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Keeping a tank cycled


Paul
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2 minutes ago, Paul said:

Snails don’t do well in my water. My pH is 6 that’s why I have SA fish.

That is a low ph for sure.  Well, you can always leave a few fish in quarantine & remove them when the tank is needed for truly new fish.  Also, maybe buffer the water a bit, so the snails do live.  Just some ideas.  😊

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I will usually keep spare sponge filters in my various tanks. When it's time for the quarantine tank to see use, I set it up, fill it up and throw one of those spare sponge filters into the quarantine.  Now it's instantly cycled. 

The fish then get to go through their time in the tank, eventually they are either healthy and getting to join a main tank, or they didn't make it.

At the end, I pull the sponge filter out and clean it well and let it sit dry on a counter top for at least a week, just in case if it was somehow harboring something a sick fish had, it's dead. Then the sponge filter can be returned to whatever tank it originally came out of. I don't mind it has to get new bacteria colonizing it, it wasn't the primary filter of that tank, so I'm  not worried about it affecting the ammonia processing ability of the tank.

Edited by Nataku
I can't spell to save my life
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25 minutes ago, Nataku said:

I will usually keep spare sponge filters in my various tanks. When it's time for the quarantine tank to see use, I set it up, fill it up and throw one of those spare sponge filters into the quarantine.  Now it's instantly cycled. 

The fish then get to go through their time in the tank, eventually they are either healthy and getting to join a main tank, or they didn't make it.

At the end, I pull the sponge filter out and clean it well and let it sit dry on a counter top for at least a week, just in case if it was somehow harboring something a sick fish had, it's dead. Then the sponge filter can be returned to whatever tank it originally came out of. I don't mind it has to get new bacteria colonizing it, it wasn't the primary filter of that tank, so I'm  not worried about it affecting the ammonia processing ability of the tank.

I have the same method because if I have an empty cycled tank, I stock it, and it’s not a quarantine tank anymore. 😛

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I keep a sponges going in them but also one or two zebra danios because those guys are the hardest fish I know, they are my designated quarantine fish. I'll usually move them to a different tank when I bring in a new group of fish to run meds through. 

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I don't cycle my tanks. When I setup a new  tank I just use water from the big tank and put in a lot hornwort. Typically I put fish in the same day. I guess they cycle it for me. Some tanks have a sponge filter some don't. Probably the only tank that needs a filter is the 40 breeder where I am growing up a dozen baby discus. The baby discus eat like pigs. I do daily water changes on the discus tank and frequent water changes on the other tanks. Every tank except for the 500 gallon is choked with plants, mainly hornwort and duckweed. The 500 gallon tank does not have a filter, but it is the source of water for the water changes in the other tanks and is therefore frequently refreshed.. So essentially the plants are my sponge filters. Like @Streetwise my fish populations are low. I have two 10 gallons each with 2 small fish, one 29 gallon with 2 small fish, and a 7 gallon with 6 guppy sized fish (pygmy sunfish). If you run low fish populations, you can get away with murder.

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