Plumbing quarantine tanks in large system
 

I want to plumb in several quarantine tanks to my new system. I have read that some people here have done this, and I wanted to get some pointers.

Plumbing them into the system is easy, but isolating them so that I can dose with medications kind of looses me. Any help here would be greatly appreciated.

I am thinking about doing something similar... I want to see what everyone says about this too... Thanks for the question Harleyguy!!!

No problem.. I just hope we get some response. I thought about posting this in the advanced topics section, but figured that if anyone is doing this it would be the large tank guys. I guess if we don't get any answers in a couple of days I will post there.

I will be looking in!!!! :D

Harley,

I am completely isolating my QT system from the main tanks. There is just a concern for me of any sort of contamination into the main systems that simply is not worth it.

Even going so far as to isolating the tongs, scrapers, etc used on the qt. Not sure if that is neurotic, but figuring how much money will be in both the reef and the FOWLR did not want to risk it.

It would be interesting to hear though how people are isolating the qt within an existing system, especially if they share the same sump and filtration.

Kip

You are losing the point of QT doing this. If you have the space for an animal safe haven/acclimation zone, that's a different story.

The most I'd integrate a QT is to allow for fill plumbing to the QT system from the main system if the QT isn't set up full time. What I mean is simply plumb a way to fill up the QT system from the main sump with no return plumbing. You would (obviously) need to replace the system water at the same time, but it would allow for you to quickly get the QT up and running without lugging around pumps, hoses, or buckets.

If you really wanted to plumb in both ways, you'd need to run the drain from the QT through quite a bit of carbon and a large UV, and even then you would be taking chances..

To most people, plumbing in a quarantine violates the very definition of it.

jb

I agree; QT is where you are likely to have medications and parasites, and I don't really see a point in plumbing it in to the main system. The carbon, UV, and plumbing will be more complicated and expensive than just using a power filter, which is what most people do.

Yeah, only animals go upstream. LFS water stays in a bucket and the netted fish goes in QT. QT water stays in QT and the netted fish goes into display. I also do a fresh water dip during each of these transitions, but that's paranoia on my part from an incident early this year.

My QT is only a few feet away from the main tank. So every time I water change the main tank (30gal) I siphon 5gals out of QT and then siphon 5gals from the main into QT. Pretty easy.

This works well in my opinion because the QT tank is getting nice stable water rather than freshly mixed salt. The PH/Alk/Ca/etc are all exactly what the fish will see when they move to the display.

How many QT tanks do most of you have?

I've got one, but it's not set up right now because I'm not expecting to get any new fish for quite a while.

Just one for me too.

I will alternate between fish and coral depending on what is coming in.

Kip

Like others have said, silly to add it to the system, you will not get the benefit of QT.. The meds will go into the main tank and you dont want that..