Resident for Quarantine/Hospital tank...

[Fawke]

Hi there,

I am looking at setting up a 10impGal hostpital/quarantine tank.

After setting it up, i would ideally like a resident fish (or two) to keep in there to keep it cycled and ticking over....

I ideally the fish will be hardy enough to take medications/salt/raising temp.... or would you not recommend putting any fish through this

In which case, a hardy fish that will get put into my main tank during treatment.... compatible with my other fish....

During quarantining i would look at leaving the fish in the tank...

Any ideas much appreciated, and any other suggestions on hospital tanks greatly welcomed.

Thanks

Fawke

 

[impur]

The idea of a QT tank is that it is ready for fish at any moment as well as ready for meds. It also provides an isolated home for the fish so you can more closely isolate what is wrong, feed, and simply keep an eye on the progression/recovery of the fish. Some medicines will kill off the bacteria that you have worked so hard to cultivate in your tank. It is also sometimes difficult to remove meds from a tank, e.g. copper. Some meds will cling to the walls, silicon, ornaments in the tank. I keep my QT tank empty and clean with a dedicated filter ready to go. In the event i need to treat a fish , i use partial water from the tank and the rest is new dechlorinated water. Acclimation is the same as introducing a fish to your main tank.

 

[Fawke]

So you would recommend putting the power filter in my main tank, to mature it, and have the QT/HT on standby until its needed.
Then do as you mentioned and half tank/half de-chlorinated and stick the mature filter in there? That'll work without needing to cycle it...?

Do you recommend a substrate or not? just a ornament and maybe a plastic flower for comfort?

Thanks

 

[impur]

So you would recommend putting the power filter in my main tank, to mature it, and have the QT/HT on standby until its needed.
Then do as you mentioned and half tank/half de-chlorinated and stick the mature filter in there? That'll work without needing to cycle it...?

Yep that will work. Make sure you still have a filter running on the main tank.

Do you recommend a substrate or not? just a ornament and maybe a plastic flower for comfort?

In my QT tank, depending on what kind of fish, I might add a cave or something. Since i have mainly cichlids, they love the cave. I leave it bare bottom.

 

[CFC]

Basic tank furniture for a hospital tank is a plastic plant or two and a rock or cave to offer some shelter. I filter my hospital tank with a small air powered sponge filter, i filter all my small tanks with these any way so if the need arises i just pinch a bit of a sponge off of one of the mature ones but you could just run a spare filter in your main tank and transfer it to the hospital tank when needed.