QT tank size

[LagunaGlide]

Hi all. I’ve got the ich despite my clearly mediocre efforts. I am preparing to medicate 3 small tangs, 3 wrasse, 1 tile fish, 1 starry blenny, and 1 goby.

I just picked up a 55 gallon tank and am setting it up now as my previous hospital tank is for sure too small. Do you think I can treat all of my fish in this one tank, or should I consider picking up a 40breeder as well and separating them in some way?

 

[LagunaGlide]

Oh here is a pic of the size of my tangs just for reference

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

Hi all. I’ve got the ich despite my clearly mediocre efforts. I am preparing to medicate 3 small tangs, 3 wrasse, 1 tile fish, 1 starry blenny, and 1 goby.

I just picked up a 55 gallon tank and am setting it up now as my previous hospital tank is for sure too small. Do you think I can treat all of my fish in this one tank, or should I consider picking up a 40breeder as well and separating them in some way?

A forty breeder is a better tank due to its broader footprint, but they both hold about the same amount of water. Since you already have a 55, I don't think the difference is enough to to out and get a 40.

A 55 is plenty large enough for those fish. Have you had the tilefish long? they can be a bit delicate and can really jump.

 

[LagunaGlide]

Hi all. I’ve got the ich despite my clearly mediocre efforts. I am preparing to medicate 3 small tangs, 3 wrasse, 1 tile fish, 1 starry blenny, and 1 goby.

I just picked up a 55 gallon tank and am setting it up now as my previous hospital tank is for sure too small. Do you think I can treat all of my fish in this one tank, or should I consider picking up a 40breeder as well and separating them in some way?

A forty breeder is a better tank due to its broader footprint, but they both hold about the same amount of water. Since you already have a 55, I don't think the difference is enough to to out and get a 40.

A 55 is plenty large enough for those fish. Have you had the tilefish long? they can be a bit delicate and can really jump.

Thanks for the reply. The tile fish is the most recent addition, but we’ve had it for just about 3 months now. I thought I was going to lose it in QT. It started acting weird and just laying around hiding barely moving, then one day was good to go…

Hasn’t jumped yet, but it did spend some time cruising around the tank and bumping the lid with its nose when first introduced. I am nervous about it making it through treatment, but it looks worse than the others and has been flashing into the sand wildly, so I have to give it a go.

 

[LagunaGlide]

My LFS has suggested I sacrifice some rock and sand from the DT to help deal with the bio load. I thought you wanted no rock or sand because it can mess with copper levels by absorbing and then leaching.

Could I just buy some live rock and use that instead? Or is it just a bad idea all together?

 

[W31Olds]

You can buy live Rock but beware that you could introduce some other Pathogen into your QT Tank. Probably doesn't matter much since you already have Ich. Managing Copper levels with rock and sand is not all that difficult. You just need to Test the water more frequently and adjust accordingly. For future reference, I always have a couple of mesh bags loaded with Matrix brewing in my DT Sump if I need to setup a QT Tank.

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

My LFS has suggested I sacrifice some rock and sand from the DT to help deal with the bio load. I thought you wanted no rock or sand because it can mess with copper levels by absorbing and then leaching.

Could I just buy some live rock and use that instead? Or is it just a bad idea all together?

Less carbonate rock allows for a more stable copier level - and you shouldn’t use rock at all with ionic copper treatments, only coppersafe or copper power.

I use a sponge filter kept in a sump to create an “instant” biofilter, works better than rock, but takes months to set up so won’t work this time.

 

[W31Olds]

Jay, please clarify why you do not recommend ionic copper with carbonate rock. I don't recall a specific instruction for Cupramine that indicated it should not be used in a FOWLR DT.

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

Jay, please clarify why you do not recommend ionic copper with carbonate rock. I don't recall a specific instruction for Cupramine that indicated it should not be used in a FOWLR DT.

Sorry - it’s just that ionic copper seems more reactive and absorbs into carbonate rock at a higher rate than does the amine-chelated copper products.

Ionic copper products are copper/citric acid formulations as well as Cupramine. The type of copper can be figured out from the bottle instructions - products dosed at 0.18 to 0.5 ppm are ionic, while amine chelated copper products are dosed at 2.0 to 2.5 ppm.

Cupramine will be more stable than copper/citric acid formulations, but I still think the amount lost to rock absorption is too high with that product - requiring more frequent testing/redosing.