Quarantine tank setup

[trilinearmipmap]

I have an old 20g to use as a quarantine tank.

I have an old Aquaclear filter also.

Should I spend the money to get a used HOB skimmer for the quarantine tank, or should I just rely on the Aquaclear filter plus water changes?

Also looking for some input on:

Who does freshwater dips?

Who runs medications routinely in their quarantine tank?

[Beverly]

A 20g is a good size for a Qtank. I have two AC 200s on mine as well as two small powerheads at the surface for lots of water movement. The AC 200s each have two foams and no carbon. Carbon is used only to remove meds at the end of treatment.

I turn off the AC 200s while feeding, about 10 minutes or less, so the food isn't sucked into the filters to deterioriate. I also suck out as much poop from the bare bottom as I can to further reduce ammonia/nitrite/nitrate production. Depending on bioload in the tank, I do 1-2 30-40% water changes weekly and lightly clean the bottom foam which gets pretty dirty, even after doing poop removal, in outgoing changewater.

I don't think a skimmer is necessary, and may even be detrimental when using meds. Not an expert on skimmers, here, so hopefully someone with more experience will chime in here.

Don't do fw dips as they will only kill a small amount of parasites. FW dips do not kill ich or velvet or do anything about bacterial problems as far as I know.

I medicate only when there is a specific problem.

HTH