My husband, David, is trying to persuade me that adding a Q tank to our new reef aquarium system would be not only a good idea, but also “not a big deal.” I think it wouldn’t be much less work and equipment than setting up and maintaining the main aquarium. After all, the fish are supposed to be in there for 2-3 weeks. Presumably, we need to have some live rock in there, an additional filter of some sort (even with only 1-2 fish in the Q tank, they still eat and sh-t), a heater, aerator, sufficient lighting that turns itself on and off, and all the issues of keeping the water at appropriate salinity, pH, etc. And since the live rock in the system needs to stay alive, you can’t shut down a Q tank very easily, nor bring it online very quickly, so you are presumably committing yourself to keeping up this extra effort for the life of the main tank.
Am I missing something? Is it really so much “safer” to do all this work yourself than to allow the LFS to keep the fish for 2-3 weeks in one of their tanks after they acquire it? If you keep the Q tank bare-bones stripped down to the essentials, don’t you stress your new fish that much more by keeping it in that minimalist habitat rather than putting it into the presumably much cozier fully-set-up and furbished marine tank right off the bat?
Please help fend off a marital squabble by providing us with your expertise.
Thanks,
Andrea
Am I missing something? Is it really so much “safer” to do all this work yourself than to allow the LFS to keep the fish for 2-3 weeks in one of their tanks after they acquire it? If you keep the Q tank bare-bones stripped down to the essentials, don’t you stress your new fish that much more by keeping it in that minimalist habitat rather than putting it into the presumably much cozier fully-set-up and furbished marine tank right off the bat?
Please help fend off a marital squabble by providing us with your expertise.
Thanks,
Andrea
My vote goes to the QT. You won't regret it.
