gal QT. Mail ordered everything but the tank and stand from petsolutions.com. Hood and light $25. submersible heater - $15. "triple flow corner filter" $3.79. Hagen elite 802 air pump $9. Already had the airline tubing. Gang valves for airhose, about $7 for four doubles. Already had floss and bio-substrate for corner filters. You might want to purchase two of the corner filters, they are cheap enough. I spray painted the bottom white and am running it without gravel. Keep it simple, with easy to tear down and clean stuff.

 

[TankGirl]

Good suggestions here! Excellent point about having separate syphon hoses and nets, etc. because it is alarmingly easy to transfer pathogens from one tank to the next.

Also, kudos to mattrox for saying "dealy bob"

 

[mattrox]

 

[buggsmarinetank]

watch your temperature as well, you want a cooler hostipal tank, and keep an eye on the carbon chips in your tank, they may or may not be suitable for the medications that you are using. Keep good water movement in the tank.

 

[TankGirl]

I keep a sponge filter going in another tank so all I have to do is fill the empty 10gal with water (I usually use water from the tank where the fish has been if I am treating illness or water from where the fish are going to go if it is quarrantine), plug in the heater, pop in the bacteria-laden sponge filter, and add the fish. No cycle.

 

[Fishyfanatic]

I don't mean to hyjack the thread, but I have a question in regards to a QT. I am in the process of setting one up. I bought all the stuff yesterday and have it setup under my 150. It is inside the tank stand. Is that ok? It won't have natural sunlight, just light from the hood. Also, we are having a disease outbreak in the 150 that is unexplainable. Fish are dieing at a rate of 1 per day and show no signs of disease until they sink to the bottom and die. We can't put the filter for the QT in the 29 because of the eclipse hood or the 5 because its too small or the 10 because of lack of room. Can we put the filter in the 150 or will the disease just spread into the filter? Or would it be better to take my Betta from my 5 gal and put it in the 10 gal QT to keep the bacteria alive? There won't be any gravel in the 10. Does this sound ok?

 

[TankGirl]

Very good point about spread of disease in the QT filter if it is left running on a tank that has sick fish, so definitely do not do that when you are having these fish losses.

You can indeed keep the Q-tank under the big tank, in the stand. Light from the hood is plenty. In your case, I would keep snails or something in the tank to keep it cycled, big ole apple or mystery snails, maybe, since I hate for the betta to live in the enclosed area, even though it would probably be fine.

I have heard of hexamitosis causing mass unexplained fish loss without having any outward signs of illness, so you might consider treating the 150 with Hexamit, but research that and see if you think it matches up.

 

[Fishyfanatic]

I have never heard of Hexamitosis before. I will try searching online for what exactly it is. I tried a salt treatment, but nothing helped. My pleco died yesterday. He was such a beautiful fish. Thanks TankGirl. I just assumed that it was stress from cycling but the tank is cycled and fish are still dieing. I'd really like to peg down what exactly is going on. They are all happy and swimming like normal then all of a sudden, a fish sinks to the bottom, dead. I called the lfs and they have a different product used to treat Hexamitosis. Will this harm my cycle?

 

[TankGirl]

Sorry I have been off the board lately, but yes, this therapy can harm your cycle, but re-cycling the tank is not going to be as dangerous if this is the cause of the fish deaths. Remove your carbon before treating, and treat the tank they are living in, rather than trying to put fish in a hospital tank.

Good luck, and I hope this can be resolved without further mortality.

 

[cJw]

I keep a sponge filter going in another tank so all I have to do is fill the empty 10gal with water (I usually use water from the tank where the fish has been if I am treating illness or water from where the fish are going to go if it is quarrantine), plug in the heater, pop in the bacteria-laden sponge filter, and add the fish. No cycle.

Excellent advice, Tankgirl; I was sure there was an easier way of doing this. . . and you explained what that was. Now I can safely add fish to the 'display' tank and not worry about where it came from and what other fish it's been around. Nice!

 

[TomK2]

Here's a description of just such a set up that I did:
http://home.comcast.net/~tomstank/tomstank_files/page0019.htm
HTH

 

[Mazdaman]

hey tankgirl how about "thingamajig"..... lol

 

[TankGirl]

Naw, I'm still in favor of dealy bob.

 

[cJw]

whoojiwhatsit?

 

[TankGirl]

That's a pretty good one too, but....