Plastic storage quarantine tank

[starzfish]

I have a 15 gallon storage tank that I plan to use as a quarantine tank for my betta and shrimp. It is NOT cycled but I do plan on doing daily water changes and testing frequently. For this, I am using my garage sale duck tape hang on back filter. I only plan on using it for a month or so while my 5 gal cycles. Will it work? Will the fish be fine in there for a few weeks? BTW, could anybody here give me an estimated time for how long it will take to cycle my 5 gal?

Thanks!

 

[Back in the fold]

That's a great setup and all will be fine. I belong to the American Killifish Association and get their newsletters and quarterly journal. Almost all Killie keepers raise and breed their fish in just exactly that type of thing. The reason for that is they generally keep several species and have to separate young that vary too much in size to prevent the larger fry from eating their smaller siblings. Nothing wrong at all with what you have there.

 

[Colin_T]

Most filters take around 4-6 weeks to cycle (develop the good bacteria that keep ammonia and nitrite at 0ppm).

That filter set up is fine for quarantining fish and shrimp. Put a sponge over the intake of the filter so none of the small fish/ shrimp get sucked into the filter.

You can put Ammogon/ Zeolite in the filter to remove ammonia from the water. This can be recharged by soaking it in salt water for 24-48 hours. You still need to monitor the ammonia levels when using Ammogon/ Zeolite but it can help reduce the number of water changes you need to do.

 

[starzfish]

Most filters take around 4-6 weeks to cycle (develop the good bacteria that keep ammonia and nitrite at 0ppm).

That filter set up is fine for quarantining fish and shrimp. Put a sponge over the intake of the filter so none of the small fish/ shrimp get sucked into the filter.

You can put Ammogon/ Zeolite in the filter to remove ammonia from the water. This can be recharged by soaking it in salt water for 24-48 hours. You still need to monitor the ammonia levels when using Ammogon/ Zeolite but it can help reduce the number of water changes you need to do.

@Colin_T Like this? https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0002566YC/?tag=ff0d01-20

 

[coriesinhawaii]

Yes it should work fine. I’ve used a similar setup before. One thing to keep in mind: Not sure if you were planning on keeping it at floor level or not but if so it will be harder to do water changes with a gravel vac that uses gravity to get the water moving. If that’s what you use you’ll probably want to set it higher up on a counter or table of some sort that can handle the weight. I also wished I had kept it up higher so that I could see the fish better. Hard to observe them when they’re on the ground.

 

[Colin_T]

@Colin_T Like this? https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0002566YC/?tag=ff0d01-20

That has carbon and zeolite in. You just want zeolite on its own, without carbon so you can recharge the zeolite with salt water. If you move carbon from fresh to salt water or vice versa, it can release anything it has adsorbed. Plus a bag of zeolite without any extras, should be cheaper to buy than the zeolite/ carbon mixture.