Quarantine Tank

[Lorraine Vavra]

Hello to the smart fish people,
I am in the process of rearranging the house and am bringing a 20 and a 30 to the basement. I have 3 damsels (inherited) and a bunch of macro algae I grow for other vege eaters to go into 1 tank and the other will be a quarantine. Question: Should I designate the 20 or 30 for a quarantine? The 20 would be less room but less chemicals...and then I could grow more macro alge but I probably don't need that much macro algae. I plan to get a few more fish in the future and want to see if they are ok before messing up an already established tank. I have a 155 and a 70 with fish and corals and a 135 ready to fill. If I buy a 3-4 inch tank will it need the 30 for quarantine? Any advice please? Thanks.
Lorraine

 

[Anonymous]

That really depends on what kind of fish and corals you expect to be quarantining. If you expect that you might need to QT some larger tangs, for instance, then even the 30gal. may be too small. In my own opinion for the size tank (I assume you meant tang) you plan to QT the 30 would be the better option.

However, what about just using something like Rubbermaid tubs (or any brand, as long as it doesn't smell and is chemically inert, which Rubbermaid is good for) instead of an actual glass tank for QT? They're cheap, they hold water, and there's an added benefit if they're opaque of reducing stress on the fish. It also most closely resembles the large QT setups I cared for while at the Long Beach Aquarium (they had many different setups, some were the huge 3,000gal tubs, which were my favorite, others were "repurposed" glass and acrylic tanks). There's nothing that says a fish can't be QT'd in something other than a glass box.

Most of my Rubbermaid tubs at home are 36"x20"x24" (approximately), and that figures out to be <DANG!> almost 75 gallons! Wow.. I hadn't thought they'd hold that much (if I'm computing that correctly)

36
x20
x24
=17,280/(divided by)231 (number of cubic inches in one gallon) = 74.8gals.
:shock: