Setting Up and Furnishing A Quarantine Tank

[soul-hugger]

Hello...

Awhile ago I made the firm decision not to add any more fish or loaches to my collection with out quarantining them, so today I finally bought a qurantine tank.

It is a simple 10 gallon with a hood, light, and HOB filter. I was wondering how to go about setting it up, and what kind of substrate and decorations are necessary for it. I would like to have things that are easy to clean and sterilize if need be, but don't want to have it too bare and sterile looking.

I would love to know how some of you set up, decorate, and maintain your quarantine tanks, along with how you treat and medicate your new fish and loaches. Any tips, tricks, input or suggestions would be gladly appreciated!!

Thanks!
soul-hugger

[starsplitter7]

Hi there,

Glad about the Q-tank. It will also make a great treatment tank if a fish gets sick too.

I run the filter on the back of my regular tank, so that when my Q-tank needs to be set up I have a mature filter ready to go. I usually have a couple fake plants and a hiding place like a coconut hut and that's it for decor. I choose things I can boil, so when the treatment is over, I can boil the decor to sterilize it. No gravel, although sometimes I will put in a single layer of gravel. Easy to vacuum and keep clean.

Do you have an adjustable heater?

My Q-tank is in the closet when not in use. (Otherwise I am tempted to set up up as a permanent tank.) Only the filter needs to be in constant operation. I can set it up in ten minutes.


Good luck. Tanja.

[chefkeith]

I like the q-tanks to be bare bottom.

If you ever get a bad case of MTS, you'll probably end up having several kinds of quarantine tanks.

I keep a 20 gallon q-tank ready at all times, which is used only for my current fish if they ever get sick or injured. Luckily, there hasn't been any fish in it for awhile. This is a disease free tank that I keep cycled by housing a few dozen ramshorn snails in it. It has 2 hob penguin 100 biowheel filters on it.

If I want new fish, I'd set up a different quarantine tank. I have several spare tanks and filters in storage that I can set-up for quarantining. I'd just need to swap a biowheel or other bio media and it would be ready.

I also have a small tank that I use mostly for euthenizing fish. I usually only euthenize fish if it has been in quarantine for several months and has shown no improvement. For example, I've had to do this with several old boesmani rainbowfish that had an untreatable case of columnaris.

The bases are covered when you have a q-tank for emergencies, a q-tank for new fish, and a q-tank for euthanasia.

[NancyD]

I tend to make my Q tank more homey for new fish with substrate & plants since the fish will be in it at least a month. Nothing I can't clean or throw out.

But I'm tearing that 10g tank down to store it. It'll be a bare hospital tank if I need one. I also have fish in a 20g long quarantine that's been running for a while. I've lost a couple fish so I'm afraid to move them yet but I need to move the tank soon.

Tank, filter, heater, the only other thing you need is a thermometer. A light is nice

[zmo63]

I have a q tank that sits underneath one of my main tanks. It's a 10 gallon with gravel and a single large piece of driftwood. I keep one or two extra filters on other tanks that I can transfer over when I need to. So when I buy new fish, I fill up the tank (half new water, half tank water from the main tank), plug in the heater, turn on the light, move the filter over, and acclimate the fish. When it's time to take it down, I unplug everything, drain the water, rinse everything out in the bathtub, and then let it dry before it gets used again. If it was for new fish that turned out to be healthy, I move the filter back to the main tank with them, but if the fish were not healthy, the media gets thrown out, the filter scrubbed out, and then left to dry before it goes back on the main tank.

[soul-hugger]

Thank-you so much for the informative replies!!

Certainly, MTS is a concern for me! I started up with one 20 gallon tank last summer, and now I have a 55 gallon as well, plus the quarantine. When I first got the 55, I thought it was HUGE, and that I'd never need another larger. But now here I am thinking, I really like some of the botia loaches, it would be really nice to get an even larger tank so I can properly house them. I am also drawn to the schistura loaches, and would like to try a river manifold, which I am finally beginning to grasp the mechanics of. So many interesting species!!! Luckily my perfectionism will keep this in check, because I won't buy a fish unless I know I can at least work towards "perfection" on its home.

The main reason I have the quarantine now is for new fish, although down the road, I'm sure it will come in handy for other things. My 55 Gallon tank is quite bare; only having 2 adult Weather Loaches, 1 juvenile, 3 dark kuhlis (don't know the species, think it's Oblonga) 3 Tetra, and 2 smallish Gold Barbs. Also, now that I have moved many of the original fish from the 20 gallon, it's looking a little empty, too.

The first thing I'd like to do is to increase the numbers of some of the schooling fish, the tetras, barbs, and kuhlis. When I got my first tank I went nuts and got too many species in too few numbers, but now I should be able to adjust them some. I would also be interested to hear your opinion on this; in the 55 gallon I have 3 oblonga kuhlis, in the 20 I have 4 striped kuhlis, do you think they would like to be combined in one of the tanks??

