RFBF's Quarantine Tank Build

redfishbluefish · Feb 1, 2017

I've started this "build" thread because what I thought would be a simple, pick up a tank and filter, has turned into a process.

I am in need of quarantining a number of fish, and although I have a 20 gallon specifically purchased as a quarantine, I've never used it....and felt it was a bit too small for the fish I'm interested in. Yes, I've said it, I've never used a quarantine tank. Being raised Catholic, I almost feel I need to be in a confessional, "Bless me Father for I have sinned.....I've never used a QT tank." How many "Hail Mary's" and "Our Father's" would I have to say for that.....or maybe possibly excommunicated!

My tank was started in the 2007/8 time frame and fish added willy nilly....unfortuantely this is a method used by too many newbies....me included. After setting it up, I was fortunate enough to have a "clean" tank. Any fish added after the initial setup came from fellow reefer's here in NJ. It's amazing how many people enter and leave the hobby and need to dump their stuff. Again, fortunate to have not picked up any diseases. My thinking was that it's been in Joe Blow's tank for six months without issue, it's got to be clean.

Now up to present day, I have an established tank and recently lost a bunch of fish from my Red and Black Cucumber nuking the tank. So now I want to add a number of fish and DON"T WANT ANY STD's.....which stands for Standard Tank Diseases!

It also seems like diseases are rampant, with too many posts on "sick" fish. So quarantine it is!

I've already made post's about a couple concerns but wanted to capture everything here. The two posts I've already started were on the use of carbon containing filters and building artificial reefs from 4 inch PVC.

So everything from here on will be captured here. Just to take a slight step back, this build began by purchasing a used 55 gallon tank and metal stand along with a Marineland Penguin 350 filter (with no biowheels or filter pads) and a couple PVC fittings (for $60). Note that I'm a slow-poke and this build isn't going to happen overnight. The only thing I've add is an old Perfecto T12 single bulb fixture that has a HD 34W fluorescent bulb in it (from my freshwater days).

redfishbluefish · Feb 2, 2017

Touch Up Paint: The tank was already painted black on the bottom, back and two sides. However, there were chips and scratched off paint. The front of the tank was taped off, tank flipped upside down, and spray painted with a flat black.....looks good.

Controller: Picked up a used ReefKeeper Lite. The I-temp probe didn't look good.....totally covered with dead coraline meaning it was totally submerged. I'm not sure about these I-temp probes, but I do know you can't submerge pH probes. The other thing is that this was sitting dry. Again, not sure if these need to be kept wet, like pH probes. I cleaned up the probe with vinegar and now have it in my tank to check to see if it's going to work. I'm also looking into picking up a thermistor and use that instead....I like thermistors! DA use to sell thermistors for Herpetology system (that I've been using for 10 years on my RK2), for $25. However, these are easily made with a 10K waterproof thermistor and an RJ11 connector for less than 10 bucks.

Powerhead: I'm going to pull the Jebao PP15 out of my DT and use it in this QT. What I like about this powerhead is that it's controllable and has the "lights-out" option to run at a lower speed at night.

Need to Buy List: Started putting together the list of things I need:
1. Prazi
2. Prime
3. Ammonia Alert Badge
4. Copper
5. Copper test kit
6. Filter pads
7. Even though I have spare heaters, I'm buying a new one for this tank.....An Eheim Jager 150W

What else do I need to pick up?

redfishbluefish · Feb 7, 2017

The stand for the 55 gallon tank is the store-bought steel angle iron stand. I added a piece of 1/2 plywood on the bottom frame as a shelf. A second small piece of plywood was mounted vertically towards one corner to hold the controller and other electronics. I didn't want to drill holes in the angle iron, so I simply used a "hanging" bracket mounted on the top of the plywood that fit around the edge of the angle iron:

The bottom of the plywood simply rested on the shelf up against a small cleat. No screws so that this board can be easily pulled off to get to the backside.

On the back of this plywood I mounted the EB4 and power supply for the powerhead:

And here's the front with the controller for the RKL and powerhead.