Warning - {Possible Stupid Question

[gunman]

I have a small tank which is used for hospital\breeding tank of 19l (1ft cube. 2 weeks ago I bought a second hand tank for my kid's goldfish, the guy had kept (or a better description would be 'KILLED') tropical fish in it. There was one 2" red tailed shark in it so I isolated him for 2 weeks before adding him to my main tank (I didn't really want him but I have him now). The filter was mature from another tank.

Now, once I remove him if I keep the filter running in the tank will it stay mature or do the bacteria require a source of ammonia? I want to keep the tank for breeding as one of my yellow labs looks like she is holding.

 

[Kizz]

the filter will require a source of ammonia in order to stay established . You could transfer media into your main tank's filter than move it back over when you are ready to use the breeding tank . This will maintain the bacteria and allow you to instantly transfer any babies over to breeding tank

Kizz

 

[james_fish]

If you remove him, your bacteria will die off. It will probably take about a week for all of the bacteria to go, so yes you would need to add ammonia or find another fish to 'turn it over'

James.

 

[BigIan]

i run a second internal on my main tank ready to move if need be.

 

[anon02]

This is just a thought but if you are going to run your q tank filter together with the filter on your main tank, try to "guesstimate" the volume of filter media in there, the nitro bacteria will colonise both filters according to the food (ammonia) supply and when you move the second filter back to the q tank you could end up with a shortage of those bacteria if you remove more than about 30%

 

[gunman]

the q tank filter is a small internal filter that came with the 19l tank. I would say it's media wouldn't be more than 5-10% of the 305. I am not going to run carbon in the 305 and bought extra 'ceramic type' media to fill all 6 trays. Plus then the 4 foam pads in it.

Thanks for the info guys.

 

[waterdrop]

If you ever have a situation where you think you're going to use a Qtank in coming months, its actually not that hard to toss in a squirt of ammonia when feeding the other tanks, just kind of depends on the length of time and the ease of using media from other tanks or space on other tanks for an extra filter to hang/sit.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Gilli]

I have a small hospital tank - I keep the sponges for the small filter for that tank inside my main filter. When I need to use the hospital tank i just take the sponges out and pop them in the hospital tank filter!