QT?Hospital Tank?

How do you set up a qt/hospital tank? I know you need a tank, saltwater, and a H.O.B. and a heater, light? (or will normal room loighting be ok), but how doy you use it, (like for fish and/or inverts, or what?). DOes the tank need to cycle? How logn should the fish or invert be in there? If i add meds (when it was a hospital, do I have to get a new tank for qt?) asy you can see, this is new to me

It's generally used to quarentine sick fish away from all other inhabitants in the display tank. You don't need a light in it, but everything else you do. It's used first of all, so the sick fish doesn't infect the others. Another use is to administer meds that couldn't be done in the display tank...most notably copper based ICH meds. Finally, there's another natural way to cure ICH involving salinity levels and temperature. I forget how it's done, but you could mess around with both of those in a quarentine where you'd kill delicate inhabitants in a display tank.

HTH,

~Joel:)

so whats the smallest size qt/hopsital tank I could use (I have limited space in my room) and does it need to cycle, or do I just put salt and water and the filter and put the fish in? How long do you qt, and is is just for fish or for corals and inverts too? ???

Originally posted by NanoJrFL

so whats the smallest size qt/hopsital tank I could use (I have limited space in my room) and does it need to cycle, or do I just put salt and water and the filter and put the fish in? How long do you qt, and is is just for fish or for corals and inverts too? ???

5 1/2 gal will do, most people use a 10 gallon tho. The tank doesn't have to cycle...it's only a short term system for the fish. Besides, if/when meds are used, they'll most likely kill off all the bacteria anyways. QT tanks are generally used for fish, although inverts can go in there too for whatever, until copper meds are used. Do NOT put inverts in any tank where copper meds are present or have been used in the past.

The way to kill ICH is by hyposalinty. Its where you slowly lower the salinity in your tank down to around 1.009. You do this by slowly dosing RO water so the sailinty comes down. This works like a charm!