More comforting quarantine tank.......for all fish.

[HKfshkpr1]

I set up a "bare bottom" quarantine tank and successfully got a few fish ready for the show tank. Then I got 2 sand dwelling wrasses and they had a "tough time". Adding a tray of sand helped just a little.

Naturally, fish don't like bare bottoms. They can be spoked by seeing their own reflection. We know a stressed fish tends to hide, eat less, and worst of all, get sick.

So I made a modification: I cut a thick and rigid "filter pad" so it fit snug on 70% of the tank bottom. Put a small rock on it. Then fill the remaining 30% bare bottom with sand( I am sure 2 narrow sand strips, 1 on each side will work too). The sand can be piled up higher in area further away from the pad. Now all my new fish calm down within a short time.

The "main" reason for a bare bottom tank is to be able to apply medication like copper. With my modification it only takes 1 minute to remove the pad and siphon out the small amount of sand.
Really worths a try especially if you want to acquire sand dwellers!

 

[TheLadyCrash]

Very cool idea. I like it! The only downside might be having to change the pad frequently due to detritus, but if the material is cheap enough, it certainly doesn’t take much time. Thanks for sharing!

 

[HKfshkpr1]

Very cool idea. I like it! The only downside might be having to change the pad frequently due to detritus, but if the material is cheap enough, it certainly doesn’t take much time. Thanks for sharing!

Have had 4 small fish in the 10 gal. tank for 2 weeks and have never done anything to it. You can siphon out the larger detritus, and the pad can be rinsed and re-use many many times.

 

[mcarroll]

For the ease and effectiveness, I would probably have used fake plants instead. (The tray of sand would have been fine.)

But I would also suggest keeping a separate hospital tank for medication treatments, if possible.

That way if you want a piece of live rock or a little bit of substrate in the quarantine it's not a problem. (Removing stress/recuperation is your main goal, after all, not applying medications.)

 

[Robink]

I use a bowl of sand for the sand dwellers. They seem to like it.

 

[HKfshkpr1]

I use a bowl of sand for the sand dwellers. They seem to like it.

Like I mentioned, I used a tray of sand too. The problems are:

(1) Some wrasses are pretty dumb( at least my Hoeven's was). They're slow to learn to "swim up" to the tray and would make a mad dash toward the bare tank bottom the first few nights.
(2) Fake plants should help but there would still be some bare bottom left making new fish uncomfortable. They probably have never seen their own reflection all their life. Even freshwater
fish don't like it.

With my set-up they have "no problem" finding the sand.