General Aquaria Discussion • Starting a quarantine tank

[morrismorris]

I currently have a fish that I would like to quarantine, which I don't have a tank set up for currently. This is coinciding with a filter cleaning on one of my canister filters. My question is this; I understand that my white filter media needs to be tossed and replaced but I was wondering if I could use it somehow to "cycle" the quarantine tank, rather than waiting however long it would take to cycle from nothing?

[krazyju84]

If instant cycle is what your after then I think your best bet is to NOT clean the canister filter, just use that on the quarantine. I did this previously and worked. Test your water to confirm before adding the fish though.

[morrismorris]

But then I couldn't use the filter on my existing tank.

I was just thinking I could use the white filter pad from the existing canister filter somehow since it has bacteria on it.

[caldwelldaniel26]

Yes you can use your old filter media to seed the filter on the quarantine tank. It won't be an "instant cycle" but it will certainly speed up the process

[morrismorris]

Yes you can use your old filter media to seed the filter on the quarantine tank. It won't be an "instant cycle" but it will certainly speed up the process

Is it simply a matter of taking the white filter pad from my existing canister, cutting it to size to fit the smaller filter used for the quarantine tank, and inserting in that filter?

[caldwelldaniel26]

Exactly, I'd even go as far as squeezing out as much filter gunk as you can in there too

[morrismorris]

Ok good to know for future use. I won't be able to do my filter cleaning for another week or so, so what I did was dump sand from the existing tank into pantyhose, tied it up, and have it sitting in the quarantine tank. I figure there are some good bacteria in the substrate, so it can't hurt. I will do daily water changes so the fish has constant clean water. Hoping all goes well here.

[caldwelldaniel26]

Are you feeding the bacteria in the quarantine tank?

[morrismorris]

There is a fish in there. I'm not sure it would last much longer in the main tank, so I moved the fish to the quarantine. I filled with water from the main tank, threw the sack of substrate in there hoping my theory is correct, and will do partial water changes daily.

[caldwelldaniel26]

Okay, while not ideal, it can be done with light feedings and the rough part is that the fish is going to be exposed to quite a bit of nitrite until the nitrobacter colony (nitrite oxidizing bacteria) is established well and that's the longest wait. You should be fine on the nitrosomonas (ammonia oxidizing bacteria) pretty much right off using the seeded media, because nitrosomonas seems to be a little hardier than the nitrobacter when switching media to a new filter. The substrate will carry some bacteria, not as much as the filter but it is better than nothing at the moment

[morrismorris]

Yeah I wish I could have waited but this fish has been getting progressively worse. All I can do is hope staying on top of the water changes will help limit the exposure to toxins from its own waste. It needs to eat though; this has been the main problem.