# El Natural quarantine tank?



## COQHRider (Feb 26, 2010)

Hello all. I'm brand new to planted tanks and the El Natural method but have had successful non-planted freshwater aquariums in the past. After reading Ecology of the Planted Aquarium then finding this site and staying up until 2 am reading posts I still have a few questions. 

Eventually I'll be setting up a 55 gallon tank but for now I'm starting with a 7 gallon bowfront that I'd eventually like to use as a quarantine tank. Having not had an aquarium at our current residence I'm taking a tap water sample to my local (60 miles away) LFS today for testing to determine what type of substrate I'll need to use.

Now, for my questions. About time, right??  Is it possible to maintain an El Natural tank as a quarantine tank? Should I just buy some smaller, cheap, more hardy fish to keep in tank as part of the cycle? If I do buy fish that have a disease is there any easy way to clean the substrate in an El Natural tank or am I stuck tearing everything down and starting over? Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.


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## geeks_15 (Dec 9, 2006)

> am I stuck tearing everything down and starting over?


That is why I haven't set up a NPT (natural planted tank) as a QT (quarantine tank). It is easier to break down a tank with less stuff in it. I have a smattering of gravel in my QT with java moss, a couple rocks, and a piece of driftwood. All are pretty easily cleaned or trashed if necessary.

I haven't had to completely break down a QT, but if you keep getting fish, odds are it will be necessary at some point.


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## dwalstad (Apr 14, 2006)

COQHRider said:


> Is it possible to maintain an El Natural tank as a quarantine tank? Should I just buy some smaller, cheap, more hardy fish to keep in tank as part of the cycle? If I do buy fish that have a disease is there any easy way to clean the substrate in an El Natural tank or am I stuck tearing everything down and starting over? Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.


Nice to hear that you are setting up a quarantine tank. You sound like a conscientious hobbyist.

You can set up a quarantine tank with potted plants, Java fern attached to lava rocks, floating plants and/or Hornwort. Substrate can be a scattering of gravel or sand (no deeper than 1/4"). I like to use real soil (rather than potting soil) for potting plants. If the plants do well, you don't need to add fish to cycle the tank (and those fish may be carrying their own diseases).

This quarantine tank might be a good way to get started, learn to work with soil, find plants that grow well, and build up a big supply of healthy plants for your 55 gal.


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## ObiQuiet (Oct 9, 2009)

COQHRider said:


> Is it possible to maintain an El Natural tank as a quarantine tank?


I had the same goal. I'm not an expert, so this is just a report of what I did:

My quarantine tank has no substrate, but as Ms. Walstad suggested I have hornwort in there, plus some potted swords. And, duckweed.

I use coffee cups for the pots, and cover the soil in them with gravel so the dirt doesn't get into the water.

The plants aren't growing fast, but they're not dying either. I occasionally take out duckweed, and put in trimmings of other plants that come from the main tank.

There are ramshorn snails which eat the needles that drop off the hornwort. (They'd be removed for medicating.) I've had to siphon debris a few times, but since there's no substrate that's easy.

So far, so good. No algae problems, but it's only been 4 months.


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## COQHRider (Feb 26, 2010)

Thanks everyone for replying so quickly. I might regret this decision but I think I'd like to try to set this small tank up as a true el natural with a soil and gravel substrate then, after I begin using it as a quarantine tank, if I have to tear it down and minimalize I will. With this being my first attempt at this type of tank I'd like to make sure I can make it work with my water (and my lack of a green thumb) before I dive head first into my 55 gallon tank.

When I had my water tested today I found that my pH and my hardness are extremely high. PH is about 8.6, KH is about 197 ppm and GH...I'm not 100% sure. I bought a test kit and tested again tonight so I can start keeping track of the changes and I began to see a color change from orange to green in the GH testing at 125.3 ppm but didn't really get a dark green color until the drops were off the chart. Any advice on how to read these tests?

Sooo...I'm going to do a little more research tonight on lowering pH and hardness before I get started. I know the plants won't mind the hard water but there's no way I feel right about adding the type of fish I want before the pH is closer to neutral and the water is softer. If anyone has any suggestions on the process for setting up this tank with my water, without adding the fish right away and without using an RO unit I'm open to suggestion.

One other question about water hardness, too. My husband plumbed our house to allow for a water softener and mentioned today that he wants to install it. I thought I read somewhere that water softened with this type of softener is not good for fish tanks. Any thoughts? Am I going to end up shelling out the dough for an RO unit? 

Thanks again for helping this newbie out!


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## Cliff Mayes (Jan 29, 2007)

Most traditional Water Softeners can be bypassed so getting regular mains water for your tanks shouldn't be a problem.

Getting your pH to a lower level could be a problem. Mains water is usually buffered up so that the acidic water does not rot the pipes. The normal progression of water in a tank is downward to an acidic condition. If you change water in an older tank the shift in pH can be a problem. While pH is a logarithmic scale and a change of even a few tenths for instance from 6.8 to 7.0 is a big deal; the change produced by putting a large quantity of high pH new water into a tank that has been allowed to drop into the acid range can be much larger (which is not the same as the pH swing from injecting CO2) and can harm fish that ordinarily would adapt to a slowly changing pH value or the existing pH of a particular water source. Do not concern yourself with altering the pH of a your water. Monkeying around with water to deal with fish is a job for experts who are attempting to do something very specific.


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## ObiQuiet (Oct 9, 2009)

Oh, now I caught what you are wanting to do -- use the QT as a practice el natural tank. Of course, then you need the substrate. My mistake!


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## COQHRider (Feb 26, 2010)

No problem, ObiQuiet! In all honestly, I wasn't 100% sure what I wanted to do originally, either. But now I'm quite certain that my initial goal for this tank will be a practice tank, as you say.

Thanks for the opinion, Cliff. I'm not quite ready to ditch my goal of having fish that require a lower pH to plan for a tank of fish that require a higher pH just because my well water won't cooperate. I think I'll play around with trying to get the water right before it ever goes into a tank so I don't have the fluctuations you mention. I certainly don't want to add any unnecessary stress to the fish. I imagine that having someone care for you that's clueless is stress enough!

The good thing is I don't yet have any living beings to worry about and I can play around with my water without worrying about harming anything.

Thanks for all of the advice. I'm learning quite a lot from this message board. Of course staying up til 2 every morning to read is starting to take it's toll!!


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