Hi all,
MTS has kicked in and I've secured a 20l Blue Planet beginner's tank. Firstly I'll be using it to quarantine my Rainbow, who doesn't seem to be losing his/her growth on the gill, but otherwise seems happy. I'll put it in the small tank so I can properly keep an eye on it, and dose with medicine (much cheaper than 10x the medicine in the big tank).
If all goes well I intend to have a go at breeding my Cherry Barbs, so all I'll need is a separator, which I think I might knock up with a sheet of clear perspex with a stack of tiny holes drilled into it.
Having read the fine article on setting up a quarantine tank, I think I'll be right in the intial stage for the quarantine (as TTA suggested there's not much point in trying to cycle the tank if I'm going to medicate). However when it comes to the breeding, I'd like some advice on the filter setup.
The filter is in a sealed box (looks a bit like a lunchbox to me). There's 5 bioballs, 5 ceramic tubes, and the middle has a sheet of filter wool with a bag of carbon in the middle:
Is this the best setup? When used as a hospital tank the carbon bag will obviously go, but as for the rest, should I try and stuff more filter wool in the middle section, or leave it fairly free-flowing with not much more than a loosely rolled tube of filter wool? I'm slightly concerned about choking it, but I'm also concerned about how much of the solid waste will escape back into the tank. Then again it's only going to be operating for a couple of weeks at a time.
I'm also thinking when it's not in use, I'll put the media in the bottom of my canister filter to keep bacteria alive.
And I'm thinking of ditching the brightly painted blue gravel entirely and borrowing some gravel from the big tank when breeding.
MTS has kicked in and I've secured a 20l Blue Planet beginner's tank. Firstly I'll be using it to quarantine my Rainbow, who doesn't seem to be losing his/her growth on the gill, but otherwise seems happy. I'll put it in the small tank so I can properly keep an eye on it, and dose with medicine (much cheaper than 10x the medicine in the big tank).
If all goes well I intend to have a go at breeding my Cherry Barbs, so all I'll need is a separator, which I think I might knock up with a sheet of clear perspex with a stack of tiny holes drilled into it.
Having read the fine article on setting up a quarantine tank, I think I'll be right in the intial stage for the quarantine (as TTA suggested there's not much point in trying to cycle the tank if I'm going to medicate). However when it comes to the breeding, I'd like some advice on the filter setup.
The filter is in a sealed box (looks a bit like a lunchbox to me). There's 5 bioballs, 5 ceramic tubes, and the middle has a sheet of filter wool with a bag of carbon in the middle:
Is this the best setup? When used as a hospital tank the carbon bag will obviously go, but as for the rest, should I try and stuff more filter wool in the middle section, or leave it fairly free-flowing with not much more than a loosely rolled tube of filter wool? I'm slightly concerned about choking it, but I'm also concerned about how much of the solid waste will escape back into the tank. Then again it's only going to be operating for a couple of weeks at a time.
I'm also thinking when it's not in use, I'll put the media in the bottom of my canister filter to keep bacteria alive.
And I'm thinking of ditching the brightly painted blue gravel entirely and borrowing some gravel from the big tank when breeding.
