Silly Question :-/

[Shelster]

I have a 30 litre hospital tank to which I have purchased a new filter for. Two unsuitable fish which used to be housed in this tank have been rescued to a much larger tank - this was on Monday. My silly question is : will the bacteria still be thriving in the pump which is still currently turned on with heater also still working? My intention was to either leave the filter pad in the tank with new pump running, or cut it in half and place into my new filter. I can alternately collect some of my media from my fluval external 306 and scatter on the look in hospital tank to speed maturation, thoughts? Thanks in advance

 

[the_lock_man]

The bacteria don't live in the pump, they live on the sponges and ceramics in the filter housing. In order for the bacteria to survive, they need (A) to be wet, and (B) to be fed ammonia. If the tank in question is empty but the pump is running, then (A) is ok but (B) isn't.

I'm not 100% clear on what you've actually done with filters/pumps etc. If you have a new filter (and new media) in the old tank, there will be no bacteria in the filter. You could deffo help speed up the cycle by adding some mature media from elsewhere, but you need to provide a source of ammonia (either fish or bottled) for the bacteria to survive.

 

[Shelster]

Hi, thanks for reply, sorry I should have been clearer. The old filter with sponges is running in the small tank I have purchased as a hospital tank, however the fish were removed on Monday, so the bacteria haven't been fed since Monday.
I have ordered a new filter for this tank and was thinking of cutting the sponge in half from old filter and placing half of sponge in new filter to speed to process.
What I was planning on doing was keeping some small fish in this to keep it running so its ready for use if and when required. Alternately I can place the sponge from new filter in my external and mature it that way if the bacteria will already be dead from pump provided with hosp tank.
Hope this makes sense? If using my external filter for maturation of sponges for other filter, how long will in need to be in fluval for? Thanks

 

[the_lock_man]

OK, I think I've got my head around it!

That's always the problem with a hospital tank, is how to keep its filter bacteria alive. If you were to get some fish to do that job (and let's face it, any excuse is a good reason to get more fish!!) you have to move them every time you need to quarantine a fish. Once the sick fish is better, you then have to move it back to the big tank, and throughly clean the hospital tank, otherwise you risk infecting the hospital tank fish.

In your circumstances, what I'd be inclined to do is to keep the hospital tank empty and dry, with filter media in its filter. When you need to use it, take the media out of it, take media from your external to fill the hospital filter (but no more than a third of the external's media) and replace the dry media into the external. Fill the tank with water, pop in the sick fish, with fully mature media in the hospital tank filter. The replacement media in the external will regrow its bacteria quickly, so there won't be an issue with a minicycle - that's why I say to only take a max of a third of the media from it.

When the fish is better, pop it back in the main tank, and clean and dry the hospital tank, and place it in storage, leaving all filter media where it is.

I hope that's clear enough, cos I've just read it back to myself, and it's confused me!

 

[Shelster]

Ok, yes I think I hear what you're saying.
You're right though, I thought it would be the perfect excuse to get another tank setup and put this one in the kitchen with the hubby thinking it was all for the purpose of a hospital tank then have a few mountain minnows in it to keep it ready for ill fish.
I thought to myself, how many people actually have hospital tanks set up anyway? And that I could just transfer ill fish to hosp tank and treat all fish (as if treating the whole tank if I didn't have one) when all the fish would have to endure meds anyway, except it would only be the minnows. But in hindsight that's not really fair, I didn't want to move the minnows into the big tank during treatments as would then not want to put them back in a smaller tank!
Ha ha, you caught me out! Thanks for replies, appreciated.

 

[nikkifro8994]

I use a sponge filter for my hospital tank. I leave it running in one of my 10 gallons until I need it. It's a DIY filter that I found on this site about a year ago. I took the container that my betta came in and added an air stone to the bottom. Then gravel, carbon, and sponge on top. The airstone pulls water in. It's pretty small, but its effective, If you have a way to put your hospital filter on an established tank then it will have bacteria for when you need it.