New quarantine tank. Will this be good?

[RyanC]

I invested in a qt today. It’s an all in one fluval 5 gal. I know it’s a bit small, but after talking to my LFS guy and going over my wish list, he said this would be perfect. I plan on doing it one fish at a time and probably 2-4 weeks in between the time I move the qt fish from qt to DT just to monitor the load in the DT and get the chems normal. I still need a heater and a seachum ammonia detector as well as a couple pieces of pvc pipe, but I am waiting 30 days for the sponge to seed so I’ll get those. My first fish, actually 3rd, I have 2 clowns already who I put into the DT during cycling, will be either the red or purple firefish. It’s my birthday gift from the wife and she said she likes both but so do I so I have to research a little more and pick. Could I do both in a 40 gal and in a 5 gal qt?

I plan on dosing plazipro but don’t think I’m going to dose copper until I see something. I’m probably going to run qt 5-6 weeks per fish just to make sure I don’t see anything.

I do have a question. I got a sponge to run in the system, pretty good size
that I cut so I can get 3-4 sponges out of it. I’m trying to figure out where in my DT to place it to seed. I have an Aquatop all in one 40 gallon and I placed the sponge where the return pump is. I figured that it will speed with water that has run through the sponge, skimmer and media already. I do have space under my big sponge as well. Did I place it correctly? Thanks for any and all help

 

[DaveK]

The idea behind a quarantine tank is to give the fish a chance to recover from the stress of shipping and if needed treat it for disease. Some people also will deworm a new fish in a quarantine tank.

Considering that typically you want about 1 inch of fish per 5 gal of water, a 5 gal tank is really far too small. A firefish is about 2 inches but since it's a thin fish you might get away with it, but I'd not recommend it. If you haven't yet used the 5 gal tank, return it to your LFS and get something reasonable like a 15 to 20 gal tank as a minimum,

One of the things your going to find out really fast here is that, a lot of LFS are either completely misinformed or out and out lie to customers. Until they demonstrate otherwise, I suggest you run any advice they give you by the group first, before you spend any money. You might find people here don't always agree, but at least you'll be able to make an informed choice. This advice is especially true for fish invert and coral selection.

 

[Uncle99]

20g min, 40 great, only will buy once so bigger is good investment
5 to small and ammonia build up would be a killer in there fast
Forget the LFS, mis-informed, mis-guided, They need to sell stuff, RC members have no stake other than helping you......save......tons.........of money,