# Hospital tank



## twoheadedfish (May 10, 2008)

Heya guyzos,

So, no sickness to report or anything, but i'm trying to stay ahead of the game this time around. I've got a small 1.5 gallon betta tank I'd like to use as a hospital tank. Temp maintenance isn't much of an issue as my apt tends to keep my tanks at a solid 77. I wouldn't be able to fit in much of a filter but i could potentially use ammochips or amquil in liu of a filter, right (since i'm not going to be able to keep this tank cycled anyways and would just fill with tank water)? 

also, is 1.5 gallons plain ol' too small to temporarily (1-2 weeks at most) house small livebearers and other common community fish (say, corys, rasboras, etc).


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## ameekplec. (May 1, 2008)

I think 1.5 is a tad too small to act as anything more than a bath for the fish when treating.

To have a tank for treating, I'd go at least 2.5 gal, 5 if possible. In terms of filter, you'd just have something for water movement and aeration. Don't worry about biological filtration, just do frequent water changes.

However, if you want a permanent hospital/qt tank with a cycled filter, it can be as simple as housing a bunch of snails in there, or a lone fish or two just to keep it going.


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## Mr Fishies (Sep 21, 2007)

My first thought is that should you need to medicate, adding .15 of a dose might be difficult...many meds are based on 10 gallon increments. I chose a 10G in part for this reason...maybe a 5 would be OK.


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## twoheadedfish (May 10, 2008)

yeah, well truth be told I've already given this a shot a couple months ago. one of my trilineatus had some sorta swim bladder issue so i tried to med with TMP sulfa. the idea of treating a 20gal tank with meds that cost 20 bucks kinda made me shiver so i stuck him in the 1.5 and did my best to partition the meds. he didn't make it.

So, this would only be appropriate when bath-treating a fish then? Suppose I had an ill cory. I could bath-treat him then move him back into the community tank?

Thanks for the advice.


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## ameekplec. (May 1, 2008)

1.5g is appropriate for bath treatments, just make sure that the dosage you have is absolutely correct. Guessing doesn't cut it at these small volumes because you are either going to under treat or overdose, neither of which are desirable. For voulmetric (liquids) measures, make sure you have something like a pipette to measure out meds in .5ml increments (often smaller), and have a scale for the powders. Otherwise, use something large with more room for error.


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## twoheadedfish (May 10, 2008)

i can handle that. thanks.


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