Using Ich water to cycle

[Shilpan]

Hey guys next week I'm gonna set up and cycle my new 150L hospital tank (gonna treat all my fish and leave my tank fallow-Ich).

I got a large canister filter rated for 300L because I don't trust my 8 fish in that tank I'm worried about ammonia spikes. Anyway so I was gonna put this filter in my main DT to seed it before putting it in my hospital tank. My thought was that because I'm gonna treat that tank anyway it doesn't matter if it spends some time in a tank with Ich.

But I wanted to ask, is there any benefit in cycling the hospital tank clean without using DT water? Because I'll get a lower Ich load to begin with?

 

[lmforbis]

Were it me I'd use a clean tank with clean water. Some fish disease experts recommend soaking a sponge that goes into the filter in bottled bacteria for a few hours then putting it into the filter and going with that. I wouldn't use a canister filter at all. Use a hang on the back filter. Much easier to clean. Get an ammonia alert badge if you don't have one. Normal ammonia tests will give you a false positive with cupramine the badge doesn't. The ammonia issue is one of the reasons I prefer hypo salinity. You can use Prime or similar products to detoxify it.
I have, thankfully, never had to treat a lot of fish at once but I never keep my QT up and running. I always fill it and go with just a sponge filter from the get go when I plan to buy a fish. I have never had any issues with ammonia but also do frequent water changes. Not having a QT up and running all the time also keeps me from making impulsive purchases.

 

[Shilpan]

Thank you for your advice
Yup I'm aware of the ammonia false readings which come from cupramine being an amine complex. I've got an ammonia alert badge for that. And true! If you try detoxifying products with cupramine it'll get reduced to Cu+ which is very potent.

Ahh ok well I've already bought the canister filter so I guess I'll have to be diligent with cleaning it then. I bought the canister filter because it's got room for heaps of biological filter media to provide maximum possible nitrogen cycling.

Ok I'll go for the clean tank then and use new water to cycle, I guess that makes sense, fewer Ich parasites will mean the treatment has a better chance of success.


I'm sure my shrimp and hermit crab will be happy they're gonna have the 100 gallon to themselves for 3 months. Ahh my tang keeps trying to get the CBShrimp to clean him and the shrimp just keeps getting angry at the Tang and tries to scare him away and the tang ignores him haha

 

[beth]

I use DT water, as long as it's high quality water. The fish have ich. The ich is in the water. You're going to treat so its not an issue from that end. You could use 10% new water but there is benefit to fish to keep them in the same liquid environment as you transfer them to a QT.

 

[2quills]

Might as well use the tank water. The parasite can only live for a couple of days I believe once it reaches the free swimming stage if it doesn't find a host fast. And as mentioned, you will be treating anyways.

 

[Shilpan]

Ok thanks guys I'll use tank water. I will also run my external canister filter in the DT from now till next week to seed it.

Hey 2quills! You're the person who got me started on chaeto in the fuge. Just letting you know to this day, purigen and chaeto is still the only filtration I use it's so effective.

 

[beth]

Can not go wrong with chaeto.