Quarantine Tank - Substrate

[FredF]

Greetings,

I am looking to set up a quarantine tank, after dealing with the consequences of not having one.  I know many people tend to use a bare substrate, and perhaps a sponge filter.  I plan on seeding a sponge filter for this tank.

My issue is the fish are going into a tank that has fluval stratum, and well planted.  Fluval stratum definitely alters the water chemistry.  It clearly reduces the pH and the kH of the water, it also can be picked up with a magnet so clearly contains a ton of iron as well.  The other complicating factor is that my whole 75 gallon tank, is not actually using a ton of stratum it is a 2 inch layer on top of a 5 inch layer of coarse gravel in the back third of the tank, which is held back by a bunch of rock and then a coarse sand foreground.  However, it is still enough Stratum to drop the pH from 7.2-7.4 to 6.8, and the kH to 40 from 80.  

For setting up the quarantine tank, should I set it up with a stratum substrate, maybe a thin layer.  I would like to avoid plants in QT, maybe just floating only, otherwise more maintenance.  I am worried about shocking the fish too much when adding to the main tank from the QT tank.  I would be quarantining Angels, probably quarter size bodies, possibly juvenile discus.  I'm not looking for a ton of quarantine tank maintenance either. 

Any advise would be appreciated.

 

Thanks,

[Guppysnail]

I completely understand your logic. Put the stratum in a media mesh bag and hang it in the tank. You can get zipper ones that are relatively large hang two if needed. I would not use substrate at all if you need to medicate and vacuum things live in substrate too easy.

edit. Floating plants will help if you must medicate and it disrupts your bio filtration 

Edited September 2, 2021 by Guppysnail

[Streetwise]

Aquarium Co-Op plant bags allow full water-flow, so you could use them to hold your substrate-of-choice.

[FredF]

On 9/2/2021 at 7:34 PM, Guppysnail said:

I completely understand your logic. Put the stratum in a media mesh bag and hang it in the tank. You can get zipper ones that are relatively large hang two if needed. I would not use substrate at all if you need to medicate and vacuum things live in substrate too easy.

edit. Floating plants will help if you must medicate and it disrupts your bio filtration 

That's a great idea.  Thanks!

[Tihshho]

The thing about active substrates is that some of them have ionic exchanges, I'm not sure I'd want to also have that in a tank that I'm medicating with because the substrate may bind up meds. With how little you need a hospital tank, you might be better off either using tank water from the display or even bottled RO water that's been buffered and remineralized to meet your params. 

[Mmiller2001]

Just match GH and KH, a 1.5dGH/KH difference is more than safe.

[Patrick_G]

I agree with @Guppysnail and @Streetwise, just put some stratum in a flow through bag  and put it in the quarantine in more or less the same proportion as your main tank. That should help give the expensive and delicate Discus the least possible stress. 

[FredF]

On 9/2/2021 at 7:50 PM, Tihshho said:

The thing about active substrates is that some of them have ionic exchanges, I'm not sure I'd want to also have that in a tank that I'm medicating with because the substrate may bind up meds. With how little you need a hospital tank, you might be better off either using tank water from the display or even bottled RO water that's been buffered and remineralized to meet your params. 

And maybe I found my answer as to why it was so hard to treat with medications (ICH-x and API Super Ick Cure) in my display tank.  Was the fluval stratum messing with the medication?

I think then the bags with some stratum makes a lot of sense.  Keep them in there, but if need to medicate pull them out.

Thanks,

[Tihshho]

 

On 9/2/2021 at 10:02 PM, FredF said:

And maybe I found my answer as to why it was so hard to treat with medications (ICH-x and API Super Ick Cure) in my display tank.  Was the fluval stratum messing with the medication?

I think then the bags with some stratum makes a lot of sense.  Keep them in there, but if need to medicate pull them out.

Thanks,

 

The ionization is part of the whole buffering process. If you setup a tank and say have a vat of water mixing with buffers to your ideal GH an kH and introduce that to a virgin active soil, you're going to see those values drop, depending on the substrates. A lot of the time people think that substrates will add to the water chemistry, never that they can remove things. The newer the substrate, the more of an issue this will be. This is why I always pull fish from displays that had active substrate (not just the sick ones, but everyone depending on what's going on) and I'll treat them in an separate QT. Meanwhile, again depending what's going on, I'll either setup a UV on the display or raise the temp much higher than I would if fish were in there, so the high 80's. The UV will kill off any water borne pathogens and any floating parasites or eggs looking for a host. The heat will rapidly increase the lifecycle of some parasites (ich in particular) and cause them reproduce fast and then look for a host, with no host to be found they will starve and die, that is if they don't get zapped by the UV first.

Edited September 3, 2021 by Tihshho