Hospital Tank Info

[MAGDRL Mom]

Should we run the protein skimmer on a hospital tank? I left a little bit of sand in the tank (about two inches) so it would have some biology, but took the plants out of the refugium. There is a biowheel filter running on the tank because we haven't installed the sump yet. If I treat with formalin green, will it kill all the bacteria in the sand and filter, spike everything and kill the fish, or only the parasites?

 

[juniormc8704]

QUESTIONS UNCLEAR

but ill do my best to answer them. a hospital tank does not generally need a skimmer. Also i would generally say it does not need substrate. Most hospital tanks contain a HOB power filter with or without bio wheel your choice. simple filter, heater, and a airstone, and you should be good to go. that way if you treat anything with meds, meds are easier to remove from tank. most people use hospital tank as a QT as well. So its your choice, just kinda passing along what ive been told to do regarding this issue.

HTH

 

[MAGDRL Mom]

Hospital Tank

Hospital Tank

To clarify some things... I have modified a 39 gal tank to use as a hospital tank because I got ich in both tanks and the QT (20L) is not large enough to sustain all the fish for 40 days. Since both tanks were contaminated, from the 39 I pulled out most of the sand, all the LR, and all the critters and moved them to the 125. Since the hospital tank is going to be over crowded for 40 days while the display tank goes fallow, I wanted to be able to maintain the best environment I could for the fish while they are being treated. Additionally, I had 3 fish in the QT before the ich broke out in either tank so they will have to stay there for a longer QT.

 

[Osmotic Shock]

So I think your two questions are should you run your skimmer on the hospital tank while you treat the fish and how should you treat the ich. The two methods to treat ich are copper or hyposalinity.Different people have preferances on one method over the other but both work. Don't run your skimmer while you are treating either way.Your skimmer wont work with hyposalinity and if you run your skimmer with copper it will leach into the skimmer making it unusable on your main tank.