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I am setting up a bare bottom 10 gal hospital tank and need some advice. So far I have my filter (penquin mini) for the 10 gal in the media basket of my 55 gal for a week collecting bacteria and have filled 2 3 in. tall 3 in. wide at top clay flower pots with gravel and a small plastic plant and have put a chunk of filter foam in a third pot and sprinkled a little gravel over top of it, they have also been collecting bacteria in my cycled tank for a week (the gravel I used is from the cycled tank). I used the foam because I think it will be a good spot to really build of the bacteria colony. Ive never set up a bare bottom before, so is this enough to support the cycle. I will fill the tank with water from my discus tank. I only keep a pair of red eye tetras in the tank when its not a hospital or Q.T. tank. The reason I am trying bare bottom is to keep the tank cleaner and easy to maintain when treating a sick fish.

I would just put the Penguin on one of your regular tanks running and only set up the hospital when you need it. Then when you set the hospital up you move the penguin over to it. This will keep a bacteria colony in the filter and thats all cycling really is.

If you keep the hospital set up all the time you need to have some fish living in it so the bacteria don't starve.

Good luck, Mike

the easiest and cheapest set up for a hospital/QT tank is to use a sponge filter.... cheap, easy to clean, do a great job, I prefer the ATI hydro sponge's over all the others I have ( do ) use. every one of my tanks has a sponge filter in it 8 out of 11 are hydro sponge's and the others are the Azoo type that are good as well but they dont seem to have the surface area of the hydro sponge.