5 Gallon Project

[FCWonderer]

So I have acquired a 5G very recently to use as a hospital tank for a sick betta I had. Unfortunately the betta passed away before I could even relocate him to the hospital tank. So now I have a fully functional/furnished 5G hospital/quarantine tank. I have a few questions about how to use it though.
 
1. Are there any fish/invertebrates that can live in a hospital tank. I'd rather it not just sit in my closet waiting for one of my fish to get sick.
 
2. If the answer to the above question is no, then should I just leave the filter in the hospital tank in my mature 10G which houses all my fish?
 
3. I have an old filter cartridge from my mature tank sitting at the top of my trashcan. It's been there for a couple days to a week now. Can any bacteria from it be brought back to life (like if they go dormant out of water or something) or it is just basically useless at this point?
 
Thanks for the answers guys.

 

[fluttermoth]

1. But then, what would you do with those fish if you needed to use it as a hospital tank? Definitely not shrimps, as a lot of fish medications contain copper, which is extremely toxic to them; once you've used a copper medication in a tank, you can never keep inverts in it afterwards.
 
2. Yes, but taking a bit of mature media from your main filter when you need the hospital tank is better.
 
3. No, they'll be dead now.

 

[BerryAttack]

with the 5 gallon you can create a live planted tank. it would look very nice, and in the future if a fish gets sick it'll have a lot of hiding places and its all ready to go.

 

[FCWonderer]

1. But then, what would you do with those fish if you needed to use it as a hospital tank? Definitely not shrimps, as a lot of fish medications contain copper, which is extremely toxic to them; once you've used a copper medication in a tank, you can never keep inverts in it afterwards.
 
2. Yes, but taking a bit of mature media from your main filter when you need the hospital tank is better.
 
3. No, they'll be dead now.

 
That's why I was asking, I didn't know if I could house any kinds of fish in there in the meantime. I don't know maybe it was a dumb question. Lol but do you have any suggestions on what I should put in my 10G that I can transfer to my 5G? They aren't the same filter as one is a AquaTech power filter and the other is a whisper filter.
 
And I like that idea Berry but how would I keep up the CO2 levels without fish inside the tank as well as everything else the plants need?

 

[TekFish]

If you're using the quarantine tank to treat diseased fish all you are going to be doing is exposing the fish who live in the quarantine tank to disease and then passing it on, even if you treat them with medication it may not always work and you could lose the fish you keep in the quarantine tank as well as the fish you are treating, put plants and rocks and decorations in the quarantine tank, by all means but fish or inverts is not a good idea.

Tek oot.

 

[FCWonderer]

If you're using the quarantine tank to treat diseased fish all you are going to be doing is exposing the fish who live in the quarantine tank to disease and then passing it on, even if you treat them with medication it may not always work and you could lose the fish you keep in the quarantine tank as well as the fish you are treating, put plants and rocks and decorations in the quarantine tank, by all means but fish or inverts is not a good idea.
Tek oot.

Well if the tank can't be a hospital tank AND a quarantine tank for new fish being introduced to the community, which one do you think is more important?

 

[TekFish]

A hospital tank and quarantine tank is the same thing.

Tek oot.

 

[FCWonderer]

When I say quarantine tank I mean a tank to put new fish in for a few weeks before introducing them to the community.

 

[TekFish]

Yeah but it's still to test for/treat any disease the fish may have, so it is still a hospital tank.

Tek oot.