Big mistake in a Quarantine Tank that kill all my livestock

Dennerle · December 2, 2020

Hi all

I made a grave mistake in my quarantine tank that cost all my 7 fishes to die in a same day!

My quarantine tank is the size of 20cm x 15cm x 10cm

After one week of housing 5 chromis, 1 blenny and 1 goby, all died in one day when I was back.

I decided to test salinity and found its ok at 35

Decided to test my ammonia and realosed it was at 8ppm or more.

I guess all died due to ammonia poisoning!

Should have use a bigger tank and change water more often in a week!

Decided to share so all can learn from .y mistake!

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soggycookies · December 2, 2020

Thanks for sharing. The tank you were using for quarantine was definitely too small for the bioload.

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Clement Chen · December 2, 2020

Do u have any bio media to house bacteria? Normally for qt I will have a bag of ceramic rings. If I got time will start the qt tank few days before. Den I add some small rocks or bio media from my main tank to establish the bacteria. So far this method has worked well for me.

SubzeroLT · December 3, 2020

For a quarantine tank (no medication), I would put pre-seeded bio media, air stone & a wavemaker. If seeded bio media is not available, I'd do 50% water change daily.

For a quarantine/hospital tank (with medication), I typically do a 50% water change daily and top up the medication to make it full dose.

If you have smaller fish, you can probably get away with less frequent or smaller water changes. The 50% example was based on full grown AT or full grown square anthias in a 20L tank.

In both cases, food will foul up the water very quickly. Feed less if possible. And scoop out all uneaten food within 5 minutes.

Dennerle · December 3, 2020

Unfortunately mine is just a bare qt tank with nothing inside. Indeed lesson learnt that ammonia poisoning is real

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