Hospital/quarantine tanks

[rdd1952]

This is probably a dumb question but I'm going to ask anyway. I am in the process of cycling a tank for a hospital/quarantine tank. Obviously, this tank will be fishless most of the time. Will the pump/filter need to run all the time after it is cycled? I assume it will to keep the bacteria colony intact. Seems a shame to run it all the time for use only on rare occasions.

 

[lucky62]

You could run your filter on an existing tank a few days before getting new arrivals , when you get them put the filter on your Q tank .

 

[rdd1952]

I guess that would work. If the tank has been inactive for a while, I don't guess there would be any bacteria or parasites on it from the Q tank that would be transfered to my regular tank.

 

[lucky62]

I guess that would work. If the tank has been inactive for a while, I don't guess there would be any bacteria or parasites on it from the Q tank that would be transfered to my regular tank.

I would clean the filter well before I put it on an existing tank esp if it comes from the quarantine tank first

 

[WILDER]

Only fetch my hsopital tank out when needed, add a filter and take some media from one of my three tank, usually the fancy goldfish tank.

 

[CFC]

I always keep spare sponge filters running in another tank so that if i need to quarentine or hospitalise i can simply fill a empty tank with water and pop in a mature filter.

Running a filter in a empty tank does nothing and any bacteria present from the cycle will die within 24 hours of being removed from a ammonia source.