I was wondering if loaches or cory cats were in the Q-tank, if they would mind if there was no substrate, or if it would be better just to add a small layer and then throw it away. This was one of my major considerations. The Q-tank will definitely have a heater and thermometer, and I think running the filter on one of my other tanks is a great idea. I will install it today.

Thanks Again
soul-hugger

[Diana]

I use a thin layer of rather small gravel. It is easy to vacuum, since the dirt cannot really go under the gravel, but the gravel does keep the dirt from sailing around the tank while I am vacuuming.

If you have live plants in the other tanks and can toss some cuttings into the Q-tank this would be good. If the fish in the Q-tank get sick you could throw away the plants (can't sterilize them) Otherwise plastic plants, they can be dipped in any sort of disinfectant (Bleach, H2O2, rubbing alcohol, other) afterward.

Driftwood is very porous. When you want to disinfect it you would bake it in the oven. Start with it soaking wet, the steam as it bakes will kill most things. Then boil it to re-sink it. Fake driftwood is not porous and could likely be dipped in disinfectant without the worry of getting the disinfectant into the tank via the cells in the wood.

Caves etc. I would create caves out of rocks that can easily be taken apart to find the fish. Aim the caves outward so you can see into them so you can assess the fish often. Perhaps lean a flat rock up against the front glass.

My thoughts are that the fish do need some sort of nice place but I need to see them, and be able to clean the tank the easiest. Less decor is better. Being able to sterilize things is very important. I usually end up with a mass of floating plants, or even algae of some sort so that there are no rooted plants, thin layer of gravel, a few rocks, but no driftwood.

[NancyD]

You can easily combine the pangio species, they'll be fine. Sort of like keeping different species of corys together, they know they're different & they may or may not hang out with each other. But no problems.

[soul-hugger]

Thanks again Nancy and Diana!!

I have been enjoying hearing about the different ways to set up a quarantine. I will probabaly opt to go with a small layer of gravel, some clippings from my plants, and perhaps some fake wood. The flat rock idea is great, but I haven't been able to find any flat rocks even for my main tank. Last night I spent several hours cleaning and redecorating the 55 and have had a lot of troube working with the materials that are available here. I may end up having to visit a pond supply place to get some larger pieces of rock. I also have an extra piece of driftwood I may decide to use, if all else fails.

I do have a fourth tank, and it is only 1 or 1.5 gallons. I tried to quarantine in it before only to end up having to move the new baby loaches into the main tank after only one day when I checked the water parameters and the nitrites were 0.8!! It may come in handy for euthenizing fish if I have to, or I may give it to my daughter for her Sea Monkeys, which are basically modified Brine Shrimp she has been keeping as pets for over a year. They are actually kind of cute and surprisingly have personality. That's why I have trouble feeding my fish brine shrimp!

With all your posts combined, I have come to the conclusion that simple is better. I'll let you know how everyting goes, and maybe soon I'll have some new fish to talk about!

Bye For Now
soul-hugger

[Diana]

Good choice about the gallon of so tank. It is too small to offer stable conditions, and very tricky to medicate when a lot of medicine dosages are based on 10 gallons.

[soul-hugger]

That's for sure! Some of the other treatments I have, including Seachem water conditioner, is based on 50 Gallons! It's even a little difficult for my 20 Gallon let alone a 1 Gallon. Strange, ( and a little frightening) I bought the little tank, it's called "Petite Paradise" and the picture on the front shows two goldfish on it. Pretty Sad.

I'm not even sure a heater would work on omething that small. Luckily the fish I bought and put in it were in cold water in the store. Good thing they turned out to be healthy. Better not buy new fish at all than put them in there. But this new quarantine will be much better.

Thanks,
As Always,
soul-hugger

[tfmaxman]

After a horrible experience adding clowns to my 55 gal (US) tank, I've decided to try a quarantine tank. I knew I'd eventually need to move the clowns, but I thought they would be a nice addition to an established tank of 3 dojos and 4 zebra danios. The clowns got sick and all died within two weeks. I'm not even sure what they had, but I would come into the office (where I have the tank) and every other day one would be on the bottom breathing heavily or dead covered in fuzz. All six were gone within two weeks.

The dojos got ick as the clowns were dying off. I treated the tank and it's been good for about two months now. I had great great luck (and perhaps that all it was - luck) adding a set of six clowns from my LFS to my 90 gal tank at home.

So I've read this thread about setting up a quarantine tank. I've purchased a HOB (Penguin biowheel 200) and it's been running for awhile on the 90 gal at home which has a big canister filter. I plan to purchase a 10 gal tank once I'm ready to put fish in there and then I'll move the HOB biowheel to the q tank.

My question is about how this all works. I'll add a presumably "mature" filter with bacteria doing their job to a tank (with some water from the big tank and some fresh) along with the new fish. Isn't this really like setting up a new tank? Doesn't this type of set-up run the risk of the tank "cycling"? Won't that put the newly transported fish through more stress?

I could set up the small tank and continue to run it with some small fish that would be "sacrificed" if things go wrong with new fish I want to add to the larger tanks bringing in disease, but fish kill is what I'm trying to avoid.

Any thoughts?