I've decided to establish a 10g quarantine tank. It was my son's but I just uprgaded him to a 30g. The current 10g is already cycled and broken down to bare bones operation (heater, filter, airstone). It still has the old substrate in it but based on what I've read I'll probably ditch that and go for no substrate. Any other suggestions for an effective quarantine tank?
Freshwater quarantine tank suggestions
- Thread starter FishDad
- Start date
If you put the filter from this tank into your established tank, you can move it to the 10 gallon if/when you want to use it for an 'instant cycle' as lauraf suggests. If you have a disease outbreak in the main tank, you'd not want to use the same filter though. If you want to keep it going as a QT tank, you can use a few small fish or a handful of freshwater snails, and just feed lightly 1 or 2x a week. Some HATE snails, but as long as you don't overfeed, they will not overproduce.
Bare bones is the way to go, for sure. As OrangeCones says, keeping the filter in a main tank and moving it over when you need it works really well (as long as you don't move it back before sanitizing the media or tossing it). A couple of bleachable ornaments help if you're quarantining bottom feeders or other fish who like to hide.
I find a good light on the tank helpful because it means you can see any problems early on.
I find a good light on the tank helpful because it means you can see any problems early on.