treehugr

Can anyone tell me how to make a simple quarantine tank? I am wondering what elements you truly need. Would a 2-3 gallon clear plastic container with an AirPod bubbler in it (for aeration) work?

Also, how long do you need to quarantine new tank mates? 1-2 days... or longer?

Gargoyle

You need about 2 weeks for a good q session..

I would suggest a 5 gallon tank with filter for cycling purposes and a heater, no gravel, perhaps a floating plant or 2, then call it good.

A q tank that hasn't been cycled is a waste of time IMO so make sure you understand how to accomplish that and keep the tank cycled between q sessions.

treehugr

Wow, two weeks? Okay, that kills my temporary tank idea I will check out the small tanks at my LFS.

Regarding cycling the QT. Can't I just use the water from my current tank? Say, when I do the water change, take that water and mix it 50/50 with some new water? Maybe put in some gravel to add more of the beneficial bacteria from the current tank?

I'm just trying to find a simple way to quarantine new tank mates to safe-guard my existing fish/tank BUT I don't want to have to run the QT all the time -- only when I need it, which won't be often.

Gargoyle

You could try to use water from you main tank if you'd like. But without happily cycled filter media I feel you efforts would be in vain.

Now if you had some bio media in your main tank to keep it cycled then fired up the q tank for whatever reason and put the happy bio media in there that would work.

The only issue would be if the new fish are sick and you place the bio from the sick fish into your main tank you could spread the disease to your main tank...

I'm sure there is a way to do what you'd like but I think it would be simpler to have a q tank ready and running at all times.

treehugr

Sorry, I'm still new at this. When you say "bio media" -- what exactly do you mean?

What if I kept a square of filter material in the back of the main tank so that, when we needed to cycle up the QT, we could drop that into the small QT (along with 50% of the old water from the water change on the main tank) to get the QT going?

Honestly, I feel like it's a waste of energy to keep another tank running when we might use it a couple of times a year (if that). The only reason I want to have the QT is I am afraid of adding any new tank mates to my main tank without it. We have a small tank (14g) and just need to add a few more (2-3 more Red Serpae Tetra to round out the shoal and then maybe 1-2 Nerite snails to keep the algae at bay).

Once we have room for a larger tank (which I do want) we'll get one and then a run the 14g as the QT tank.

Gargoyle

What kind of filter do you use on the main tank? And what kind of filter to you plan on using for the QT tank?

Moving water won't hurt but it will also do very little to cycle a QT tank quickly.

Lucy

I could be way wrong on this, but I think that would work as long as you kept the filter media in the tank long enough to grow bacteria on it.
The water doesn't really hold that much bacteria, but it would assure you that the q tank and the main tank's water are the same.

I have a peice of filter media for my empty 30g stuck in my established 10g for when I'm ready to set it up. (Ok, I'm ready, but my husband has some furniture to move around to make room for it. lol)

treehugr

It's a 14g Oceanic Biocube which has "integrated wet/dry filtration with dual overflow intakes". The replaceable filters have activated charcoal in them.

http://www.oceanicsystems.com/products/biocube.php

treehugr

Yeah, that's what I would do. Just let it float behind the slide-in filter in the main tank (I don't think it would interfere with the filtering). I wonder how big a piece would be good. I guess I could just drop it in the QT - or would I need to weight it down?

Lucy

I used an inch sized river rock from one of my tanks to weigh it down.
I also did plenty of partial water changes, just in case.