Hello. Had some advice on a off colour oscar from the site, ideally need to get him in a seperate tank. Got my eye on some bargains on ebay, any advice on setting the tank up quick to get treament started. Thought about using some of my foam filters out of my fluval external and putting them in a fluval internal. Any problems in doing a 50/50 on fresh water and tank water from my existing tank. Any advice would be great. Thanks.

The fastest time I have done "seeded fishless cycle" is five days. I manage to do this by placing an established filter (2 months running) in a new lightly planted tank.

If you need to use Hospital tank from day one, then use as much sponge media as you can from your fluval external filter and place it in the new fluval internal filter.

You may do better using 100% new treated water in the hospital, and be prepared for 50% partial water changes daily, until it cycles with your fish in it. Make sure you use a water conditioner such as Seachem's Prime, which besides neutralizing chlorine, chloramines and heavy metals, also locks up ammonia and nitrites for 24 hours (actually a little more than that) but keeps them available for beneficial bacteria to feed on.

Good luck and quick recovery for your fish.

Pepe
Santo Domingo

I was going to say as pepe has, use new water in hospital tank and do a 30% or 50% water change every day. dont forget to treat the water change with meds. I probably wouldn't bother with a filter as to cycle it would take too long if you havent got a spare running filter. use air stone to move water. the choice on not using a filter will depend how long you think its going to be in hospital tank.also the water change will depend on your hospital size and fish size too.test to be sure and heat all new water so as not to temperature shock your fish. If you do have 2 filters the same you could get away with halfing your media but its risky and will depend on how long since you last cleaned your main filter. If you cleaned your filter recently I wouldnt half the main filter media incase you loose the cycle on main tank.

Marcus is right about the risks of removing filter media from an established tank. It could send your established tank into a mini-cycle.

When I did my "seeded fishless cycling" (this week) I planned that ahead. I had that extra filter running for two months with this purpose (it was going to be a one month seeding but turned out to be two, which was better).

Pepe
Santo Domingo

i have an extra filter running on my main tank all the time that i use as my hospital filter. when needed i simply move it to the hospital tank and when done i clean it out then move ot back to my main tank