MeGustaUnaPez926

I recently learned that it isn't a good idea to have gravel in your quarantine tank. Or anything else for that matter. Now, when I set up my QT, I bought some plastic plants, gravel and a piece of driftwood so my fish would feel safe. But I recently dosed the tank with Maracyn, and now I need to get it out of the gravel. I am (I think) going to just put the gravel and decor into my main tank, if thats a good idea, after I clean it. I was just going to rinse everything and maybe scrub it down, but then I remembered I'd heard people use a little bit of bleach to clean tanks. Would that be a good idea for me? And how do you think taking the gravel out of the tank would affect the cycle? I'm not planning on putting fish in there for a while, but just in case. Also, should I replace all the water? I sort of want to, not just because of the meds, but because I have an algae problem in there. If I kept the filter media in some tank water and maybe put some new media in from my main tank, would the tank cycle back pretty fast? Thanks in advance.

lew2000

I don't about others but i don't have my quarantine tank set up unless i am actually going to use it. I use it for both new fish and as a med tank. Check out this link in FishLore:

http://www.fishlore.com/QuarantineTankSetup.htm

Med Tank:

http://www.aquahobby.com/articles/e_quarantine.php

As for the decor, you can use soapy warm water or vinegar and warm water to rinse out your decor for moving to another tank. For med tanks, i don't have any decor. For a straight quarantine tank i do provide hiding spaces and lights.

Lucy

I don't keep a Q tank set up all the time either.
I wouldn't suggest using soap. It can often times leave a residue.
To sterilize, I use bleach. 19 parts water to 1 part bleach. Rinse well until you can't smell it anymore then OD it with dechlorinated water and let it set for a while. Empty and refill the tank again with dechlorinated water.
Before I went through the trouble of bleaching gravel, I'd toss it. It's not that expensive.
You can filter the meds out with carbon.

MeGustaUnaPez926

Okay. What about the decorations? Can I just rinse those? And I'm guessing the carbon wouldn't filter out the stuff in the gravel? Oh, and if I put in all fresh water and clean the gravel, will the carbon even be necessary?

Lucy

If you change out 100% of the water you wouldn't have to filter out the meds.
I've bleached plastic and silk plants, just kept them inside my tank while I sterilized, rinsed etc.
While it didn't happen to me, I imagine the bleach could take the color out of some silk plants.

MeGustaUnaPez926

I think I am going to bleach everything then. I can put the plants towards the back, they already are a super bright green, so I don't think the color fading a bit would be a huge problem. And I would take down the QT tank when I don't need it, but the filter is such I can't put it on my tank to keep it cycled. And think I will take the time to rinse out the gravel, even though it is so cheap, I don't have anything better to do. Thanks for all the help!

Lucy

Your welcome. Keep extra filter media in your cycled tank. That way when you go to set up your Q tank you'll have a nice growth of bacteria to jump start the tank.

MeGustaUnaPez926

Yup, thats actually what I've started doing, I've just been using the QT more than usual lately.