Setting up a hospital/quarintine

[corykitty516]

A friend gave me a 10 gal complete with hood/filter/etc so I'd like to set it up for hospital and quarintine.

Questions:

Gravel: good or bad idea?

Live plants: good or bad idea?

Carbon: I use it in my current tank. You have to remove it to use most meds anyway so is it even worth doing in the first place?

I will cycle fishless but what is the best way to maintain the bacteria? I guess I could shift my danios over there.

I only have a 10 gal set up right now with danios, coydoras and tetras and a one gal with Mars the Betta all by hisself. I have my eye out for a 55 gal (need to do some furniture rearranging first ) so I want to get this new 10 set up in anticipation of that. THEN I'd like to divide my old 10 for betta housing... whew...

All advice is much appreciated !!

Emma

 

[Cody]

dont make it a hospital tank, just make it a reg tank and get more fish

 

[digital_run]

Hi there...

I've also got a 10gal hospital tank which i use for injured/sick/new fish. Currently it's not cycled and there's never any fish in there long enough for it to matter...i do regualr water changes and when there is a fish in there i test the water before hand just to make sure. Gravel is fine for a sick tank and if you did want to cycle it then adding some gravel/filter media from your current tank would help. A Java fern in there wouldn't be bad either... hope i helped

 

[Dwarfs]

Make it a hospital, with plants preferably Don't get carbon, just in case you do have to treat the fish for something

 

[corykitty516]

dont make it a hospital tank, just make it a reg tank and get more fish

very tempting...but I must resist.

OK so I'll put a thin layer of gravel, some Java ferns (love them!) and no carbon!



Cant wait until I can find an affordable 55g! This MTS is soooo infectious

 

[Angry_Platy]

I like to make my quarantine tank as similar to the main tanks as I can.....makes sick fish more comfortable and is kind of a prelude for the new fish as to what their new tank will eventually be like

 

[CFC]

I run a filter in one of my main tanks as a spare and then should the need arise for the hospital tank i can pull a empty tank out of the loft, fill it with water from the tank the fish is in and add the mature bacteria filled filter, job done.

 

[Def]

Rightly or wrongly I do it a bit different. I have a 10g hospital tank running a fluval permanently, even when there's no fish in it (use ammonia to keep things running, although that seems to have varied results over the long term). That means I have a tank immediately ready to go if I need it. It's sited under the main tank, has a few plastic plants and a plastic hollow log type thing in it. It's a gravel/sand mix base, and has no lights on. I figure this gives a simple, clean environment for sick fish that won't stress them further and gives them places to hide, whilst making maintenance & medication much easier for me. YMMV.

 

[corykitty516]

Thanks all for your suggestions!!!

Everyone has such good ideas around here