Cycling Quarantine Tank - How Do You Know When Cycle Is Complete?

[triton]

I need to setup a quarantine tank to treat Ick and Black Ick.
I am going to be adding 50% water from my display tank to boost bacteria.
In Beth's FAQ, it says:
"Cycle the Tank?
To cycle the tank, you can add a cupful of your substrate from your main tank, a piece of inexpensive LR, and some fresh shrimp. The point here is to get the tank into cycle mode, thus you need to add organic material. The LR and sand has nitrifying bacteria in it to help speed the cycling process along. However, if you don’t want to take LR or a cup of sand out of your tank, then you can just use the fresh shrimp…it will just take a bit longer to establish your QT. LR can be returned to your main tank after the cycle as long as fish have not been in your QT."
Do I need to do this, since I am adding tank water? I am going to be treating with copper in the QT tank.
If I do need to do this, how much time does it take to cycle and when do I know when it is done?

 

[beth]

Triton, what type of display tank do you have?
Black ich is actually treated using 45 minute bathes, you don't actually treat the QT.
Establish a tank for an emergency is no easy task. While we can recommend some things you can do to kick-start your emergency QT, the system itself will still be highly vulnerable to ammonia and nitrite spike--which, of course are deadly to fish.

 

[triton]

Originally Posted by Beth
Triton, what type of display tank do you have?
Black ich is actually treated using 45 minute bathes, you don't actually treat the QT.
Establish a tank for an emergency is no easy task. While we can recommend some things you can do to kick-start your emergency QT, the system itself will still be highly vulnerable to ammonia and nitrite spike--which, of course are deadly to fish.
I have an 80G FOWLR DT, and a bare 55G QT.
My Blue tang has Ich & Black Ich, and my copperband Butterfly has Ich.
Are you saying you do not advise setting the 55G QT up into a quarantine system? If it is "No Easy Task", how are you supposed to quarantine for disease and new arrivals?

 

[renogaw]

an emergency set up is not an easy task i think is what she's saying. do you ahve 55 gallons worth of bacteria rich water anywhere other than your DT? probably not. keeping the QT up and running is probably the best way that way you don't have an emergency cycle and can start your fish treatment or quarantining immediately instead of waiting for the Qt to cycle.

 

[hogcr8]

Just to throw my 2 cents in. I lost a long nose butterfly because I didn't wait long enough when I set up my QT and had a major Ammo spike. This was a valuable lesson for me so I went and bought a 20 gallon extra tall for a QT, gave it plenty of time to cycle and plan on keeping in going all the time. I put it on a small filing cabinet with wheels so I can roll it next to my DT when I QT fish and then roll it back out of the way when it's not in use. The main thing to remember is to take care of it when it is not being used.