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Do you have a QT?

After losing 10 new rummynoses and some existing fish in my 30g I finally decided to set one up.

I do have one question though for those who have one...when not being used for new fish what do you keep in yours?

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There is water at the bottom of the ocean

I always QT new fish, but I bodge something together for a tank, I don't have one specially. Usually I use a bucket.

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I like to think that whoever designed marine life was thinking of it as basically an entertainment medium. That would explain some of the things down there, some of the unearthly biological contraptions

Yes, I have both a 5g and 10g quarantine tanks.
Simple to set up, toss water and the seasoned sponge
filter in em.
After having a serious outbreak of camallanus worms
in my tanks, and spending hundreds of dollars in meds
and losing hundreds of dollars worth of fish,
I will never ever just buy a fish and put it in the tank
again.
All new fish are quarantined for a full 30 days and
treated with de-wormer before going into my tanks.
The only exception might possibly be from a local
breeder whos stock is perfect with no record of
illness, and even then Id probably de-worm them.

When not in use, the tank is dumped and stored in
a closet.
Its easy to set up, add water, heater, and sponge
filter from the 75g, and is equally easy to tear
down.
I dont set it up with gravel or decor except a couple
clumps of java fern I keep floating loose in my big tank.



Come Play Yahtzee With Me!
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Http://www.myleague.com/yahtgames

I don't have one because of money & space. If I did fix up a tank for quarantine, I would probably end up keeping more fish in there!

If I had one I would have to buy another filter & heater anyway. But I like your idea of a temporary one with the bucket tiny_ clanger. Could you explain how that works for you, either in this thread or a pm to me please?

I keep talking to people on here about rams.............. so I may need one soon.

Well - I pop a spare heater and air bubbler into a spare 5g bucket with some clean fresh dechlored water and a couple of plastic plants kept just for purpose.

Pop the fish in too, I do 15% water changes every 2 days, feed sparingly and monitor fish.

It's primitive, but does the job. It's also very easy to disinfect after treating sick fish. I deliberately don't use a filter because I think it makes it more difficult to treat fish and they can't be cleaned properly.

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I like to think that whoever designed marine life was thinking of it as basically an entertainment medium. That would explain some of the things down there, some of the unearthly biological contraptions

Yes, I have one but currently it is housing some fry. When I need it I add water from my setup tank and a few rocks and plants then check the parameters real regular. I never had a problem with a minicycle because I used water and parts of the aquarium the fish would be going into. Of course I have only done this twice and both times it was with hardy fish such as platy and danios. Oh, and Fish Patty, look for one at a garage sale for real cheap. A 10 gal. doesn't take up much space and it is temporary anyways.

"Talk is cheap. Action can be almost as affordable"

I have 2 q tanks. Both are 10 gallon. I always seem to have some cichlid fry growing out. Right now I have 15 C. borleyi fry in 1 and 12 red peacock fry in the other. When one of the tanks is actually empty (a rare event), I'll toss a couple of zebra danios from my 20 long in there to keep it cycled. If the tank was used to medicate fish, I do a complete change over of water and decor. A quarantine tank actually saved my butt once. I had a 40 long lose its bottom seal and I had about 10 minutes to catch about 15 fish. The 20 long I mentioned above was a q-tank that happened to be empty and ready to go (the day before I transferred some fish from there to another tank). I saved all of the fish and the 20 long is now a planted Asian themed tank. That's when I decide that I'll always have at least one tank or more ready to go.

Hi,
As you have read, many use a QT tank for a Hospital Tank
making it serve a dual purpose. For others, a QT tank is
a completely set up tank (gravel, heater, filter, and
plants). In a QT tank you want to provide places for the
fish to hide and that will provide shade (plants) and it
should be large enough to not crowd a shoal or small school
of new fish for the main tank. You can medicate the
QT tank with therapeutic doses of medication, but not the
strength necessary to cure disease, that should be done
in a bare Hospital Tank.

In between newcomers, use a couple of hardy fish to
maintain the cycle, such as platies, etc.

Frank


-->>> The Confidence of Amateurs, is the Envy of Professionals <<<--

I have pictured my 20 gal quarantine tank here before, it comes in handy for a whole range of things from new acquisitions ( i recently had some silver dollars that turned into right little fin -nippers although otherwise perfectly healthy) to general seperation issues and happier seperation requirements like breeding. I have a load of fish , so problems will always emerge.Any one with more than a few dozen fish should consider getting one. I consider a quarantine tank an essential tool in the more serious fishkeepers armoury, especially if you have large ,long term, ever evolving community setups to which you cant resist adding more fish!

I never really needed one while I worked at a fish store, because I could just "quarantine" them there. With fish I was going to buy, I would just put them on hold for like a week I would watch them every day to make sure there weren't any illneses.

One of the few times I didn't do this was when I got my large school of Green Stipe Corys, and of course that was the one time disaster struck in the form of a bacterial infection. It seriously sucked.

