Curious if you actually bother to cycle a quarantine/hospital tank. I don't in general since if it's a hospital tank I am going to drain, disinfect it after whatever the outcome of the fish is. Pretty much same thing with a QT. Once they are in a regualr tank it is torn down.
Myself, I keep an extra 'utility' tank going all the time. If I need to quarantine fish, I just move the occupants to another tank until I can get it cleaned up afterwards....my feelings are that a new fish to the fish room is already under stress from moving/handling..why add to that with a tank that's not the same as where he/she will end up..??...so acclimating the new arrival to 'house' water conditions is all that's necessary...hospital tank??....what's that??....I don't believe in med's really....so any fish that gets any sort of dilemma is culled...period....only the strong survive here...cruel?...nope...
but I'm pretty persnickety about anything coming in here anyway..... ;D
I don't bother cycling q.t. tanks there not going to be running that long and they get daily water changes. As far as a hospital tank I'm like Jon. I don't use them. I have tryed in the past using all the best medicine i can get my hands on for the outcome to turn out bad anyways.
This last q.t. tank did turn into a hospital tank. The new fish got ick. I just cracked up the heat. I lost most the fish but i still didn't use meds. Only 4 sterbai cories made it. On the plus side the temps in the tank are good for discus. But now I'm paranoid to put the cories in the discus tank.
QuoteThe new fish got ick. I just cracked up the heat. I lost most the fish but i still didn't use meds. Only 4 sterbai cories made it. On the plus side the temps in the tank are good for discus. But now I'm paranoid to put the cories in the discus tank.
Once the fish are over the ick. They should not get reinfected. The fish develop immunity.
The pathogens can only live for a limited time outside of a fish. I forget how long this is, but two weeks should be longer.
After that time period the tank should be OK to use and the fish OK to transfer.
If you are still worried, put a tester fish in the tank first.
Transferring less water when you transfer the fish should reduce the likelihood of transferring any pathogens in the water.
No hospital tank here. The last time I set one of those up all the fish died. I just increase water changes (to daily) in the tank and most times they usually come around. I do quarantine any fish I am going to add to existing tanks. No cycling on the QT tanks. Those QT tanks sometimes end up as regular tanks in the end.