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Since my old quarrantine tank managed to turn itself into a very beautiful shrimp-species tank (red cherries that won't stop breeding as well as a few other types and 3 otocinclus which are also breeding:http://www.dartmouth.edu/~illustrae/everyday/pictures/pict0027_16.html) I went out and bought a ten gallon tank with a little heater and an aquaclear filter to use as a quarrantine tank. There will be no substrate, but I'm not sure if I should use any decorations in the tank. The shrimp tank has some floating plants that multiply fairly rapidly so I'll put some of those in when there are fish in quarrantine, but I'm not sure what else to use. I want my new fish to feel comfortable in their surroundings even before I move them to the planted tanks (a 30 and a 65), but I'd also like to tank the quarrantine tank down when it's not in use (I don't have a good place to keep it up full-time). Would a few cheap plastic cave ornaments and some fake plants suction-cupped to the bottom of the tank be enough?

Last edited by illustrae at 29-Jun-2005 10:37

Hoping that there must be a word for everything I mean...

Having the fish feel comfortable is important. If you do have quickly multiplying plants I'd go with those then simply compost them when you remove the fish from q-tine and are ready to tear down the tank.
If you've got spare gravel (ie: really ugly old purple gravel that you took out of a tank but didnt throw out) you can clean that with some hot water and use a very thin layer in the bottom. This will also be removed and or sanatized before you pack up the tank again, so less would be better. I'd only go with a substrate in a q-tine tank for bottom dwellers who might feel stressed by the lack of bottom. Same thing with the caves you mentioned...only use them if you need them. The filter will have to be sterilized between uses as well.
That's all I can think of for now :%).

^_^[hr width='40%']"Has someone taken your faith? It's real, the [link=pain]http://babelfish.qwertydigital.com/" style="COLOR: #EB4288[/link] you feel.
The life, the love, You die to heal.
The hope that starts, The broken hearts...
I’ve got another confession my friend, I’m no fool.
I’m getting tired of starting again, Somewhere new."

For sterilizing the filter, is dunking it in a bucket of water with a bit of bleach and then lots of rinsing a good way to do it?
I do have some spare gravel at the moment, so a thin layer should be doable and not hard to clean up and store. For live plants, I think I'll only have the floating ones, unless my 30 gallon goes nuts and I end up with lots of stem trimmings. I have some plastic plants from an older tank (a grass, a val, and a aponogeton), so can I sterilize these (Using the method above) and will they help?

Hoping that there must be a word for everything I mean...

I've seen a 1:10 bleach:water ratio given for sterilization purposes, I'll admit I've never done it myself on filtration equipment (used bleach on a piece of driftwood once). Sunlight will break down bleach (which is why it's sold in opaque bottles). I'd go with running the filter (as you see fit) on a bucket that contains the bleach mix for a few hours to a day. Then rinse, use dechlor and let it sit in sunlight for a day or two, then another rinse before you reset it up on an established tank to repopulate itself.
Plastic plants will work for hiding/security blanket needs of some fish, I just worry that bleach may harm them some if used too much, I'd stick to live as much as is possible. Boiling obviously wont work on plastics.

^_^[hr width='40%']"Has someone taken your faith? It's real, the [link=pain]http://babelfish.qwertydigital.com/" style="COLOR: #EB4288[/link] you feel.
The life, the love, You die to heal.
The hope that starts, The broken hearts...
I’ve got another confession my friend, I’m no fool.
I’m getting tired of starting again, Somewhere new."

i would never EVER use bleach for sterilizing my tanks no mater what the water/bleach ratio is! i would worry to much about if there was any bleach left over on the filter.

well that my oppinion anyway

I use a highly concentrated salt solution!

Heh....funny that.
Salt can only be removed by enough rinsing, and you run a risk of some remaining for fish that may be rather sensitive to salt. Similar case when it comes to bleach, rinsing works. Funny thing is that bleach is chlorine, and guess what most people have to remove from their tapwater anyway?.....you got it! Chlorine.
When it comes to simple cleaning salt would work if you really felt the need for something more than water. For sterializing I just feel more comfortable using bleach when using heat isn't possible.
I'm not trying to take this lightly, anytime you mess around with anything that can be harmful to the fish you can run into problems if you don't take proper precatuions.

^_^[hr width='40%']"Has someone taken your faith? It's real, the [link=pain]http://babelfish.qwertydigital.com/" style="COLOR: #EB4288[/link] you feel.
The life, the love, You die to heal.
The hope that starts, The broken hearts...
I’ve got another confession my friend, I’m no fool.
I’m getting tired of starting again, Somewhere new."

I have to agree with Babel here, and go with the bleach solution...It will quickly kill anything that might be contagious, and letting the filtration run with the bleach solution will take care of your problem...

I wouldn't go with a gallon of bleach to a gallon of water, that would be overkill, but the 1:10 ration is reasonable, or just adding a cup of bleach to the 10 gallon tank would work as well...if you are doing it this way, I would go ahead and use hot water as well, and just leave the gravel in the tank as well to be sterilized...

Then when it comes time after a day of running like this (I'd run it on the back porch in the shade if that is reasonable (I don't have a back porch, so for me it wouldn't be) I'd drain the tank, and then fill it, and just let it keep running, overfilling it at the same time. If not the back porch, put the tank in your bathtub/shower...Then drain it and do it again...Of course I would do as Babel said and use plenty of dechlorinator afterwards, and let it dry outside so the heat and sun will take care of everything else...Then just pack it up...till you need it the next time...

I wouldn't add any decorations necessarily, but I do have a terracotta pot in my tank, so I guess it is a decorationBut, keep it at a bare minimum...Plants if you have something that is multiplying like crazy, go ahead and use it in the hospital tank, and then mulch, trash, get rid of itGravel is totally up to you, the less the better though, I don't have any in mine simply because it makes cleaning it easier, and well I didn't think of it at the time, I just need a sickbay for the little gal...

OK enough said, I'll go somewhere else now, heidi

"I've got a great ambition to die of exhaustion rather than boredom." Thomas Carlyle

Hi,
Personally, in my Quarantine Tank, I keep a small HOB filter
running, and about 4 female, one or two male, guppies.
I net out the fry and toss them in my main tank where they
either become food, or more fish. The bare bottom is a good
idea as many times you may have to add medication and the
Quarantine tank becomes a Hospital tank. If you want to
cover the bottom, and that too is a good idea, keep the
layer to a minimum say 1/2 inch. Fish are skittish things,
particularly if new. If they see their reflections off the
bottom they will be stressed and "afraid." A thin layer
of gravel prevents that.
Have some fake caves ( terra cotta pots cut in half
on their sides, etc) and some decorations
(your flavor) that the fish can hide in, or behind.

My hospital tank is a 10G tank. Ten gallons is an ideal
size as the math for the medications works out easily.
It also "confines" the fish(s) to a smaller area so they
are more easily observed. The hospital tank contains a
inside, corner, sponge, filter (airstone driven). When
the crisis is over and the fish returned to the main tank(s)
I break the tank down, bleach everything, and throw the
airstone and sponge away. Rinse throughly, and use chlorine
remover, liberally.

Frank


Last edited by FRANK at 29-Jun-2005 16:06

Last edited by FRANK at 29-Jun-2005 16:07

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