Fish all moving to qt

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alarmguy66

Aquarium Advice Freak
Joined
Nov 8, 2003
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203
Location
Virginia
Well somehow my main tank now has ich, so Im gonna have to move all the inhabitants to a 10 gal qt and treat the qt with copper. I dont know how it happened, I got a yellow tang that died in qt of ich (never entered main tank), but now my main tank has it as well. Im moving the 2 firefish, 2 damsels and one small clown all to the 10 gal qt, I guess for a month. This is a real bummer, but my question is this -

Im going to use the power filter from my 55 to keep the water in the qt movingt and filtered. The filters in it are old, so there should be a good biological base in them. Will this be enough to keep the water in my qt clean and healthy with so many inhabitants? If not, how will I keep the copper level stable while having to perform water changes?

fyi, qt is 10 gall, no sand, 1 rock, 3 pieces of pvc, 1 100 watt heater.
 
I would try to use a slightly larger Q tank if possible, it doesn't even have to be a tank, it can be a larger rubbermaid trashcan or something like that.

IMO, I would treat with hyposalinity instead of copper. It is much safer and less stressful on the fish, you can read about it >>here<<
 
I agree, I think the biological will be fine (make sure if using copper the filters do not contain carbon), but think you may end up with aggression issues from the damsels. A larger rubbermaid contaner should be fairly cheap and will suffice, just make sure it is food grade.
 
well temporarily I have moved them all to the 10 gall with lots of PVC laying in the bottom for hiding places. I will start lowering the salinity over the next few days. Im pretty bummed about this whole deal. This is my first and only tank, and for 2 months everything was perfect. Now one sick fish has changed everything. My wife used our net in both the qt tank and the main tank, trying to be "helpful". this is my only guess as to how ich got into the main tank. Im gonna wait out the month now and hope things get better.

Back to my question, will the power filter (made for up to a 75 gall tank) keep the smaller tank cycled or am I gonna have a buildup of ammonia and nitrites?
 
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