Hospital Tank Set Up Question

[AndyMan]

My fish have ich, well the tangs do anyway but I plan to quarantine all fish as per the instructions on the great threads posted...dont worry I have read them all. However i have a clarification question.

I did not seed a sponge for the filter for the biological filtering to happen so I am setting up a new hospital tank as we speak. I set it up with 5 gal new RO/DI saltwater and 5 gal from the DT. I added some chaeto that was in the sump. It is small, only 10 gallon however it will have to do for now...housing a yellow tang (3 inches), blue tang (2 inches), two clowns (3 inch total) a mandarin and a goby.

So my first question,

1) do I need to wait for the bare bottom Hospital tank to cycle? This may take too long as I am feel I should be treating the fish ASAP. I put some mysis shrimp in the tank and left it in there for three days now. I am getting some ammonia reading of .25 ppm (mg/L). So I am concerned about dropping my fish into the tank but I want to treat them now....can I treat them now or do I have to wait until Ammonia is 0 ppm?

2) Quarantining a Mandarin, what will they eat since the tank will not have any pods for it to eat? What do most do in this situation? Buy pods from the fish store and add them to the tank? Or drop an algae screen in the tank every week to drop pods into the tank (will this repopulate the parasites though)?

Sorry for the flurry of question but I think they are good ones that are not explicitly answered in the threads.

 

[leebca]

Sorry to hear of the problems. Ask whatever you need to know. Most details are in the posts, that doesn't mean they are easy to understand.

1. No. You have the choice to use chemical filters that won't affect medications, or to do very frequent and very large water changes, or both. Always best not to wait. If there is ANY filter material from the DT system, it can be used in an outside filter of the hospital tank. This would be like filter floss, wool, filter pads, etc. (no substrate or carbonates). Setup and get the sponge filters going so more bacteria will spread and grow. Without an active filter, you'll need to test (test kit not strips) for ammonia and nitrites about 3 times per day and change water whenever they are detected.

2. After the first setup, nothing from the DT system is to go into the hospital tank. The Mandarin should have been trained to eat prepared foods. See: http://www.reefsanctuary.com/forums...pod-eaters-momma-dont-feed-me-no-balogna.html As it is, you will need to provide live foods that have not come from any tanks with fish in them, or connected systems to a tank or tanks with fish in them.

Nothing living other than the fish, goes into the hospital tank. No living chaeto is included in this.

Good luck!

 

[Orcrone]

I was in a similar situation a few months ago. Ich in a 125 DT and no filter media impregnated with bacteria. I setup my old 55 gallon as the hospital tank. Tried using a product from SeaChem to help get the bio cycle started, but it didn't help much. Did some very large (40 - 45 gallon) water changes to keep the ammonia in check. After the copper treatment was complete I saw some fruit from my labors, the ammonia started to level and nitrites started to rise. I then tried Bio-Spira. Within 24 - 48 hours ammonia and nitrites went to zero. Don't know if it was strictly the bio-spira or whether the SeaChem product helped, but it might be worth a try.

 

[Eric]

That is way to many fish for a 10 gallon and will likely cause more stress and loss, see if you can round up some 5 gallon buckets to use and air pumps.

 

[AndyMan]

Good news, I was able to find a 35 gallon wide tank someone was throwing out on my street...lucky huh! Even has a working lid and light which I will be using as the hospital tank. Going to use the media in the 10 gallon to get the cycle going but I have decided to wait for the tank to cycle in order to treat the fish. Water changes, salt usage for daily or every other day are just too much for me to handle and would cost me more than the fish would cost. The fish are all doing fine, I guess they are handling the ich or the cycle is a slow one. Thanks for the posts!