Quaranteen tank

[Nicknjo]

So I have never used a quaranteen tank before but this time around I am definitely gonna do it. My plan is a 10g aqueon tank with a hang on filter ran on my sump for a few weeks before, along with a heater. I also have some rubble rock left over from main tank that I was gonna put in there too that's cycling in my sump now. Is this to basic of a set up for a viable long term q-tank? Looking for advice, what do yall do?

 

Thanks

 

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[GreenJeans]

I'm just starting out and currently running my second batch of fish through quarantine, so take my advice with a grain of salt.

 

I'd start with a bigger tank than 10gal.  I have a 20gal long that I added a glass divider into for two 10gal sections, and it's hard to keep ammonia low in both sections.  I could get away with less frequent water changes if I had a larger system (or fewer/smaller fish in there).  At some point you're going to want to quarantine a larger fish, or a school of small fishes, and 10gal will be hard to manage.

 

A simple hang-on filter and heater will be fine, definitely run the filter in your sump for a few weeks before hand like you mentioned to establish the bacteria.  Don't hesitate to add some nitrifying bacteria in a bottle to the QT tank when you set it up also, just to make sure there's plenty of bacteria. 

 

Rubble rock is a great idea to add more surface area for the bacteria, but it will absorb any medications you might run and can never be used in any other system.

 

Also add some larger PVC elbows and Tees to give the fish somewhere to hide when they're stressed.

 

Use a lid to reduce evaporation, but you don't need to put a light on the tank - just enough ambient light to allow you to observe the fish is enough.

 

ADD AMMONIA ALERT BADGES. https://www.amazon.com/Seachem-Ammonia-Alert-Year-Monitor/dp/B01HHA4ITY/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=ammo+alert&qid=1582661357&sr=8-2  Test for ammonia daily (twice a day if running 10gal and larger/more fish), salinity, and test for copper if you plan to dose it.

 

Following my lfs advice, I'm running my QT with hypo-salinity (1.018), cupramine, and round (or two) of prazipro.  I decided that the added stress of this treated water was worth the peace of mind of greatly reduced risk of introducing parasites to my display.   I think of it like the trolly problem - "Would I rather maybe kill 1 fish with a stressful treatment/QT, or would I rather maybe kill all my fish by letting a parasite through?"

 

 

[Burningbaal]

It's not a bad plan if your QT will be mostly observation. an ammonia badge as GreenJeans recommended is fantastic. Also, I highly recommend buying Safety Stop (I get mine from Melevsreef.com) as an initial step. This dramatically reduces any unseen external parasites (flukes, velvet, ich, etc) on the fish, giving them a much stronger starting point when going into the QT. It's not perfect, but it's very useful. Plus the 'Part B' of it helps remedy any ammonia burn their gills may have from being in the bag.

However, I think the best of the hobby is finding the 'hybrid TTM' method of QT to be ideal; it seems to totally eradicate all external parasites. The main drawbacks are:

1. It uses quite a bit of saltwater due to all the tank transfers
2. it takes exacting diligence (each transfer must be as close to 72 hours as possible, so you're tied to your QT for 13 days)
3. The cleaning is a bit of a pain.

I can't explain the actual hybrid TTM better than humblefish himself, so I'll just link it here.

https://humble.fish/community/index.php?threads/hybrid-ttm-to-treat-all-parasites.87/

My best plan is to do the Safety Stop treatment, then wait in the first QT for 6 days (with Prime for ammonia mitigation) and then do the first H2O2 bath. This extends the treatment by 5/6 days, but gives one extra round of destruction for any sneaky velvet/flukes, the Safety Stop helps them start after the soothing Part B bath, and a few extra days to de-stress and eat before the first transfer.

This plan basically moves the H2O2 treatment; humblefish has it on Day 4 and 10, mine puts it on day 6 and 12. so my schedule:

Day 0: safety stop, into QT with Prime

Day 6: H2O2 bath and first TT

Day 9: just TT

Day 12: H2O2 bath and 3rd TT

Day 15: TT

Day 18: TT

Clean fish! now observe for two weeks and treat (if needed) for bacterial infection and/or internal worms. If evidence of bacteria/internal worms comes up early, it is a pain to dose for that with the TTM...but it also is dangerous to treat those with copper, so...no loss.

The main thing here, is that your HOB filter and rubble are no use because everything has to get sterilized for each TT. next-best would be to get some grocery store sponges and store them in the sump for several days, pulling one into each new tank. And you'll need two tanks, two heaters, two powerheads, etc.

10g is okay for small fish, I like two 20-long tanks with 10g of water personally, this makes a lot of the math and such easier and mitigates some of the issue with jumpers (a 20-long holds around 16g, so the 10g waterline is fairly low)

[Nicknjo]

53 minutes ago, GreenJeans said:

I'm just starting out and currently running my second batch of fish through quarantine, so take my advice with a grain of salt.

 

I'd start with a bigger tank than 10gal.  I have a 20gal long that I added a glass divider into for two 10gal sections, and it's hard to keep ammonia low in both sections.  I could get away with less frequent water changes if I had a larger system (or fewer/smaller fish in there).  At some point you're going to want to quarantine a larger fish, or a school of small fishes, and 10gal will be hard to manage.

 

A simple hang-on filter and heater will be fine, definitely run the filter in your sump for a few weeks before hand like you mentioned to establish the bacteria.  Don't hesitate to add some nitrifying bacteria in a bottle to the QT tank when you set it up also, just to make sure there's plenty of bacteria. 

 

Rubble rock is a great idea to add more surface area for the bacteria, but it will absorb any medications you might run and can never be used in any other system.

 

Also add some larger PVC elbows and Tees to give the fish somewhere to hide when they're stressed.

