Maintaining a quarantine tank

[Agent Powder Tang]

How do I maintain a healthy quarantine tank for my sick fish?

How do I prevent nitrate spikes in my quarantine tank (since I was told to remove the media from the filter)?

How often should I change the water in the quarantine?

How do I feed my fish without raising the nitrate level?

Basically, I would like to know all the key steps on how to set up a quarantine tank appropriately. :confused:

Thank you! :eek2:

[TippyToeX]

A good read that might answer your questions and more. :)
HTH

http://www.wetwebmedia.com/QuarMarFishes.htm
&
http://www.wetwebmedia.com/quarinverts.htm

[Konadog]

Agent Powder Tang, Scott Fellman is a MASLAC (http://www.maslac.org/) club member and was one of our speakers in January. He is a very friendly guy and would probably answerer any questions you have.

[Aquariareview]

My Q-Tank is a 20 long. if I am dealing with a new fish I feed lightly. If it is a Sick fish I only feed food with meds in them and very lightly.

In my Q-Tank I run no filter just an airstone. I do a 3 gal water change every night. I vacuum the bottom and replace the water. Water comes from my main reef system. With a new fish this gets him ready for the water in the system. With a sick fish I know that the water stays pretty clean.

All I have in the Q- system is : a heater, a airstone and a NO bulb.

Every time I use the system for a new fish I harvest a bunch of macro-algae from my refuge and put in the Q-tank. This gives him some hiding places and make him feel less stressed. (many reef fish will also eat the macro)

Every time I use the system for a sick fish I throw a bunch of plastic plants to give the fish places to hide (if they are stressed they will not heal). when the fish returns to the system I throw all of the plastic plants in a bucket with water a strong bleach for a few hours to clean them.

If we all had a good Q-system we would not kill so many of these poor little critters.

[64Ivy]

I'm doing it pretty similar to Aquariareview except I'm running a little power filter, no airstone, and a PVC pipe on the bare bottom for a hiding place. I was under the assumption that as long as the filter media (sponge in my case) was colonized, and water from an established tank was being used, there wouldn't be a spike. Oh yeah, this assumes diligence in water changes, feeding, and siphoning. Please tell me I'm right. :eek:

[Wilafur]

mine is an AGA 7g bowfront with a dsb, live rock, thermometer and a BakPak skimmer. thats it, i keep it running 24/7 with the only longterm resident being a cleaner shrimp.

all i really do is top off the water and do 1g water changes every so often.

i do not dose meds or anything. essentially the quarantine tank is a tank for me to place the fish for a month or so for observation and to get it eating and fat before i place it in my main display.

[asmujica]

I have been contemplating the idea of a quarantine tank for a while. Wouldn't it just make sense to maintain the quarantine tanks bio-load capacity using the water we take out of our main tanks when we do water changes? That way, the quarantine tank gets nutrients for the biofiltration, avoid spikes, reuse water and is still pretty much usable when the time comes.

[crypto]

When we do water changes to the main tank, the old water goes to the Q-tank. But if there are no fish in the Q-tank, we dump in a bit of old food once every week or 2 to keep things alive. Its real easy that way (otherwise you will likely get a spike and if the fish is sick this makes things more stressful).

[predatory_orca]

Now that's an idea I hadn't thought of before, a cleaner shrimp for a quarentine tank. Hrm, was planning on turning a Wal-Mart storage tote into a q-tank. (Because if I had another "real" tank, I just don't think I could resist the temptation to turn it into a normal tank.

[wayne in norway]

I would give a cleaner a miss - the most effective med for some common ailments is copper.....
My QT is a 20 long but only half or 2/3rds filled with some eggcrate features, plastic pipe and a couple of plastic parts. Also there's some live rock rubble I pull if I need to med. Circualtion and filtration comes from a fluval internal.
If I need to med I pull the live rock. If I need hyposalinity I fill it up with freshwater.

[AquAddiction]

These are my impressions about Q-tanks gleamed from a Calfo presentation I attended not too long ago.

1) All you need is a tank, heater, airstone (or some form of water circulation) and pvc pipes standing by. It does not need to be filled. I don't know about you guys, but electricity here in CA is quite expensive. Why spend $ running an empty tank (or an infamous "one damselfish tank") when you can be buying frags?

2) Keep a sponge filter in your sump. This will insure a nice quantity of colonizing bacteria will be ready in case you need to set up the QT. Advantage = this bacteria is capable of handling bigger loads compared to the bacteria one damselfish can produce in a "wet" QT tank.

3) When you need to use the QT, fill it up with your display tank water. Add the pvc for hiding places, heater, airstone and sponge filter from your sump.

When you're done with the QT, just break it back down. Put the sponge back in your sump (or replace it with a new sponge if you used any medications).

Ta da! You're done. ...and you don't have to worry about the constant maintenance of an unused quarantine tank.

[Steven Pro]

Here is my recent article on quarantine,
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-10/sp/feature/index.htm

[wayne in norway]

Steven Pro's article is absolutely the benchmark document on QT. But I prefer an internal powerfilter to a sponge.

[Steven Pro]

Originally posted by wayne in norway
Steven Pro's article is absolutely the benchmark document on QT.

Wow! High praise indeed. And by the way, your $20 is in the mail.

Seriously, thank you. I am glad you liked it and found it to be useful.

But I prefer an internal powerfilter to a sponge.

That is a good point, most any filter and media will work. I just prefer sponge filters because they are readily available (most any LFS will carry them, even the lousy ones), so cheap, and yet very effective.

[pollard]

you could also just attach a tank to your main tank and have the return water go through a uv filter this way no pathogens survive the trip back to the tank and u get added water volume for stability from your qt. if u have to medicate or lower the salinity just stop the flow to the qt and let it stand as its own tank.

[AquAddiction]

Originally posted by pollard
you could also just attach a tank to your main tank and have the return water go through a uv filter this way no pathogens survive the trip back to the tank...

I would have to disagree. We do not know how robust some of these diseases can be. I would not risk having the pathogen slip through the uv filter and re-infecting the whole display. I think the best bet is to isolate sick (or possibly sick) organisms in their own seperate system.

[Steven Pro]

I would be concerned with the UV lamp aging and lossing effectiveness over time, or getting a film over the quartz sleeve, or having the lamp burn out, or ... There are too many potential problems with this idea to make me comfortable with it.