sirdarksol

This more regards hospital tanks than quarantine tanks, but I've actually got points regarding both.
First of all, is there any point at all to keeping a hospital tank cycled? That is, if you don't have any need for a quarantine tank (don't plan on adding any fish, etc...), and only have the tank around as a hospital tank. The way I understand the biology of things, the bacteria colony will die off when exposed to antibiotics (hmmm... anti-biotic resistant ammonia-eating bacteria colonies... no, no. That would probably also breed a strain of resistant ICH, defeating the purpose), thus un-cycling the tank anyway.
Second of all, if you are always keeping an extra piece of bio-media in one of the cycled tanks (I have an extra piece of sponge in two of my tanks' filters. They're actually just to "seed" a tank should the unthinkable, like a bleach spill or a power outage, kill off the colony in one of my tanks, but they're big enough to act as bio-media in the tiny filter in my new hospital/quarantine tank), is there a need to keep the quarantine tank cycled?

COBettaCouple

i think it's a personal preference issue. we don't keep a q/h tank cycled even when we have one because so many meds just blow the cycle anyway.. putting sponge filters in every tank is a good idea and one that we'll be implementing in all of our tanks 5g and above soon.

Mike

I've used tank water that they're coming from to fill the hospital/quarantine tank and rely on frequent partial water changes while they're in quarantine.

Butterfly

I usually keep an extra small filter running on one of the other tanks then when I need it I just move it over to the tank I'm using for hospital/quarantine tank. Good question Since you never know when you might need it, it's always good to have a plan in place.
Carol

sirdarksol

I like this idea, too. I never thought about it, but the Whisper in my new quarantine tank is small enough that there would be no problem adding it to either of my bigger tanks. Combine that with the extra bits of sponge in each filter, and I should be able to withstand everything but an extended power outage.

COBettaCouple

yea, these are great ideas.. next DFS order (if it's still running, i think we'll order a dozen sponge filters to stick in the cycled tanks.. then we should have plenty of sponge to seed new tanks with). who needs $40 bags of biospira?

sirdarksol

Exactly. That $40 can wait until a three day long power failure kills off the colonies in all of the tanks at once.

COBettaCouple

power failures! good thing i have the giant hamster wheel to shove a few neighborhood kids in as a backup power source. :