An isolation tank is something every serious aquarist needs. Say you spend several hundred dollars stocking your new fishtank with plants, fish, driftwood, and the like. You add three little fish, and suddenly every fish in your tank is dying. You start having to medicate in your show tank, which of course turns the water a strange color, manages to make your plants start melting, and suddenly your tank is no longer cycled.

An Isolation tank is supposed to keep this from happening. It is normally a bare tank, containing a heater, filter, and some basic cover, but no gravel. You can have plants in it, but they should be removeable i.e. potted, so that medications won't destroy them. Filters in Iso tanks are often small sponge bubbler types, that you don't mind if the bacteria dies off of. To set up an iso tank you run the sponge filter hanging in your normal tank for a few weeks, and move it to the isolation tank as needed.

Everytime you buy new fish they should go into the isolation tank for at least 2 weeks, 4 if you don't entirely trust the source. This is a great time to make sure picky loaches or plecos are eating, and that schooling fish aren't harboring a strange disease.

Good Fish for this Setup:

Good Plants for this Setup:

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