Quarantine Tank Questions

[Patow]

I'm about to start adding new fish to my 90gal tank. I currently have 2 Clownfish in the tank; they have been there for 3 months now.

I have a 29 gallon tank that I'd like to use as a quarantine tank. It's a used tank, and needs to be cleaned thoroughly first.

I have a couple of questions:

1) Should I just clean the tank with water and vinegar, or are there other products that I can use?

2) I'm going to add a heater, a couple of powerheads, and a canister filter. Is there anything else that I should add to the quarantine tank? Is the canister filter even necessary?

3) How long should I QT the fish? 6 weeks?

4) What salinity should the water in the tank be? Temperature?

Thanks for your help!

 

[mbbuna]

1- vinegar or water and vinegar will be fine. rinse well with RO/DI

2- you can use a canister filter, HOB filter or sponge filter. you need some type of biological filter unless your planing on doing water changes every day

3- at least 4 weeks, 6 is better

4- salinity should match your display tank, preferably NSW levels of 1.026. temp try to match display, anywhere between 76 and 82 is fine

 

[Patow]

Cool, thanks for the quick reply. Makes perfect sense.

 

[marduc]

Have a few pieces of various size PVC pipe around to drop in to the qt for hiding places to alleviate stress on your quarantined livestock.

 

[sjj80]

When I Qt I test the salinity of the shipping bag and then add RO water to the QT tank to get the salinity down to the transport water level. Then after a few days when the fish have reduced stress levels I start raising the salinity level to the display level slowly over the course of the 6wk QT. Also, ammonia alert badges are useful for the obvious reasons but also to mark the water level.