Sump Media Ideas for a QT tank

[CanadianReefer]

Hi folks,

When my fish room is expanded, which should hopefully be soon, I wanted to revisit my QT area. I currently have 6 tanks - 3 10g tanks (one with sand for wrasses/gobies etc), 1 20g tank, and 2 30g "pop up" tanks that I use for TTM.

I have so many tanks because I had various DTs throughout my house and I was in the process of doing a new 300g build to amalgamate them together. All the fish have now been moved over (I completed the transfers in stages), and I'm left with the realization that if ever I had to empty the new DT and keep it fallow for any length of time, my current setup just wouldn't work.

Since I have all sorts of leftover equipment and tanks, I figure I'd like to convert one of my old 75g into the new QT. I have a 30g sump (or if I want to save space, I also have the 20g I can add a baffle or two to to make it into a sump) and I'm trying to decide if I could make use of it somehow, rather than using a hang-on-the-back filter as I have been up until this point. The back up filters had sponge, removable carbon and small blocks of marinepure with bacteria to seed them.

I understand that traditional sumps aren't a great idea for QT tanks, since the bulk of what we would normally put in them wouldn't work well with medications - so no live rock, chaeto etc... so I wonder... if I were to stock it with media that would ordinarily be seen in a FW sump or canister - stuff that could easily be removed if ever I had to dose copper etc. - would that provide a good filtration system for a QT tank?

I'm curious what you folks would stock it with...? Some ideas I had were sponges (I can seed them in my DT sump or with some colony to have a bacteria colony), carbon in bags which would easily be added/removed, bioballs (though I'm not sure if they plastic they are made of would absorb copper if left in - does anyone know???), filter socks, marinepure (but again, since this is like live rock, I'm not sure if it would absorb copper in the same way - does anyone know??), matrix (same question again...). One of the things I stuggled with most with my current setup was maintaining water quality - I was doing 50% water changes every other day. That's a lot to keep up with!

I am thinking that if every I had to pull out and treat just one fish, it would be ideal if I could quickly convert the sump into a smaller QT that could function on its own when cut off from the 75g tank - that way, I wouldn't spend a fortune on meds for 105g of water!

Thoughts?

 

[CanadianReefer]

bump

 

[cameronh]

That was alot to read lol.
I would just buy a 40 breeder and use that and the 20 for your main qt tanks with just a hob filter and roll with it if it were me.

 

[CanadianReefer]

That was alot to read lol.
I would just buy a 40 breeder and use that and the 20 for your main qt tanks with just a hob filter and roll with it if it were me.

yeah, my 3 teenaged boys like to point out my rambling too lol. Guess I just get excited when I'm talking about my fish ;-)

 

[cameronh]

yeah, my 3 teenaged boys like to point out my rambling too lol. Guess I just get excited when I'm talking about my fish ;-)

Do you have a build/tank thread?

 

[Sabellafella]

yeah, my 3 teenaged boys like to point out my rambling too lol. Guess I just get excited when I'm talking about my fish ;-)

Toss a skimmer in that sump =) can also add some 60-70 day fallow live rock also. As long as any media your adding has not hungout with anything parasites, you should be fine!

 

[Amoo]

Ok so let me try to wrap my head around this and please correct me if I'm wrong.

You want to connect multiple QTs to a sump you can have cycled which will keep your QTs cycled.

I'm assuming you plan to have a way to disconnect each individual tank from the sump? Outside of a skimmer, I'm honestly not sure. I think you might be better off with a HOB filter on each tank and a skimmer in the sump. While your tanks are empty the HOBs will stay seeded and the system will stay skimmed.

Prior to putting a fish in a QT, you would need to disconnect it from the sump system and run it solely on the HOB. I mean say you throw a fish in QT and after 10 days find it has ich, you now have ich in every single system if the sump was feeding all the tanks while fish were in QT.

I'd personally go with Marinepure in the sump just for surface area and just take tanks offline individually as they go into use. I'm still not sure this buys you anything though and it seems like the likelihood of cross contamination would be too high.

So for me I'd make the 75G the sump and your smaller tanks the QTs still that way you have the backup 75 for emergencies, but aren't having to change 75G of water every time you need to remove a med.

 

[CanadianReefer]

Do you have a build/tank thread?

I do, though not that exciting lol It's under the 180+ category "Angela's Dream Build (for now)"

 

[CanadianReefer]

Ok so let me try to wrap my head around this and please correct me if I'm wrong.

You want to connect multiple QTs to a sump you can have cycled which will keep your QTs cycled.

I'm assuming you plan to have a way to disconnect each individual tank from the sump? Outside of a skimmer, I'm honestly not sure. I think you might be better off with a HOB filter on each tank and a skimmer in the sump. While your tanks are empty the HOBs will stay seeded and the system will stay skimmed.

Prior to putting a fish in a QT, you would need to disconnect it from the sump system and run it solely on the HOB. I mean say you throw a fish in QT and after 10 days find it has ich, you now have ich in every single system if the sump was feeding all the tanks while fish were in QT.

I'd personally go with Marinepure in the sump just for surface area and just take tanks offline individually as they go into use. I'm still not sure this buys you anything though and it seems like the likelihood of cross contamination would be too high.

So for me I'd make the 75G the sump and your smaller tanks the QTs still that way you have the backup 75 for emergencies, but aren't having to change 75G of water every time you need to remove a med.

No, not quite. Right now I have multiple QTs, but I want to get rid of all of them and set up one 75g with a 30g sump. The idea would be that I would use the sump area (It's completely open except for the return chamber) to QT a fish by shutting off the water to the bigger QT and adding a HOB filter. That way, I'm not wasting meds adding them to a 75g to treat one fish.

Really, the idea is to use the sump as the QT and have to 75g as a backup in case my whole DT breaks out in something. My system is quite big and it's fish-heavy, so I need something bigger just in case.

I figured that since I had the sump, when it isn't in use QT'ing a Fish, I could use it to keep the filtration up to par. I was looking for media ideas that would host beneficial bacteria but be easy to remove in a pinch - & also media that wouldn't affect the usefulness of meds (IE live rock, which would soak up the meds and make dosing a nightmare).

Does that make more sense?

 

[Amoo]

Yes I apologize I was having trouble understanding, but your response clears it up for me.

Personally I would try some Marine Pure Blocks for your easily removable filtration, then look for some type of ceramic media as your full time. Ideally you would get some bacteria colonizing on the surfaces of the ceramic bacteria but being as it's not very porous it wouldn't soak up any meds and throw things off, then when you're done treating you can pull it and clean it in the same manner you are cleaning the rest of everything else. I would look around for ceramic media and if you can't find any, the cheapest route may be to go to your local hardware store, find some cheap or scratch and dent tiles, smash them up and put the pieces inside of a coffee mug or something like that. Essentially anything to add some surface area, but not something that will absorb.

 

[CanadianReefer]

I wonder if they would have something like that in the FW section of the LFS?? It sounds like a good idea.

I have plenty of marine pure in my main system so I'll borrow some of that...

 

[Amoo]

I'm unsure but it's worth checking. The reason I suggested tile would simple be because you could break it up into pieces that would fit in a coffee cup and jumble them around in there to get water to flow through all the little areas. They may even make ceramic bio balls, I'm not really sure. Would be a poor choice in materials, but...

 

[TerraFerma]

I'll second the Marine Pure stuff. You can park it in your display sump and when you need a QT on short notice you can take some out, stick in in a HOB filter, and stick that filter on your QT.