Quarantine Tank

[BobK]

Hey all. I'm moving my Platy fry into the main tank so my 5 gallon will be open and I was thinking of making it a quarantine/hospital tank. I wasn't sure if I should keep the tank up and running all the time and keep the filter media in the filter of my main tank or

completely break down the tank, keep the media in the filter of my main tank, and restart the tank with the seeded media if/when I need it for quarantine or hospital purposes.

What do you do???

Thanks for your responses.

 

[Paul_MTS]

It's best to keep spare filter media in your main tank.

If you leave the filmedia running in the quarantine tank the bacteria will die due to the lack of ammonia.

so unless you keep a fish in the Q tank all the time it's best to leav it in your main tank ready for use.

 

[yvez9]

yeah
put some or all of the 5 gallon's media in a main filter and just use it when you need to, that way you are always prepared for fish

I would keep heated water in it though so in case of an emergency, you can move the fish right away

 

[rdd1952]

Will the heated water not deteriorate over time (2 or 3 months). Once I get my main tank full, hopefully this week. I hope I have very little use for my Q/H tank (5 gal). In case of an emergency, I would think I could just pull water and a filter from my main tank to start the Q/H tank back up. I could replace the water in tha main tank the next day.

 

[BobK]

Thanks for the advice guys, I still am not sure what I want to do but either way I'm definitely going to keep the media in my main tank's filter to keep the bacteria alive. I don't really want to run an empty tank but then if I need the tank in an emergency I'd hate to have to fill it and try to get the temperature regulated. I was just curious what others do. Maybe I'll stick some of my molly fry in there and then I won't have to worry about it for a while.