QT or not to QT....

[soccer4life94]

I have my stand, canopy, tank, and skimmer. I have the lights picked out, and looking at the power heads, Therm, heaters and such. I now have been reading alot about QT's. I really don't have much room in my apt to setup a whole other tank...I know, it just has to be like 10g with nothing really in it. The main problem is where to put it?!?! So I wanted to get the general opinion. Do most of you use them? Are there LFS that will QT your new fish for you? What type options do I have?

[Rick and Sandy]

....foresaking all sane reefing responsibilities, we don't have room for a QT in our apartment either, so we don't Q our new livestock!

[Scuba_Dave]

I haven't been, no room at the old house. At the new house I am working on setting up my fish room. I have a 20g that I will use as a QT tank. I think once I setup a SPS tank I will QT to prevent the red bugs

[nhanson]

We just set up a 10g QT for our new airmail Yashi Haze, and it's been nice to be able to keep a close eye on him and give him special care and feeding because he had a rough time getting adjusted for the first five days or so. (now he's coming around) We found room on top of our dresser in the BR.

[matt-davis sq.]

...Pay now or pay later.

Is a quarantine tank absolutely necesary? No. I got by without one for about 9 months. But at the same time, I came to realize that the effort saved in not quarantining is lost through treating illness and eradicating plague organisms.

I can now safely say (*knocks on wood*) that in my display tank, I have no flat worms, no red mites, and no Aiptasia sp. anemones. I have no Mojano sp. anemones, no parasitic snails, and until recently, no B-worms (I finally decided I was okay with them).

I do have Ich in my tank; present from before I started the quarantine process. When I move to my new tank, I hope to isolate and treat all the fish for a month while the new tank is getting ready. I would also need to set up a third tank as my current quarantine tank is for inverts and corals only.

Yes, running two tanks is an effort, but at least I have the peace of mind of having a clean display tank,

Matt:cool:

[papafish34]

Originally posted by soccer4life94
I now have been reading alot about QT's. ...SNIP... Do most of you use them? What type options do I have?

It all boils down to risk assesment.

In the end you have to ask yourself if you are willing to risk the loss of your collection of animals for the money and time "saved" by not running a quarantine system; and if you can live with yourself if the worst comes to pass...as Matt said pay now or pay later, or from a more grim perspective pay now and pay to replace later.

On a larger tank that you plan to sink some real money into the animals I think this would be a no brainer, on a nano-reef the assessment might be different.

As far as options go think outside the glass box...keep a sponge filter in you reef sump that is powered by an airstone. When you are getting new fish you set up a rubbermaid tub with seawater and the sponge...quarantine need only be about 30 days, you do not need a major investment to do this and the space needs only to be taken up while the animals are in quarantine, especially on a small system.

The inverts a bit tougher but you can keep a small pile of rock in the sump, growing algae for the graizers or for use as a substrate for the corals. Do weekly or bi weekly changes and you can skip the skimmer on the q system, then you just need lights and heat...

[spyro]

There is one more alternative to "Full" Quarantine and this is the method I use. I believe that a bare quarantine tank is really streeeful for a new fish. I could never keep the water quality in a QT up to the same standards as my display. Also, the QT may have a PVC Pipe or two for the fish to hide in, but this can never take the place of live rock.

I do quarantine all new fish but I quarantine them in my 50 gallon refugium which is plumbed into my display tank. Although this does not preclude the possibility of spreading new diseases to my existing system, it does allow me to hand feed the new comer and isolate him from possible harassament from existing fish. This allows the newcomer to eat a lot, gain weight, recuperate from all of its travel from the wild reef, and de-stress. I usually isolate fish for a minimum of 1 month.

So I still risk that the new fish will spread a disease to my existing fish, but the chance of this happening is dramatically reduced. If the new fish eats and is not stressed and is in good shape at the LFS, then the chance he will pass disease onto my existing fish is decreased using this "isolation" type quarantine. I also have learned that many LFS, Tropic Isle for instance, run their fish only systems at low salinity typically 1.020 which further reduces chances of infection.

So there is another option....

[spyro]

I also employ biological cleaners (cleaner shrimp) that do a great job of helping protect my fish against disease. And I do have a 10 gallon hospital tank ready in case I need to treat any fish with copper,etc..

[crimson156]

i didn't qt ad i got ich which is a pain to fix
i plan on using a 10 gal to qt in the future but the 10 gal will stay empty till i need it
when i do need it all i have t do is fil it up w/ water from the main tank and put the small filter i have ruing on my main tank(to keep a bioload in it) on the qt and te tank is ready for new fish
when the fish r all set to be put in the maint tank i can dump out the 10 gal and put the small filterback on the main tank
this way it only takes up space when i actually need it

[matt-davis sq.]

when i do need it all i have t do is fil it up w/ water from the main tank and put the small filter i have ruing on my main tank(to keep a bioload in it) on the qt and te tank is ready for new fishBe careful, though. If you use copper in the QT, the filter which you use on the QT should never be run on your main tank again. The idea is biologically sound and very clever, but poses a chemical risk. Because the copper medication dosage is so much greater than what could potentially harm a reef, I would worry about the filter carrying a copper residual back to the reef. You would have to clean the filter thoroughly (effectively sterilizing it) before returning it to your main tank, and even then, I would never use anything that had been in a copper tank on my main tank,

Matt:cool:

[crimson156]

ya i hear u on that one. but what diseases woul i treat w/copper?
all i know how to treat is ich, and thats w/hyposalinity(since i haven't had any other diseases yet)