Setting Up An Additional Tank

[tgo]

I have this 15 gallon tank plus filters, heater, etc just sitting around for awhile now. I also have a 5.5 gallon heavily planted tank with 2 sparkling gouramis, 2 panda cories, shrimp and 1 pygmy cory. I would like to turn the small 5.5 gallon into a quarantine/hospital/fry tank and move these fish into the 15 gallon, but not yet. First, I would like to set up the new tank as a planted tank with low light plants and seed the filter using media from the existing setup. Then I would like to stock the 15 gallon with a shoal (5 or 6) of either:

lemon tetras
neon tetras
endler's livebearers
cherry barbs

Then a month or two later, should I then add the cories and sparkling gouramis? I will probably add more cories eventually to complete the school, I'll just use the 5.5 gallon to quarantine these.

Is this the best method, or can somebody suggest a better way?
Is it a good idea to just keep the quarantine tank running continuously, kept cycled by the shrimp and snails?

I figured this would be the best, since the two tanks will share the same 4 foot aquarium stand and it could be used for a variety of reasons. Plus its a beautiful little tank, I'd hate to strip it down until I had to because of disease. Thanks for your help!

 

[ellena]

Sounds good to me. I can't get my head around how to keep a filter going in a Q tank either

 

[kiriyama]

Lemon Tetra and Cherry Barb , excellent choices

 

[Peggers]

The way I've seen several people recommend to keep a quarantine tanking going is put the filter sponge into the main tank filter so it's always cycled, and just move it across when you need to you the quarantine tank.

 

[ellena]

I think why I have the problem is that all my tanks are small, so a Q tank is the same size and stocking as the main tank

 

[Ben M]

you could also just run the filter for the quarantine tank in the main tank, although it would be a waste of electricity.

cheers