Quarantine Tank

[Bruno]

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?

[cainechow]

You could just put yet dirty water change water in there. Jk. That seems kinda gross. Wtb just feeding the tank a pinch of fish food once a week? I'm curious to see what people are actually doing

[Vallisneria]

I use a 5 or 10g and only set it up when I need it. I just take a used sponge from another tank, instant cycle.

[flyfisher]

I use canister filters on my main tanks so I keep a sponge for my QT tank Aqua clear in one of the canisters media trays always ready for quick set ups.

Or you can just transfer media from a cycled tank squeezing out a dirty sponge works too.

[Jayba]

I just squeeze some mung out of an established filter in to the new tank let it percolate for a day, then do a water change to vacuum up the sediment the next day. Presto. Cycled.

[Bruno]

So I am thinking this thru for when it comes time to stock my tank now going thru a fishless cycle

Once it is cycled, theoritically 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 jeapordize the health of my tank and its filter by extention, 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 acclimitize 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...

[flyfisher]

If your looking to QT fish before adding to your main tank then you could fishless cycle both tanks at the same time.As for the bacteria after fishless cycle it is very resilient and can quickly multiply when bio load increases but it is always best to stock slowly and use your test kit to keep water parameters in check.