Instant Cycle Quarantine Tank

I am preparing a quarantine tank for a shipment of fish I expect to receive tomorrow. I am instant cycling with a sponge that has been in a cycled tank for about 4 months. However, it has been in a lightly stocked and heavily filtered tank so it does not have a strong cycle.

I decided to build the cycle by treating with ammonia. It is processing about 1 ppm ammonia a day, but the nitrite processing is not keeping up. Currently between 0.25 and 0.5 ppm nitrite. The fish are coming tomorrow.

I am thinking that I will do a big water change tonight so water should be zero ammonia and nitrite tomorrow. I am thinking that my weak cycle will be good enough for 20 Harlequin Rasboras in a 20 long quarantine tank if I am feeding lightly. And I can monitor closely and do water changes if the cycle does not keep up.

 

You are correct in your assumption. A mini cycle is nothing to be afraid of. It does however mean work on your part and possibly a bit of extra cost if you are going to be medicating the tank you will need to add more medication each time you do a small temperature matched conditioned water change.

Lets look at this logically. If the tank the filter was in was the tank the new fish we’re going in you would still have a mini cycle on your hands. Any time you add fish to any tank no matter how old or established it is unless you remove fish you will always have a mini .
Another unscientific unproven old wives tale travelling around the internet bacteria can double their numbers in 24 hours.

Perhaps you have a gravel filled terracotta pot plant or to you could add to the quarantine tank? Any old ornaments will help.

i know you wrote something about having a sterile tank for quarantine ? I don’t understand the logic of that ? A dirty used filter is a dirty used filter. Add as many ornaments or gravel as you have spare. From the same tank as the filter if you think you have something bad in another tank . What did you write,? bad bacteria the other night? If you think you have bad bacteria then take everything spare from the same tank as the seeded filter/ dirty old filter.

 

Sterile was probably the wrong word. My understanding is that most tanks have all kinds of bacteria. Some of that bacteria can cause disease. The occupants of that tank will be accustomed to that bacteria. And if they have a strong immune system it will not cause any harm. However, if you introduce new fish that have been stressed by transportation, stressed by suboptimal fish store conditions and stressed by a change in parameters, they might succumb to a disease they could otherwise survive.

Much like the Europeans wiped out most of the Native American population. There are all kinds of harmful bacteria and viruses everywhere. Organisms develop the ability to fight the harmful bacteria and viruses in their environment. Put them in a new environment and they have to develop the ability to fight different harmful bacteria and viruses. We can see this with the Coronavirus. It is a new virus we have no defense for so it is running rampant. And it is more deadly for those with underlying conditions, elderly and weakened immune systems.

So the idea is to have a cycled but otherwise pristine tank for the new fish to recover from transportation and adjust to new parameters. Then have the full strength of their immune system before having to face bacteria they may not have encountered before. Even if the new tank is very clean and well cared for, it will have harmful bacteria.

Maybe overkill. The new tank these fish are going into will be vacated by the existing occupants. So I do not need to quarantine to protect the existing occupants. The idea is to have the optimal acclimation process.

 

That’s a very good point you raise. I am sure there must be some truth to it .

That makes me rethink some of my ideas on an established ecosystem and the whole balanced tank thing. The use of snail poop and leaf litter with shrimp all over the place.

Food for thought, I will have to give that some consideration.

I am not sure how you get pristine water in a tank with a dirty filter? But I take it on board and will think hard on that concept. I have only ever heard the words pristine water on video a few times from an American I subscribe to who was asking himself what the heck it means. The guy with the waterfall tank if you know who I mean? . I don’t think he’s worth posting a link to . To much click bait.

 

What I mean by pristine is a tank that has had no previous occupants. No substrate. Clean decorations.

Here is my quarantine tanks.




It is true that it is not 100% pristine. The cycled filter material will have some harmful bacteria. Eliminating all harmful bacteria is not possible.

But I think it would have a lot less potentially harmful bacteria than an occupied tank. Even if it has been regularly maintained with good water changes. An existing tank with other fish, snails, plants, substrate, etc will have a lot more harmful bacteria than a newly set up tank with no occupants, no substrate, no plants.

I suppose if you had months to prepare a quarantine tank, you could start from scratch with no seed material to try to develop beneficial bacteria without harmful bacteria. But even in this case, over a period of months, you would develop other bacteria just from the environment. You would need to be in a completely sterile lab with a completely sterilized tank and then introduce just exactly what you want. I am not even sure that is possible.

scarface made a good comment in another thread about systems theory. It is difficult or possibly impossible to isolate a part of a complex system and predict its behavior. No doubt there is more to the health of fish than cycling and water parameters. Perhaps my effort to create optimal acclimation conditions is a fools errand. Maybe I am trying to manipulate a system I do not fully understand nor have the ability to reliably control.

I have also ordered plants and shrimp. I plan to introduce the shrimp directly to an occupied tank so that there will be algae for them to eat. I plan to put the plants into the quarantine tank with the new fish.