# Hospital tank setup



## sevmeera (Aug 8, 2009)

Hi everyone, I recently got rid of my established hospital tank and am replacing it with a 29 gallon tank. I would like to keep the tank cycled and not have to worry about any type of spikes down the road if I have to quarantine for any length of time. That leaves me with either adding ammonia to keep the tank cycled, or keep some fish in the hospital tank to keep the cycle, how does everyone else approach this? if I do choose to keep fish in there, what is a good, cheap type to use that can live in high ph? (8.0, kh=5 drops, gh=179ppm) Thanks for the help in advance!


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## S&amp;T (Jul 27, 2009)

I tried doing that as well and ended up with another fish tank and no hospital tank. So now I keep the hospital tank dry and leave a filter running on another tank to use when needed.


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## jrf (Nov 10, 2009)

Danios would work fine. But then, youÃ¢â‚¬â„¢ll either have to move them out when you put a sick fish in the tank or expose them to the same medications and illnesses as the sick fish. You could also just keep a seeded sponge filter in one of your main tanks and move it to the hospital tank as needed.


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## locomotive282 (Jun 2, 2009)

jrf said:


> Danios would work fine. But then, youÃ¢â‚¬â„¢ll either have to move them out when you put a sick fish in the tank or expose them to the same medications and illnesses as the sick fish. You could also just keep a seeded sponge filter in one of your main tanks and move it to the hospital tank as needed.


+1

I can never resist the urge to put fish in an empty tank so I can never keep a hospital tank. :wink:


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## KaiserSousay (Nov 2, 2008)

What kind of filter are you running?
Could you move media to a new tank?
You could have some media hidden in another tank that you could put in.
Think it would be easier to have a stash of media, rather than keep a "what if" tank going.


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## PfunMo (Jul 30, 2009)

I found a small hospital tank running to be a real pain to maintain. Really small tanks seem to always be out of whack on e way or another. I finally went to a dry tank next to the others. I keep an airstone and small HOB filter in the main tank where I might expect to have trouble. These are set up in such a way that the lines, etc. will swing to the small tank if needed. My plan is to fill the small tank with water from whatever tank has trouble and top off with fresh, swing the airstone and filter over and be ready to run. With a filter with developed Bio and pretty close to normal water I hope to minimize any effects from moving an already stressed fish.


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## prov356 (Sep 20, 2006)

For a hospital tank, I'd also suggest keeping a small filter going (I'd recommend a sponge filter) in a main tank, and moving it when needed. Keep in mind that after treating a diseased fish in this tank, you're going to need to sterilize the tank and filter, and have to recycle it anyway. So, it's easier to just set up the hospital tank and use the sponge filter from the main tank, treat the fish, sterilize the tank and filter, and then place the sponge filter back in the main to seed it for the next time. Hopefully, you won't need it all that often.

If using it for an isolation tank, that's a different story. I'd keep it going with danios, or a weekly dose of ammonia. Either will work. Daily doses of ammonia aren't necessary to keep biofiltration going and will just result in runaway nitrates.


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## sevmeera (Aug 8, 2009)

thats kinda what I figured, I am running an FX-5 on my main tank with nothing but bio media in all 3 baskets, so I can take media from there no problem, I was planning on using a penguin 200 that I got for free on the hospital tank, but the setup of the filter with the bio-wheel would make it difficult to add seeded media to the filter, I also have a HOT Magnum that I use as a water polisher for my main tank, maybe I could remove the micron cartridge and use the carbon basket to put the seeded media in, does that sound like a possible idea? has anyone tried that? Thanks for the responses!


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## sevmeera (Aug 8, 2009)

Unfortunately due to limited funds, this one tank will be serving double duty as a hospital and QT tank, I know its far from ideal, but I just don't have the money or space to have one of each, that being said, I think I may have to keep it as a running tank at least in the interim as I am still hoping to add fish to my main tank and would prefer an established tank for the month or so of quarantine for the new fish.


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## Superbowlbound (Dec 30, 2009)

due to limited funds mine will be tripled as a fry reering - quarantine - hospital tank!!


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## sevmeera (Aug 8, 2009)

haha..... :thumb: , great mind think alike!


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## jrf (Nov 10, 2009)

I have a HOT magnum I use for the same purpose (water polishing). I suppose it could work if you put a prefilter on the intake. Otherwise, youÃ¢â‚¬â„¢ll be filtering a lot of waste through your biomedia. You might also need to find a way to reduce the current it produces. Mine really gets the water flowing.


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