Quick QT question

[Joey P]

Yesterday morning I found my favorite fish dead, my BN Pleco. I'm not sure what happened, my levels were perfect, I do a weekly 30-50% water change. I kind of wonder if it wasn't finding enough food. The tank was immaculate and over the past few months it was coming out more and more during the day. Or maybe it was just a fluke.

Anyways, between that and a few other other deaths over the last year, it's time to restock. I pulled out my QT tank, but it's been a while since I've used it. I filled it up, tossed in some conditioner and it's up to temp, but that's all I have to do, right? When I get the fish, I can, then move some media from my regular tank over to this one and turn on the filter.

I have two filters on my regular tank and I purposely keep extra bio media in them just for moving it over to QTs. I just want to make sure that I don't have to wait any certain amount of time. From cycling the tank when I first got it, I want to say if I waited more then a few days, all the bacteria would die off if I didn't feed it, so it would make sense to move the media into the QT tank right when the fish.

Also, should I have any kind of floss/debris filter in there? It's a small Aqueon HOB. I suppose since the tank is bare bottom, there ought to be something to catch stuff...or is loading that up with bio media enough?

 

[Brookster123]

That's rough... That actually happened to me too, a few months and it went belly up for no apparent reason??? Your qt method sounds solid!! I wouldn't worry so much with water clarity vs steady pristine parameters so more bio media..

 

[Nuclear Queen]

Really sorry about your bristle nose..... Losing any fish is hard, but your favorite...?
Again, very sorry.

Sent from my SGH-M919 using Aquarium Advice mobile app

 

[Joey P]

Okay, so now it's time to figure out what to restock it with.
Looking at my tank, I've got:
1 Pearl Gourami
3 Glofish (2 Red, 1 yellow)
4 Tiger Barbs

Wow, I am down quite a bit

Playing with AqAdvisors and Live Aquaria to see pictures and quick descriptions* for a few minutes...I'd like to get another BN Pleco, but I also like the looks of the Clown Loach (which I think probably gets too big for a 40g breeder) and Black Kuhli Loach.
That's about as far as I got right now.
I also need to restock the GloFish and the Barbs.

*BTW has anyone ordered from LiveAquaria? It seems odd to mail order fish, but the place is practically in my backyard (well, it's a 4 hour drive), so the anything I ordered would show up pretty quickly.

 

[Joey P]

I keep meaning to update this, I didn't realize it had been 4 months. So a few months ago (probably right when I made that last post), I got my QT tank up and running, got some barbs, some glofish, and a albino pleco. The albino pleco promptly died. I brought it back to Petco and by then they had a BN Pleco, but it was very, very tiny. I took it and put it in with the rest of the QT fish and it was fine. It died after after a few days in the regular tank. A handful of the new fish died over the coming months as well. At this point I think I'll go back to the 'expensive' fish store and stop thinking of it as 'expensive' and start thinking of Petco as 'cheap'. At least until I see the same results from the expensive place.

In the mean time my tank is filthy and I'd really like to get another Pleco and/or CAE in it. I'm really thinking about just getting one (or one of each) and tossing it in without QTing it first and taking my chances. I've had ick once (from the expensive place) and it was dealt with without any fatalities.