In the interests of keeping my Clown Loaches whitespot-free I always like to quarantine new fish. With the huge sump on my 2000L I used to keep a sponge filter running in there so I could kick-start the quarantine tank when needed and I never had any issues with cycling it. My 800L doesn't have so much free space and the last two times I've tried to set up the quarantine tank I've failed miserably. First time I ran an additional canister on the 800L for nearly a month then transferred it over to start the quarantine tank. The result was like I was starting completely from scratch with an uncycled filter. I tried using Stability to help establish the tank, but forgot that it doesn't neutralise ammonia (did it used to, or am I just getting old and forgetful?) and in the end I lost 30 giant danios and three small clowns. For the more recent attempt I took a tray full of Pond Matrix out of the FX5 and placed it into the canister for the quarantine tank, thinking this would be an effective way of setting up the tank with an already cycled filter, but again after adding 30 Odessa barbs I had a substantial ammonia spike which I tried to counter with Stability and Prime, but when the fish started looking stressed I ended up throwing caution to the wind and transferring them straight to the main tank to void losing them.
20+ years of experience with setting up new tanks had me thinking that both these methods should have worked fine for successfully setting up the quarantine tank without having to undergo a cycle, so why didn't they work? The most likely explanation I can think of is that the amount of media in relation to the stocking of the 800L tank (30 clowns from 2-8" plus a few small plecos and mid-swimmers) plus the Pothos helping to consume waste means that the bacteria colony on the media is fairly light, and is unable to multiply quickly enough to deal with the bioload from the 30 barbs in the 100L quarantine tank. Sound about right??
Keeping the small tank constantly running isn't something I'm really interested in as I don't tend to buy fish all that often, so for those who set up a quarantine tank each time you buy fish, what's your process of establishing it? I'm thinking next time I'll try take the media out of the FX5 a week or two earlier then dose with ammonia up to 1ppm to help build up a decent bacteria colony before adding the new fish. Bit of a PITA, but better than losing fish!
20+ years of experience with setting up new tanks had me thinking that both these methods should have worked fine for successfully setting up the quarantine tank without having to undergo a cycle, so why didn't they work? The most likely explanation I can think of is that the amount of media in relation to the stocking of the 800L tank (30 clowns from 2-8" plus a few small plecos and mid-swimmers) plus the Pothos helping to consume waste means that the bacteria colony on the media is fairly light, and is unable to multiply quickly enough to deal with the bioload from the 30 barbs in the 100L quarantine tank. Sound about right??
Keeping the small tank constantly running isn't something I'm really interested in as I don't tend to buy fish all that often, so for those who set up a quarantine tank each time you buy fish, what's your process of establishing it? I'm thinking next time I'll try take the media out of the FX5 a week or two earlier then dose with ammonia up to 1ppm to help build up a decent bacteria colony before adding the new fish. Bit of a PITA, but better than losing fish!
