Maintaining Fishless QT

[mike550]

I have a simple 20G QT (HOB filter, heater, LED hood) that I set up to quarantine a blue chromis that I just added to my DT. So the tank has no fish. Question for this group. How do I maintain the tank so it's ready for the next fish? Or am I better off cleaning it out, and starting "fresh" and using Dr. Tims, etc. at the start? I'm guessing that I may have already lost the bacteria as it's been about a week without an ammonia source.

Would appreciate suggestions and thanks in advance!

 

[Reef AquaCult]

I like to put an auto feeder set to dispense as few as possible pellets once daily. Or you can phantom feed the tank once or twice a week. I don’t think you need to mess with bottled bacteria but it is an option if you don’t mind the cost. I feed my QT fish heavily so I like to make sure I have a strong bacteria population all the time. Happy QTing!!

 

[Florida Sunshine]

If you plan to add more fish in the relatively near future, I would ghost feed the tank a little bit of fish food while it remains empty.
Another option is to keep sponge media in the sump of your DT to be seeded with bacteria that you can use to quick cycle the QT if you decide to take it down and put it back up again.

 

[foxt]

I always seem to have an empty QT running. +1 on ghost feeding, or even adding ammonia in amounts that is in line with the size of the tank. It's only been a week, so your biofilter is most likely dormant and will wake back up when you start feeding it.

 

[Marco S]

I sterilize my QT tanks between every batch regardless of if there was visible signs of disease or not. It is probably overkill, but it doesn't hurt anything and it helps me sleep at night with as much money as I am spending on livestock and as much time effort and money that I have spent on QT so far.

I use BioSpira, water from my DT and established media from my sump, (Marine Pure Balls) to start up the QT each time and use a fresh Ammonia badge, (buy them in bulk from Amazon) and so far I have not had any issues with Ammonia or Nitrite spikes. I have been doing this for the last year and it has become a routine by now, but it was a bit of a pain in the beginning.

 

[Paul Sands]

There is no need to ghost feed a tank to maintain beneficial bacteria unless you are going to keep it empty for a year. Bacteria are more than capable of going dormant when there is a lack of food for a few months. That’s how they bottle it.