Use the eclipse for a nano system, buy a Rubbermaid for your isolation tank, leave it empty until it is ready to use. Treatments with most antibiotics kill the mineralizing bacteria anyway, better to do every 3 days water changes with a sick fish and discard the water from the change. If you just want an occasional isolation for new specimens, then keep several
sponge filters in the sump of your main system, there the sponges will colonize with bacteria, and these sponges can then be used in your isolation tank for new acquisitions. As they filter out particulates (usually in conjunction with a powerhead), the mineraizing bacteria will feed on whatever nitrogenous wastes are introduced into the water column.
Advantages:
- solid sides give fish a visual isolation to allow them to calm down
- empty tank is not a harbor for pathogens
- cheap
- generally unbreakable
- lightweight, and will act as a storage container for all the equipment needed to set the tank up
- can be easily sterilized with iodine after treati9ng fishes with diseases/potential pathogens.
I am sure that there are many other advantages, only disadvantage I can think of is that it is difficult to observe the reaction of the fish to medication or its general behavior (often a clue in unknown pathogens, diseases. We DO have a ichthiopathologist on board, ask him his recommendations.
