Sorority tank!

[Carmen]

Hi CatScott,

Yeah I was actually thinking about that. I was wondering about your chances of success.

Since you're bringing your girls all the way from Thailand, considering the huge betta farms they have over there, I assume they all will come from the same breeding batch. So they will be sisters most likely. This raises your chances of success by a lot. The agression display will be minimal between sisters. There will be a pecking order, but this will most likely run rather smoothly than gruesome.

Still, in the case the alpha becomes a bit of a bully, or if one of them is too shy for the group and becomes the single target too often, you want indeed to have a couple of quarantine tank prepare before hand. To prevent, or to cure.

 

[Colin_T]

If you quarantine all new fish, plants, snails and shrimp for a month before adding them to your main display tank, you will minimise the chance of the fish getting new diseases.

If you do big regular water changes, gravel cleaning and filter cleaning, you shouldn't get any sick fish in the main tank.

If you want a quarantine/ hospital tank, you can buy a 10 gallon glass aquarium or a plastic storage container and use that. Have a sponge filter running in the main tank along with the normal filter and if you get a sick fish, you can set up the hospital tank using water and filter from the main tank.

When the fish aren't sick you have the filter in the main tank to keep it alive. The hospital tank can be washed out and left to dry to kill anything in it.

 

[Fishmanic]

which Colin?

The one under your hat.

 

[FishGuest5123]

I had one sweet girl that was constantly targeted. She wouldn’t defend herself so I had to move her to a 5G where she was happy all by herself. Sadly, she came down with the columnaris first and I was careful to not cross contaminate anything I used in her tank. The other tank still got the Columnaris. That’s how We determined it had to be infected by the bloodworms. One other betta tank got it also. 3 tanks...all bettas...only ones fed the bloodworms. 4 other tanks not fed bloodworms didn’t get the columnaris.

 

[Jan Cavalieri]

You would need a separate tank (maybe only 3-5 gallons) to use while treating your sick fish. It would need to be kept ready at any time (ie., cycled) I have one that I keep a small number of fish in that can easily be moved to another tank should I need that tank. Generally fish don't get sick unless they catch something from a new fish - that is why I try to use the same breeder. But injuries do happen a lot and other fish may prey on a disabled fish.

 

[CatScott]

Im not going to quarantine as all fish are coming together and will be the only fish in the tank. Carmen I'm thinking a lot will be related although not all, due to the mix of colouring/markings I will be getting. Draw back is that the breeders do keep them all separate including the females so none will be used to sharing. The hospital Im more thinking of in terms of if one is injured and needs treatment. That of stress casing problems. If any one fish is getting singled out and excessively bullied (or one is just a big bully) my boys have a tank that I can pop her in. I think I will just big up a cheap second hand tank and have it set up in the spare room in case.

 

[Naughts]

If you have a spare filter running in your main tank ( just a sponge one is good), you don't need the tank set up.
When you need a hospital tank just grab the tank out of storage, fill with water of the same temperature and add in the spare filter with floating plants. Add a spare heater and aeriation as necessary. If you're worried the water doesn't match you can either acclimate the fish or use water out of the main tank.
Saves on space.

 

[FishGuest5123]

I’m with Naughts. Why take up space leaving a QT tank up all the time? I just keep extra filter media in all of my filters and pop some in my QT tank when I need one. I have been in fish stores and on a whim, bought a new fish. I come home and fill the tank, add warm water if I need a certain temp, hook up the heater, add the cycled media to the filter, float the fish and acclimate and all is good. Tank can be up and running in less than 10 minutes.

 

[seangee]

+1 on that. My QT is a plastic tub, actually I have 3 of them stacked in the garage. I can have a QT, hospital tank or breeding tank up and running in 5 minutes, or 3 of them if I need to..

 

[CatScott]

Ok, so made a few more alterations to the tank in preparation. Added a couple of little caves and some more plants. Still have about 3 weeks before the girls arrive so still more time for the plants to grow in more, the one on the far left is now about 5 times larger than when I bought it a month ago!

 

[FishGuest5123]

That’s looking nice! Really nice!