Quarantine tank- to cycle or not?

[nallbright]

Hi there,
I'm a new member, new to the world of discus but not fish keeping.
I'm in the process of converting my 150 gal from a community to a discus tank and had a question about my quarantine tank.
I have one specifically set up for incoming discus and have been told by other groups that it did not need to be cycled since i planned to do daily water changes with aged water.
But in Al's video ( which is awesome- thank you!) one of his slides mentioned a cycled quarantined tank.

Does it have to be cycled if I do daily changes and monitor parameters?

Thanks!

[Ryan925]

Hi there,
I'm a new member, new to the world of discus but not fish keeping.
I'm in the process of converting my 150 gal from a community to a discus tank and had a question about my quarantine tank.
I have one specifically set up for incoming discus and have been told by other groups that it did not need to be cycled since i planned to do daily water changes with aged water.
But in Al's video ( which is awesome- thank you!) one of his slides mentioned a cycled quarantined tank.

Does it have to be cycled if I do daily changes and monitor parameters?

Thanks!

Not if you are doing daily LARGE wcs

[nallbright]

Thanks. What would you consider a large wc on a 20 gallon?

[LizStreithorst]

How many fish and of what size?

[Willie]

There's a difference between a quarantine tank and a hospital tank. You may need 20 - 29 gal tanks, or larger, for quarantine, but a 10 gal for use as a hospital tank.

For long term quarantine, you'll need a cycled sponge since the discus can stay there for quite a while. My discus goes through a 6 week quarantine process. The easiest way for me to do this is to put new fish in their own tank.

The hospital tank does not need a sponge since you're putting 1 - 2 fish in there for a week with water changes between each dose.

Hope that helps, Willie

[dinnese]

i've purchased all of my Discus from Kenny and have had this same discussion with him. Its's not necessary to have a cycled sponge or filter as long as your doing 50% water changes everyday for at least a week or two then you can reduce it to 1 water change every other day and then even less as you get to the 4 week mark. I have personally used this method a few times with zero loss during the 4 to 6 week quaritine period.

[Adam S]

Certainly not necessary, but it makes the next 3-4 weeks less stressful.

[Hidan]

Hi there,
I'm a new member, new to the world of discus but not fish keeping.
I'm in the process of converting my 150 gal from a community to a discus tank and had a question about my quarantine tank.
I have one specifically set up for incoming discus and have been told by other groups that it did not need to be cycled since i planned to do daily water changes with aged water.
But in Al's video ( which is awesome- thank you!) one of his slides mentioned a cycled quarantined tank.

Does it have to be cycled if I do daily changes and monitor parameters?

Thanks!

While its probably not necessary, if you have a sponge filter lying around it might be wise to use it in case you get busy and don't do the daily water change.

[nallbright]

The only cycled material I have would be in my 150 tank. Wouldn't that defeat the purpose of quarantine if I used something from there? Cross contamination?

[Kyla]

Are there other fish already in your 150gal?

[nallbright]

yes. 6 discus( have been there a month) plus tetras,cories etc

[Willie]

The only cycled material I have would be in my 150 tank. Wouldn't that defeat the purpose of quarantine if I used something from there? Cross contamination?

If your fish are healthy, what would be the cross contamination?

Willie

[DISCUS STU]

I try to maintain a cycled qt tank anyway and use a Hagen 40 HOB for all of them. Typically I use 10 and 15 gals. for either qt or hospital interchangeably though obviously not at the same time. While I may do 50% water changes every day if for some reason I need to medicate in qt I would rather have a cycled tank and maybe to 50% changes every other day if the meds are expensive and I'll need to admin. every 3 days or so, i.e. Kanamycin Sulfate.

[jmf3460]

the idea behind a non cycled qt tank is that the ammonia wouldn't have enough time to build up to a point where it is harmful because you are doing 100% water changes every day. basically by the 23rd hour, when ammonia levels start to reach a really high level, you will be doing a water change to bring them back down to zero on hour 24. Now this does make it really bad if you miss a day of water changes for some reason and some of those reasons we can never plan for like getting sick or hospitalized or anything.

[Kyla]

Personally I would prefer to have a cycled QT because then the ammonia doesnt build up between wc. You can still do huge wc and get the benefit, but then even between wc the water is great. Plus like Jacklyn mentioned, if life happens and u miss a day it's Ok

[Aj11]

Personally I would prefer to have a cycled QT because then the ammonia doesnt build up between wc. You can still do huge wc and get the benefit, but then even between wc the water is great. Plus like Jacklyn mentioned, if life happens and u miss a day it's Ok

This is a useful reply, and a hobbyist will inevitably miss a WC one day. But, what about all the medicine and de-worming stuff that we are putting in the water? They will kind of kill the bacteria in the filer. How would you deal with that?

[Willie]

I use 10-gal tanks for quarantine and medication. There's a sponge filter inside. I also keep 8 more sponge filters in my pleco tank. If there's a need, I can always swap in a seeded sponge filter. Afterwards, I dry out the sponge (you can probably nuke it) to eliminate bacteria and reseed in the pleco tank.

Willie

[Adam S]

This is a useful reply, and a hobbyist will inevitably miss a WC one day. But, what about all the medicine and de-worming stuff that we are putting in the water? They will kind of kill the bacteria in the filer. How would you deal with that?
If you are only prophylactically quarantining new fish, none of the meds you throw at them should be hurting your filter bacteria. Unless the fish are showing signs of major distress, you're be better off staying away from serious antibiotics (the things that CAN hurt your filter bacteria). The "Big 3" that I use for wild fish are prazi, flubendazole, metro and occasionally copper (if and only if the fish act like they need it).

[Filip]

I prefer to keep them dry- empty and uncycled because I'm too paranoid from cross contaminating new arrivals .

When I buy new discus I insist on buying cycled sponge from the vendor along with the discus from its original tank and that way I'm instantly cycled .

If I need an instant cycle of a hospital or QT for my current set of discus , I just grab a piece of filter material from their display tank filter and instant cycle the hospital or QT for them .

[CammieTime]

I killed a nice marlboro red in my QT by having insufficient filtration and doing not enough water changes...I really liked him, his name was Buster. Next time around I put a cycled sponge in the QT tank and suffered no losses. Why take the risk?