Your task today, in the 31 Days to Build a Better Saltwater Aquarium Challenge, is to set up a quarantine tank. A quarantine tank is one of the most important equipment systems you can have. It will keep your tank (relatively) parasite free. You may already have one, but if you don’t, I want you to set one up today.
It doesn’t have to be a big system. A 20-gallon tank is sufficient for a month’s quarantine for most fish. If you have a very large tank and plan to keep very large fish, you will want to have a larger quarantine tank, but let’s assume that ~20 gallons is large enough for most.
You can keep the equipment fairly simple, too.
Running a quarantine tank adds some expense and complexity, but it will make a significant contribution to building a better aquarium.
Since you already have your display tank up and running, you can get your quarantine tank up and running QUICKLY. Jumpstart the biological filter (and dramatically speed up or eliminate the cycle) by seed the bacterial filter by using water from your display tank and placing a scoop of sand or a piece of live rock somewhere in the system to give the tank an injection of the beneficial bacteria that are going to be cleaning your water.
If your return pump has a sponge on it, that’s another great place to get some good bacteria.
Turn the pump off, remove the sponge, take it over to the quarantine tank, once set up and filled with water and give the sponge a squeeze and shake it in the quarantine tank water.
Don’t skip out on today’s challenge. This is one of the most important things you can do to build a better aquarium.
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