how to set up hospital tank???

[fishrdp]

Fish have ICH. How do I quickly set up a hospital tank?Have 10 gallon ready. How long does a sponge filter take in display water to be ready to support its own? Any help would be great.

 

[mikersx02]

whats up with everyone getting ich lately?

I just started up my Hospital tank- Brand new filter, 10 gal of main tank water, heater.... no light thermometer and amonia alert thing- Thats all- Fish has been in there for a few hours and everything is good so far. I was in a rush to get black ick off of him.

 

[kevin2000]

I don't think there is a magic answer concerning how long ... obviously the longer the better and I would suspect several weeks to have a truly mature bio filter - but even an immature bio filter is better than nothing.

One method that some use is to transplant some mature bio filter from their ST and use it in their QT ... some will take a piece of their foam filter media, bio balls, or whatever might be applicable. If large enough this might be the sole source of bio filtration in the QT .. or perhaps its small and used to help "seed" the other new filter media in the QT .. even a small amt of mature filtration media can help accelerate the maturation of the new filter media.

If you don't have a mature bio filter in your Qt your safe bet would be to make up a large batch of SW now so you have a ready supply of aged/aerated SW available to do some major water changes to keep ammonia at zip levels. Purchasing an inexpensive Seachem ammonia alert badge is a convenient method to help monitor whether you have an ammonia issue.

Lastly ... if you use a bare bottom QT you can readily identify any uneatened food or fish debris which can be removed with a turkey baster .. will help maintain water quality. I find painting the outside bottom of the Qt white helps identify some of this crud and improves the overall look of the QT.

Hope this helps.