Sometimes what goes on in the tank you are observing will effect the fish in the isolation tank. i.e. dropping medicine mare cure the fish there, and dropping food will feed it.

HOWEVER, dropping vitamins does not affect the fish in the isolation tank.

In a new tank I had a twin pair of golden goldbulbs who were both in the red zone after leaving the game on 2x speed overnight by mistake...

I put one in the isolation tank and bought vitamins to observe the effect. And nothing happened to it, but the other fish in the main tank improved to the yellow zone (after all three doses...)

After putting the fish back in the main tank and buying (and using) another three doses of vitamins, it improved to the yellow zone and the other fish improved to the green zone.

Just thought that people would like to know...

Yeah, I mentioned that situation in another thread that was discussing fish health and vitamins, but it may not have been obvious.

As you stated, food and medicine work in both the main tank and the iso tank when they are used. Chemicals (the liquids that occupy slot number 3: vitamins, growth hormone, and unknown chemical) will affect only the fish that are swimming in the main tank. You can use that situation to your advantage, if there is a fish that you don't want to be affected by the chemical.

Ah, my apologies for not noticing the difference before...

I have discovered another advnatage of the Isolation tank. Sometimes I was to exchange two fish between full tanks (i.e. sorting all the fish sick together before medicating them.) I'll use the isolation tank to temporarily hold a fish whil I make room for it elsewhere.

No need to apologize! There's a lot of fun stuff to discover in these games, and part of the fun is sharing what we find!

It is VERY handy to be able to use that isolation tank as extra space when your tanks are full. I've accidentally gotten fish stuck there before, though, when pregnant fish gave birth and filled my tanks before I could move the fish out of isolation!