Setting up my QT this weekend. A few questions

[hllb]

I have a 12 gallon Marineland Eclipse tank that I'm going to set up as a quarantine. It's quite old. I removed the lights (they didn't work anyway) but the filter seems fine. I'm going to do a water change on my DT and put the water in the QT tank (probably only 5 gallons, so I'll supplement the rest with new water. I don't want to do a sand bottom, but I don't like the look of bare bottom either. Could I add glass substrate without it affecting medication I may add to the tank?

To see the aquarium, I plan on adding some bacteria, and moving my filter floss from my DT into the filter. However, the floss is only about a week old. Is that too young to be useful?

I also thought about grabbing a small live rock from the LFS that is well cured. Better, or will floss and bottled bacteria be good enough to start?

I also have a couple decorations to throw in and a PVC elbow for hiding.

What else haven't I thought of? I have 2 fish coming on Tuesday. I'd like to get the tank up tonight and decide last minute if it's usable by Tuesday. I know that it's WAY pushing it for Tuesday, but if I seed it well and am prepared to do daily water changes if necessary, is it better than dropping them in the display? Oops, impulse order of fish....

 

[foxt]

You can use glass, it won't absorb meds.

How big is the rock you want to use? The upside is that if it is large enough, your tank will be good to go. The downside is that you will have to be careful about putting that rock back in the DT when QT is done - all depends on what transpires in the QT. I have never used floss to seed a QT, so can't help you with that one. Future note: sponge filters are magic when it comes to jumpstarting a QT.

Either way, between the rock, the bottle of bacteria, and maybe even the floss, Tuesday is not pushing it. Just watch ammonia carefully. Some people rely on the ammonia badges, so you may want to get one of those as well. I had one fail to warn me, and ever since, I just use a testkit daily until I figure everything is ok.

Heater? Test kits? Basic meds you may need on hand?

 

[hllb]

Ah, yes, I forgot. I have a small sponge in my DT (maybe 3" by 3" and 1" thick) that I could throw in there too. I don't have a piece of rock from my DT to move - I thought about picking up one from my LFS (it seeded my DT very well and very quickly when I set that up). I do have an ammonia alert to put in there, and a heater (I'll verify it actually works well this weekend as it's older), lots of test kits. The only med on hand is prazipro.