Quarantine Tank Setup For Your New Saltwater Fish:

(video transcript)

Today were going to be talking about quarantine tanks and how to set them up. All right folks let’s jump right into it! A quarantine tank is a very basic aquarium, all you need is a hang on the back filter, heater, and an aquarium.  And that’s it.  I’m going to be using a canister filter in my quarantine tank to add some additional flow because it is a 40 gallon aquarium. 

The size of a quarantine tank is not important but I typically try to stay between a 20 gallon and 40 gallon aquarium. I painted the back panel black, in the bottom panel a sand color to help make the fish more comfortable.  I can’t stress enough the importance of painting the outside of the aquarium, you do not want spray paint to enter inside the aquarium.

When setting up the aquarium I installed the hang on the back filter, the heater and the canister filter as well as some pieces of PVC pipes.  The pieces of PVC pipes are for fish, so they can hide and feel more comfortable.

Some things to keep in mind when setting up a quarantine tank is you’re not going to be adding live rock or sand. You don’t add rock or sand because it’s just not necessary and will only add additional cost of setting up the tank. You want a bare-bones aquarium because you’re going to be adding medications to the aquarium as needed.

Once I added the water to the tank I primed the hang on the back filter by adding water to it, I also turned on the canister filter to get water movement in the aquarium. 

Typically, I do not have a quarantine tank up and running constantly, I will set it up and take it down as needed. Where I’m constantly setting up and taking down the aquarium I do use a beneficial bacteria to cycle the aquarium instantly.  Once you’ve added the bacteria and you have fish on hand you don’t need to add any ammonia chloride to the aquarium, you can just add the fish and that’s fine.  In this case, I’m pre-cycling the aquarium prior to getting fish so I’m going to be dosing ammonium chloride and this will help give the bacteria food, and the aquarium will be cycled within five days.

Right here is a shot of the tank after adding the beneficial bacteria and ammonia chloride and typically the tank will be cloudy for a day or two.  After that time, the tank will be ready for fish.  In the future video, we will look at fish-less cycling and its benefits.

If you utilize a quarantine tank you are going to dramatically increase your success rate as a hobbyist.  Still a lot of folks do not utilize a quarantine tank and I can’t stress enough that this at-risk behavior will eventually catch up with you.

I’ve been in this hobby for a long time and I’ve seen a lot of things happen and I can tell you that there is no single fish that doesn’t go into my aquarium without first being quarantined.  In the future video, we are going to be looking at medications and treating fish in quarantine.

All right folks that’s going to do it for today’s video if you found this video helpful please make sure you sign up for saltwaterfish.com’s newsletter.