Setting up Hospital tank?

[tony_3a]

Hey guys I have a couple questions for hospital tanks.

Is it ok to use really coarse sand, like the size of peas or something like that? I just really dont like the bare bottom look.

One more thing, for some reason i think i saw you cannot run carbon if you are going to put copper in the water? Is this true??

Thanks a lot
Tony

[Sunee]

Tony

You should not have any rocks or sand in a hospital tank as they absorb the copper (I am not sure about other medications). The same with carbon, you use it to remove the copper from the water (along with a water change). Hope this helps.

[tony_3a]

when you say rocks, does that include live rock? sorry that is probably a very dumb question.

[MMAX]

You don't need a substrate, also don't put any live rock into the tank. The copper you add will kill of anything in the live rock. Running carbon will "pull out" any medication in the water. Just put a piece of PVC pipe into the tank for hiding spots. Put a foam block into your filter and monitor your ammonia levels because you won't have any bacteria to control it. I just shut down a hospital tank today and was doing partial water changes every day to keep the ammonia in check.

[mark]

go BB, reason being is easy to siphon out waste, uneaten food etc. Amazing how fast NH3 can build up.

Probably could use LR as would be measuring the copper concentration so could adjust but it would then be useless to place the rock back in the display if running a reef. As for carbon, no, purpose of it is to absorb. Depending on why the QT, might also consider no medication or hyposalinity.

What I've used in my QT is PVC plumbing parts (have some 4" elbows, Tees, short pieces of pipe etc) and plastic plants. Gives hiding places and easy to rinse clean and store for when finished with the tank.

[edikpok]

I would recommend adding some "stability" by Seachem in order to introduce some benefitial bacteria into the tank. By doing so, I had to do water changes in my hospital tank only once every 4-5 days. You can also buy this little round thing that stays always in the water and it measures your ammonia. Proved to be quite useful for me...

+1 on the PVC - got mine from HomeDepot...