Quarantine/Hospital Question...

[Zerileous]

Okay, I currently have no quarantine or hospital tank, but am considering setting one up. However, I am slightly confused by how this works. As I understand it, a few small fish are used to keep the tank cycled. When you need to use the tank to medicate/isolate, what do you do with these fish?

[salman]

The purpose of the QT tank is if one of your fish is messing with another fish, and you don't have anywhere else to put it, you put it there. You also have to QT new fish because every fish will have parasite and they are contagious. So you need to put them in a QT tank to make sure they don't have anymore parasites.
A hospital tank is a hospital for fish that need to be medicated, you can't medicate a fish when shes in a tank with other normal fish. Also, when a fish is sick, you need to take her out, because most fish diseases are contagious, some within seconds some within days, but it is important you separate her and treat her so others wont get sick.

[Spyder]

You can leave your q-tank empty when not in use. When you want to set it up put a little gravel from your cycled tank in and take a little filter media out of your cycled filter and add it to your q-tank filter and you should be fine.

[salman]

You dont have to keep it running.. when you want to QT a fish, just add some water from your other tank, (that will save you some cycling time, and you dont have to worry about that days water change.)

When my hospital is not in use, i put it away until i need it because i hate looking at empty tanks. But i have some turtles that i might put in when its vacant.

[gm72]

Agreed. Break down that tank and add some established filter media, you'll be fine with a very small bioload.

Salman, be careful adding turtles to a QT, they can introduce all kinds of nasty bacteria that the fish won't be able to handle. You'd have to THOROUGHLY clean that tank before adding fish.

[Kuli_Loach]

I have a quarintine tank. I use a 10 gallon with nothing but cory cats and a shrimp as a clean up crew to keep the tank going good. I have a silver dollar in there now that had tail rot and is now fine. I am telling you, they are a life saver for fish anyways. I say you need one but that is just me.

[zackish]

I need to grab a 5 gallon tank from my uncle for a quarantine/hospital tank in case I ever need it. Right now my 10 is being used for my turtle so I really need to get something just in case. I still need to figure out what I am going to do with my Gouramis.

[Cal Discus]

just add some water from your other tank, (that will save you some cycling time, and you dont have to worry about that days water change.)

.
Nope, your beneficial bio is not (well, very, very little if any) in the water column. It is on surfaces like media walls, gravel, etc. The only thing you are doing by adding other tank water is adding dirty water with higher dissolved organics. Clean water and some established bio and you are cycled. I keep extra sponge filters going in my tanks in case I want to setup a QT or breeding tank. I wouldnt transfer gravel either because this is where most bugs live and complete their life cycle and you are just transfering it to a new tank.

[gm72]

Cal is absolutely correct. By adding tank water you are simply increasing the concentration of things that you don't want. Add some decorations or gravel or maybe (better still) some established filter media.

[RobbieG]

I keep mine running with a few fish in it just so I don't have to worry about it.

If you don't want to keep it running Cal and gm72's plan wuld work just fine

I wouldn't keep inverts in my hospital tank though - most medicines are pretty tough on them and they can be tough to find and remove in a hurry.