Is my neglected QT okay to use immediately?

[nerdyaquarist]

So I’ve had this 13 gal tote as a QT since I started my community tank. Due to financial hardship, I haven’t been adding new fish for the last few months and have just let my QT just sit there for many months without light on and without topping off. The water level has lowered significantly and I’m assuming all the floating plants in there are dead by now. 
 

I have a fish now that’s had some mysterious wasting disease since I got it (am making a separate post about it) who’s taking a turn for the worst now and need my QT ready to go again ASAP. I dont want to do anything that’ll increase the fish’s stress. How can I know that my QT is still good to go? Anything else I should be doing besides a 100% water change? 

[redfish]

Testing the water parameters would be a helpful start to check if the tank is safe or not.

[nerdyaquarist]

On 11/4/2022 at 12:47 PM, redfish said:

Testing the water parameters would be a helpful start to check if the tank is safe or not.

I’m going to do a 100% water change regardless, I’m more concerned on how to know if the tank is cycled and balanced without having to wait for weeks to see if the parameters stay stable. I’m afraid I don’t have the luxury of time with the fish I want to medicate.

[redfish]

Testing is the only way I know to help validate if the tank is "cycled and balanced" without waiting weeks.  What do you have in the QT right now for filtration and substrate?

[nerdyaquarist]

On 11/4/2022 at 2:05 PM, redfish said:

Testing is the only way I know to help validate if the tank is "cycled and balanced" without waiting weeks.  What do you have in the QT right now for filtration and substrate?

That’s fair. Filtration is just a sponge filter, no substrate. I just checked today the state of the QT and noticed the top half of the sponge filter was out of the water (due to evaporation). Not good 😅

[redfish]

Sounds like a complete water change and testing the QT daily is a good plan.  Maybe move some cycled media/filter from a cycled tank to help kick start the QT again.

[nerdyaquarist]

On 11/4/2022 at 3:40 PM, redfish said:

Sounds like a complete water change and testing the QT daily is a good plan.  Maybe move some cycled media/filter from a cycled tank to help kick start the QT again.

Do you believe if I do a complete water change and move media from my main tank, it would be safe to immediately quarantine a sick fish?

[redfish]

Do you have any way to test the water?  There are a lot of unknown variables so It’s hard to guarantee it would be safe.  If the new QT water is similar in parameters to the current tank water it should be okay in general.  Daily testing to keep the QT water parameters at a safe level is probably needed.
 

 

[redfish]

Cross posting your disease thread.  Your tank looks nice.  Hopefully you can figure this out.

 

Disease thread

[nerdyaquarist]

On 11/4/2022 at 6:02 PM, redfish said:

Do you have any way to test the water?  There are a lot of unknown variables so It’s hard to guarantee it would be safe.  If the new QT water is similar in parameters to the current tank water it should be okay in general.  Daily testing to keep the QT water parameters at a safe level is probably needed.
 

 

So I actually went ahead and decided to discard the sponge filter and moved the backup one I have in my main tank into the QT. I tested the water with my API test kit and the only questionable parameter were nitrites. There were some so I'm assuming either the cycle was gone or the tank was that gross. Hopefully now that I moved the seeded sponge filter I won't have issues. I don't like being wasteful which is why I hesitated in doing this first but it truly is the only way to be safe. 

Thank you for your help, I'll be testing the params daily just in case. 

[Odd Duck]

You don’t need to discard the other sponge filter but it was a very good choice to move in a seasoned filter.  Give the discarded filter a rinse in clean water and let what’s left of the BB’s in that filter help your QT also.  That sponge filter will return to full capacity with time.  With a 100% water change and one well-seasoned filter you should be good.  Remove any dead or dying plants, obviously.  How big is the fish you’re treating?

Many treatments can knock down the BB’s so you can use all you can get so I would recommend you use both sponge filters.  If you’re medicating you’ll be doing large water changes frequently enough that your filtration honestly doesn’t matter as much as having good oxygenation, unless you have a large fish or a large group of fish in the QT.

[nerdyaquarist]

On 11/4/2022 at 11:49 PM, Odd Duck said:

You don’t need to discard the other sponge filter but it was a very good choice to move in a seasoned filter.  Give the discarded filter a rinse in clean water and let what’s left of the BB’s in that filter help your QT also.  That sponge filter will return to full capacity with time.  With a 100% water change and one well-seasoned filter you should be good.  Remove any dead or dying plants, obviously.  How big is the fish you’re treating?

Many treatments can knock down the BB’s so you can use all you can get so I would recommend you use both sponge filters.  If you’re medicating you’ll be doing large water changes frequently enough that your filtration honestly doesn’t matter as much as having good oxygenation, unless you have a large fish or a large group of fish in the QT.

Thanks for the help! I actually went with copper treatment so I wont be doing water changes that frequently. The fish is a very skinny red honey gourami.

[Odd Duck]

On 11/5/2022 at 2:39 PM, nerdyaquarist said:

Thanks for the help! I actually went with copper treatment so I wont be doing water changes that frequently. The fish is a very skinny red honey gourami.

Why copper?