I don't have a quarantine tank now, but I'm not buying fish as often as I used to so I don't really need one that much.

---

I'm not your neighbor, you Bakersfield trash.

Thanks for the info. tiny_clanger.

Ok.......... now that I'm thoroughly confused with all the different opinions & some of you use tank water & others fresh & some already cycled & some not, I think this is what I'll do. In my case, since I don't want to keep fooling around with water parameters, I think it would be easier for me to just find a space for a 10 g. & set it up with filter, heater, gravel, plants........ a regular fish tank. Big deal......... more money spent on fish stuff.......... what's new?

I will cycle it with a pad from my other tank & then get 1 m & 2 f platies to keep it all going. All new fish will go in there for 2 weeks. Does this sound like a good plan?

I noticed some of you medicate the new arrivals & others don't. Mine will be coming from wal-mart or petsmart. Have they been medicated enough at the store or do I need to drug them up some more? (sarcasm....... but an honest question)

Fish Patty ,

That is basically what I did to set me up a Qtank. All my fish go in that for at least 3 weeks before they go in my main tank.

However if your WalMart/PetSmart are the same caliber as mine I would leave them in there for at least a month maybe more.

I stopped buying fish from my PetSmart because they were very fragile and would usually be OK for about two weeks and then start to die off.

On the medicine question, I personally don't believe in using a lot of medicine. To me it seems that I am just guessing what to use. If your water is clean and you take good care of the fish their immune systems should eventually keep them healthy.


Rick
See all my pictures at Google Web Albums

Wow slick, it takes a mo. to be sure the fish are healthy!? Any fish I had die only took a few days after I could see something was wrong. But I guess internal parasites & such would take longer to show up.

I live in a small town & wal-mart is our only fish store. They don't take care of the fish & that's why I want a QT tank. My main tank is established & running well now & the thought of just plunking wal-mart fish in there is SCARY.

There is what appears to be a decent petsmart in a city about an hr. drive from here. So for us that is a big improvement over our wal-mart.

Mine is a 55g. with lots of fish & I had disease once & recovered most of the fish & eventually replaced the lost ones. I'm working on getting my nitrates down & then keeping it that way. I started this tank in August & I got rid of trouble makers in the tank & it appears to be one happy family now.

I've been through a lot of discussions with the people here on FP about my tank & water & fish........ and mostly (but not always) followed their advice. As far as I'm concerned my well operating tank is now due mostly to them........... a half a year in the making.............. I DO NOT want to mess that up!

ooh just thought of another thing with the bucket. It settles the fish because it is kept dark (opaque sides) thus decreasing stress.

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I like to think that whoever designed marine life was thinking of it as basically an entertainment medium. That would explain some of the things down there, some of the unearthly biological contraptions

tiny_clanger- One reason I decided against the bucket idea was because I couldn't see the fish. A top view of a fish wouldn't be good enough for me. I would want to see the whole fish very clearly. And if I'm supposed to keep it there for a couple weeks or a mo. .......... what the heck....... I might as well have a regular aquarium.

It sounds like it works for you though.

But since I'm inexperienced I think I should take the safe & easy way out & just have an established tank ready to put it in. If it survives the QT tank it'll survive the big tank.

I haven't used a QT tank in the past (been really lucky I guess ), but I am going to start now. My 10g is empty and I'm going to be painting the back, bottom, and possibly the sides black. Then I'll just keep some small sponges in one of my cannisters and just transfer it over to the filter when i need to QT. I don't plan on having it setup all the time. I plan on buying some small clay pots to put plants in so the fish will feel safer.

*Kristin*

Just to mention, I think it is very
important to deworm all new fish while in quarantine.
Camallanus worms can take up to 6-8 months to become
visible to us, so its a good precautionary measure
for all new fish.


Come Play Yahtzee With Me!
http://games.atari.com
Http://www.myleague.com/yahtgames

I don't have a tank that i'll keep it on purpose as a QT, but i have a few small ones (in which i breed fish) & when i buy some new fish, i usually leave them in one of the tanks for a few weeks. The tank is bare, with just a heater & a box filter.



http://www.flickr.com/photos/corydoras/
Member of the Malta Aquarist Society - 1970.
http://www.maltaaquarist.com

I expected to hear from YOU again Sneaky.

What dewormer do you use & where do you get it?

In my situation we had been shopping for a schooler for the 30g and the spouse got hooked on the rummynoses at a lfs. We bought 15 and they weren't inexpensive.

Ten of them died, along with four of my kuhlis that had already been in the tank for a few years. I never found out what they had, but to be honest I never really looked into it either

Over the past few months I've cut back on the number of tanks I keep. I have one of those metal stands that holds two 10g tanks so I decided to setup the bottom one as a QT. It has a regular filter, gravel, and some anacharis. I bought my oldest son a dozen danios for Xmas, so they were in the tank for a couple of weeks. Now it's empty so I'm thinking of getting a betta or a few platies to add to it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~
There is water at the bottom of the ocean