Quaratine Tank

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Bruno72

Aquarium Advice Newbie
Joined
May 2, 2013
Messages
8
Location
Calgary, AB
While waiting for tanks to cycle I have been doing reading, and am considering setting up a quarantine tank so all my hard work on getting the tanks ready isnt for nothing. How many here use one? My biggest concern is my bacteria - obviously I want a 'cycled' tank for quarantine use, but how do I keep it cycled between buying fish or to be ready as a hospital tank?

I have a Penguin 150 HOB filter in one tank and a Penquin 200 in the other. Both have a combo fibre/carbon cartridge and then a bio wheel, but both have room for 2 of the cartridges. I had intended to discontinue use of the cartridges once I was out and just use some floss, sponge or cut fibre in those spots, but if I used the second slot for some fibre, would that be sufficient to pull out and use in a box filter for the quarantine or hospital?

I dont want the tank running all the time with me injecting ammonia every day to keep it ready, so looking for another way to set one up quickly when needed.

What do you do? Any ideas?
 
While waiting for tanks to cycle I have been doing reading, and am considering setting up a quarantine tank so all my hard work on getting the tanks ready isnt for nothing. How many here use one? My biggest concern is my bacteria - obviously I want a 'cycled' tank for quarantine use, but how do I keep it cycled between buying fish or to be ready as a hospital tank?

I have a Penguin 150 HOB filter in one tank and a Penquin 200 in the other. Both have a combo fibre/carbon cartridge and then a bio wheel, but both have room for 2 of the cartridges. I had intended to discontinue use of the cartridges once I was out and just use some floss, sponge or cut fibre in those spots, but if I used the second slot for some fibre, would that be sufficient to pull out and use in a box filter for the quarantine or hospital?

I dont want the tank running all the time with me injecting ammonia every day to keep it ready, so looking for another way to set one up quickly when needed.

What do you do? Any ideas?
Everyone should have a qt. It saves a lot of headaches later on with any diseases that may occur. What I do is keep some fish in the qt.I'm assuming this is freshwater but I keep a few damsels in my saltwater qt to keep it running. You can do the same with some inexpensive freshwater fish. Seed the tank with floss and some gravel from your existing tank.
 
I just keep my qt filter running on my 20gal that is stocked with fish. Then when it's time to add fish or move sick ones, I just take the filter and the water (I don't know if it helps but I do it anyway) and put it into the 5gal qt tank. It's worked for me everytime I've added fish to my tank. But as it is now, I moved my fish from the 20gal into the 55gal. So my 20 is running with 8 serpae tetras just to keep the tank running. At least until
My daughter decides what she wants in that tank.
 
Great ideas, but I don't want to keep it running all the time as right now I won't have a great home for it. I can see myself getting hooked on this hobby and 1 tank in the house wont be enough so will have to think about heating the attached garage better so make a full time fish room with just a display tank in the house (need to keep the wife happy and my hobby taking over the house will be frowned on)

So in my situation, I can get away with a 10G QT setup for the short term, and if I keep some extra sponge material in my HOB I can rob that to get the QT setup fast as needed. But now for my initial stocking I have a 37G setup and it is going thru a fishless cycle.

Once it is cycled, theoretically I could go and get close to a full stocking depending on fish and I am good to go. But I dont want to introduce something into my tank that could jeopardize the health of my tank and its filter by extension, so I opt to set up a 10G quarantine tank, move some filter media over, and I can introduce some fish to it. So I have an extra sponge stuffed into my HOB which lets says makes up 25% of my overall bio media in the 37G. I am not sure what is going into the 37G for now, so lets say swordtails - maybe I buy 6 as I am using only 25% filter media and have a small tank in comparison? That 25% media should be pretty strong from the fishless cycle though, and during the quarantine I keep adding ammonia to the main tank to keep the bacteria there alive, and in fact it likely produces more bacteria to make up for what I removed. After 2 weeks my fish are all healthy so I do a large water change in the 37G, test etc and then acclimatize the 6 swordtails to the new tank water and move them in. So far so good...

Now in the main tank, I likely am producing quite a bit less ammonia with 6 small fish then I was dosing, so does bacteria now die off in the filter as it resets for 6 fish? So now how many fish can I go buy and put in my quarantine tank for the next addition? Say I do a rummynose tetra - if I get 6 the quarantine should be able to handle that as it just gave up 6 fish, but after the 2 weeks I would be doubling the load in my main tank, which doesn't sound like a good idea. Any way around this? or do I have to go with a smaller school the second go around? As my 37 reaches capacity I can see this would be less of an issue, but initially doubling the fish seems like asking for trouble...
 
Same Question about the QT

This is exactly the same question I have about QT tank. I don't want to keep it running all the time. I'd be very interested in hearing how others manage the QT tank this way
 
I have a small, DIY sponge filter in my main tank in addition to my primary filter. It's very easy to move the sponge filter to the QT when needed. Because it's small you don't have to worry about any kind of mini-cycle on your main tank when you take it out. And because it's DIY and cheap, you can toss out the sponge (which you'd do if the fish were sick, just in case) when you break down the QT, then put together a new sponge filter and throw it back into the main tank to seed for next time.

Very little extra equipment needed, almost zero maintenance, and instant availability - perfect for QT use, IMO.
 
As for bringing in new fish, here's what I would do. If you're buying both schools of fish from the same place, put them all in the main tank. You've got nothing to protect in there (which is the purpose of a QT). If you'd feel more comfortable, pull 25% of the media and put it into the QT and keep adding ammonia until you feel comfortable that the fish are healthy. Then put the media back. Set up a sponge filter (or continue to use the extra media that you're planning to use) for the next time you add fish. From that point on, all new fish go into the QT for at least 2 weeks before you add them to the main tank. You can break down the QT whenever and set it up again easily with the sponge filter.
 
What are the risks to my filter if I put the new fish in my main tank right away and then have to deal with a parasite or something? The reason I am considering using the QT even for the first fish to go into my tank is I don't want to risk losing any of the bacteria on my filter after working so hard to get them established.
 
Adding unquarantined fish to the main tank is absolutely the wrong thing to do, even if there's nothing in there. If the fish have a parasite such as ich you will infect the main tank then you'll have to remove them to the qt treat them there and leave the main tank without fish for 4 to 6 weeks to make sure everything is dead
 
That would suck. So even on the first stocking I am going to use my QT to play it safe.

I have no substrate in the QT to make observation easier, though I will provide a couple of hiding places and perhaps a plastic plant to ensure new fish dont feel too exposed while waiting to be transferred, and I will keep lights off at first and low during QT time.

Does anyone add any general cures to be safe, or just wait and observe? I have seen some threads were treatments were given for worms etc to be safe. Would you recommend that, or any other treatment?
 
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