Quarintine Tank question...

[the Undone guy]

I just got an extra 10-gallon tank that i plan on using as a Quarintine/Hospital tank. I plan on Quarintining some fish while my 55 gallon tank cycles. I read this article and wanted to get your opinions on the acuracy of it:

http://www.frankmgreco.com/quarantine.htm

Also a few more details i'm not sure of.

1: Does this quarintine tank have to be cycled? and if so how do i do that with nothing in it? Or is it possible to just do frequent wanter changes with the fish in there?

2: can you have more than one fish in Quarantine?

3: This article talks about medicating your fish with certain chemicals in the water, is this something that should be done to EVERY fish before being put in the main display tank?

4: (off topic), are snails/crabs inverts etc vunrable to ich? I think a fish in my 15 gallon has ich, and i was wondering if after the cycle completes and i Quarantine the fish if i can put inverts in there without risk of them being infected.

Thanks~

[cwbroden]

Without reading that article, here is how my QTs work. (Of couse I do occasionally Q fish in a coral tank I have the I just keep softie frags in.)

I have a bare bottom 10G tank with a small mechanical filter. I usually do a 1G water change a day on the tank for a 3 to 4 week period. (That usually depends on how the fish look.) The filter I use has been run on one of my sumps for a few weeks to "seed" the filter with bacteria. After a Q period, I just clean it completely and then start the seeding process over again. (If I have any purchases planned that is.)

How to Q fish and who to Q with is a hard thing. If I am making a big purchase of many fish, I have to get more Q tanks running. If I am buying fish, I usually Q the same type of fish together. (For example, if I buy some clowns or cardinals, they go in the same tank.) Others I keep seperate. Basically anything that I think the vendor would have had together would be left together. (Now I will add, that I usually only purchase small amounts of fish at one time.)

As for chemicals, I only add them if the fish appear sick. If they are healthy and a 3 - 4 week period has not revealed any illness, then no chemicals would have been used.

Oh one last thing. When doing water changes on the bare bottom tank, syphon from the bottom to pick up any pathogens and stuff that may have dropped off the fish to incubate.

Hope that helps some.

[the Undone guy]

yea that does help, thank you. I'm still confused on the cycling part though =) Say i just start up a q-tank and want to put some fish in it while my main tank cycles, is that going to harm the fish? or does the filter i use have to have been through cycling?

Take for instance, i would like to purchase a pair of clowns and put them in the q-tank while their tank cycles, so when the cycle is complete, so is their quarantine. But the filter i would get for their q-tank would not have been through any cycles. I dont have a problem doing a 1 gallon water change a day either, but i dont want the fish to die on me.

and if anyone else could help me out with my other questions i would be quite grateful. Thanks to everyone for their help, RC is an excellent community that has helped me along in understanding this whole process better than the LFS and i highly appritiate that. Thanks again.

[LX302]

Yes you want your QT tank cycled before you place the fish in.
But if you don't you'll have to perform water changes like you said.
I'd say more on the order of 2-3 gallons per day for the first week, but that depends on your ammonia level. You want to keep it close to zero as possible.
But if your in no hurry to get the fish in the main display, I would cycled the QT first.

[the Undone guy]

can anyone answer question 4 about ich? I want to add some inverts to my tank but I think one of my fish may have Ich, i plan on moving him to q-teen, but i dont want to infect any inverts taht i may add.

[Steven Pro]

4.) Invertebrates cannot catch Marine Ich/Cryptocaryon irritans.