Do all your tanks have their own supplies??

[Caper]

Suphew wrote:

The risk from a small amount of water might be low but you also wouldn't (I hope) use the same net from a hospital tank in your main tanks

This has me thinking from the thread on pet shop rant. I'm curious to know if all people use separate tools (e.g. nets) for each of their tanks. Not sure how to go about this but here goes:

From everything I read (here & books) each tank should have their own "supplies".

So, what is the difference in putting a bag (not the water inside the bag) from one tank to another and using a net from one tank to another?

Apparently some dry out their quarantine/hospital tanks when they are not in use. So, the question here is what about the filter if you use one? Where do you get the water from for the quarantine/hospital tank...from another tank? I've read where some people keep a spare filter running on, say a main tank, and use that if they have to set up a quarantine/hospital tank. Now, what happens to that filter when the q/h tank is no longer needed? Do you just give it a good clean? Throw out the filter media and start over?

Caper

[alanmin4304]

I would never use a filter in a hospital tank. Just a bare tank and heater with an airstone if there were a few fish. A lot of treatments would kill the filter anyway or at the best give it a bad headache.

[Caryl]

I only have one tank running but when I had many I must confess to using the same equipment across all of them

I so rarely have to quarantine a fish but when I do need to separate one, for whatever reason, I set up a small tank on the coffee table and fill it with water from the main tank plus a filter I have had spare kept from the main tank. Like Alan, if it was to medicate a fish I would not use a filter but if I was separating, say, some fry, then I would add the filter I had prepared earlier (cooking joke).

Once the tank is fiinshed with, the water goes on the garden and pot plants and the filter goes back in the main tank. If it was with a sick fish, I would thoroughly clean the filter then sit it in the sun for a few days but, as said, I don't use a filter with sick fish. If the tank had been infected with whitespot you only have to keep the filter away from live fish for a couple of weeks and the cysts etc will die from lack of a host anyway.

[lmsmith]

I don't. I have nets and stuff for a q. tank, and have a sponge filter that goes in there (and not it any of the other tanks) Otherwise, with my healthy tanks, I use the same nets. In saying that, I haven't had a situation where I've had a tankful of sick fish - if I did, I'd probably do it differently and use different supplies.

[Adrienne]

I use the same nets unless I have new fish or am concerned about something in a tank. Then I use the net and afterwards sterilise it. I don't transfer water from one tank to another though.

[Caper]

Caryl wrote:

some fry, then I would add the filter I had prepared earlier (cooking joke).

So, how to coat your fry in preparation for the frying pan :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

Now this has been interesting. I was always under the impression that you don't use the same, say nets, on different tanks.

Adodge, how do you sterilize it? Bleach? Since the water supply here contains chlorine would that sterilize it?? Plus if, say a net, wasn't used for sometime would that kill any "bugs" on it???

Alan, if you don't use a filter would you do more water changes instead?? But I suppose that would also depend on what your treating with wouldn't it? Would you have anything in there so the fish could hide, I ask this because I was just wondering if "nothing" in the tank would possibly cause stress?

Thanks for all the replies

Caper

[alanmin4304]

You don't need a filter or an airstone, it is just a way of increasing the natural loading of fish. The purpose of a quarantine tank is to isolate everything so the less you have in there the less risk of transmitting diseases. A bare tank is easy to steriluize betwwen uses and in my opinion would cause less stress than the disease you are trying to cure. Some people have been known to deliberately stress fish to bring out any latent disease that might be there.

[jim r]

No.