 

Use a lid to reduce evaporation, but you don't need to put a light on the tank - just enough ambient light to allow you to observe the fish is enough.

 

ADD AMMONIA ALERT BADGES. https://www.amazon.com/Seachem-Ammonia-Alert-Year-Monitor/dp/B01HHA4ITY/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=ammo+alert&qid=1582661357&sr=8-2  Test for ammonia daily (twice a day if running 10gal and larger/more fish), salinity, and test for copper if you plan to dose it.

 

Following my lfs advice, I'm running my QT with hypo-salinity (1.018), cupramine, and round (or two) of prazipro.  I decided that the added stress of this treated water was worth the peace of mind of greatly reduced risk of introducing parasites to my display.   I think of it like the trolly problem - "Would I rather maybe kill 1 fish with a stressful treatment/QT, or would I rather maybe kill all my fish by letting a parasite through?"

 

 

Thanks for the advice, you already got a head start on what I know about the process.  I will take the advice the the 20 gallon tank for sure. Also I have heard hyposalinity as well and plan on doing that.

19 minutes ago, Burningbaal said:

It's not a bad plan if your QT will be mostly observation. an ammonia badge as GreenJeans recommended is fantastic. Also, I highly recommend buying Safety Stop (I get mine from Melevsreef.com) as an initial step. This dramatically reduces any unseen external parasites (flukes, velvet, ich, etc) on the fish, giving them a much stronger starting point when going into the QT. It's not perfect, but it's very useful. Plus the 'Part B' of it helps remedy any ammonia burn their gills may have from being in the bag.

However, I think the best of the hobby is finding the 'hybrid TTM' method of QT to be ideal; it seems to totally eradicate all external parasites. The main drawbacks are:

1. It uses quite a bit of saltwater due to all the tank transfers
2. it takes exacting diligence (each transfer must be as close to 72 hours as possible, so you're tied to your QT for 13 days)
3. The cleaning is a bit of a pain.

I can't explain the actual hybrid TTM better than humblefish himself, so I'll just link it here.

https://humble.fish/community/index.php?threads/hybrid-ttm-to-treat-all-parasites.87/

My best plan is to do the Safety Stop treatment, then wait in the first QT for 6 days (with Prime for ammonia mitigation) and then do the first H2O2 bath. This extends the treatment by 5/6 days, but gives one extra round of destruction for any sneaky velvet/flukes, the Safety Stop helps them start after the soothing Part B bath, and a few extra days to de-stress and eat before the first transfer.

This plan basically moves the H2O2 treatment; humblefish has it on Day 4 and 10, mine puts it on day 6 and 12. so my schedule:

Day 0: safety stop, into QT with Prime

Day 6: H2O2 bath and first TT

Day 9: just TT

Day 12: H2O2 bath and 3rd TT

Day 15: TT

Day 18: TT

Clean fish! now observe for two weeks and treat (if needed) for bacterial infection and/or internal worms. If evidence of bacteria/internal worms comes up early, it is a pain to dose for that with the TTM...but it also is dangerous to treat those with copper, so...no loss.

The main thing here, is that your HOB filter and rubble are no use because everything has to get sterilized for each TT. next-best would be to get some grocery store sponges and store them in the sump for several days, pulling one into each new tank. And you'll need two tanks, two heaters, two powerheads, etc.

10g is okay for small fish, I like two 20-long tanks with 10g of water personally, this makes a lot of the math and such easier and mitigates some of the issue with jumpers (a 20-long holds around 16g, so the 10g waterline is fairly low)

That sure is a thorough method no doubt. I dont think my schedule would allow for me to do this especially  every time I add fish. I was hoping more for an observation and treat if needed type of situation. Would you say that's not a viable method of QT? 

[GreenJeans]

I was initially thinking I would just observe and treat if needed - but I'm too new to trust myself! I'm sure I'm terrible at visually identifying fish disease, and it will take me a long time before I feel confident in my observation skills.  And even then, what if you missed an internal parasite that wasn't observable?

The point my LFS made to me - they know the supply chain, how polluted it is, and how it's hard to really trace where fish came from and what they've been exposed to.  As a result, they treat everything that comes through their store with hypo-salinity, copper, and prazipro, and recommend anyone who buys do the same.

TTM isn't really practical for me either, so I'm treating proactively instead (hypo-salinity, copper, prazi).

That Safety Stop stuff seems like it might be a good idea, I should do more research on that.  It would be nice, I especially like the idea of soothing ammonia burn.

 

While we're on the topic - if QT ammonia got too high (briefly), would it be a good idea to treat with some ammonia burn soothing product? My QT got up above 0.25 ammonia for a half of a day, and I'm worried about my little fishies...

[GreenJeans]

This is also the first I've heard of Seachem Prime - can I use this to help mitigate the ammonia toxicity in my QT while using copper and prazi?  Poor dudes in a little 10gal tank are probably not super happy.

[pdxmonkeyboy]

Studies have shown that hypo salinity does not kill all ich.

I ditched copper recently and started using chloroquine phosphate. Start with a clean tank, no bio filtration.

You do one dose of CP. Dose prime every other day. 30 days your done. No testing, no transfering. Kills velvet, ich, uronema and alage.

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[pdxmonkeyboy]

This is also the first I've heard of Seachem Prime - can I use this to help mitigate the ammonia toxicity in my QT while using copper and prazi?  Poor dudes in a little 10gal tank are probably not super happy.

NOOOOOOO!! Non cheated copper and prime is highly toxic!

Copper power and prime is fine.
Cupramine and prime = Cu+ very toxic.

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[Nicknjo]

Pdxmonkeyboy, Where would one find that CP?

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[Trailermann]

Woody's Seahorse has CP