QT Tank

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Viperboy

Aquarium Advice Freak
Joined
Mar 17, 2006
Messages
383
Location
Lawrence, KS
Ok so since i cant seem to keep any fish that is free swimming (have lost 3 clownfish, 2 six lines, and a firefish) so far i have decided to set up a QT in hopes of reducing loss and actually getting some fish that i can keep long term. My plan is to setup one of my FW 10gals that i am taking down as a QT for my SW reef. I will take out the gravel and put in maybe about an 1" of sand just to have some .... put in a piece of LR or two (however much i can get from brent) thats around 10lbs to 15lbs .... keep the internal filter i have on the tank now along with a tiny hob one for flow and add a maxi jet 600 i have onto it all ..... i also have a 28watt PC fixture im going to be putting over it so i can also not just use it as a QT but maybe a place to grow a couple corals also ...... this all sound like a good idea? .... what am i missing? .... any ideas or advice that would help out would be appreciated .... thanks

Ray
 
I wouldn't use the QT for anything other then QT fish/corals/mobile inverts. Using sand/lr is not recommended due to possible contamination if you have to medicate. Keeping your QT bare with PVC elbows for hiding and lights off most of the time is the best way to set one up. You will still either need to cycle the QT or use a cycled filter from your main.

The QT article goes into more detail.
 
I agree also that there is no need to add any live rock/sand in a QT. Reason being is, if you do actually need to treat a fish with any sort of medication, it will just kill off the live rock. Really, what you need was mentioned earler and that is some PVC piping, which you can pick up at any hardware store.
 
I set mine up bare bottom w/elbows too. If you put a hob with clean filter pads on your main and let it run a few weeks it will seed and then you can move it to the qt and the cycle will be almost instant. I would only put one fish in that size tank at a time. How did you acclimate the fish you lost?
 
Well i have decided againist ur advice :) ... only because i am gonna use it to QT new fish for my main until it is stocked then im going to make a nano reef out of it ..... but i have discovered what my problem is in losing the fish and im suprised i didnt catch it sooner because it is so obvious .... i am still using tap water .... so i am in the works of buying a RO/DI unit as i type this :) ..... but i setup the 10gal with sand and rock a ph and a small hob so when i decide to get new fish for my 29gal (once i have done PWC with RO/DI water and all the tap is gone) i will keep them in the 10gal for a couple weeks and see how they are doin then transfer them over till the 29 is stocked .... i also dont plan on using any medication on the tank cause in my long itme of keeping fish i have never used any medication ... but thank you all and just thought id update yall on what i was doin ... i may even post some pics of it later

Ray
 
Did you just-

--Ask for advice
--Get four answers suggesting the same thing
--Then say "I don't like your advice so I'm going to do what I want to do anyway"?

Or do my eyes deceive me? :wink:
 
Well... I'll chime in with something different, just to be different!

I've got a QT set up to house new arrivals as I stock my main tank. While it's bare bottom with PVC pieces, I do have a 5-6 lb chunk of live rock in there. It's just base rock, but at least it gives the new arrivals something else to look at other than PVC. The royal gramma that's in the QT now really likes it! But as far as using that rock elsewhere, it's only purpose is to stay in the QT. If I have to use copper sometime, I'll just throw it away afterwards.

But I will agree with everyone else on one point - I'd sure leave the bottom bare for now if I was you. Two reasons: (1) it's easier to keep the water parameters great by sucking out the gunk now and then off the bare bottom. In a smaller QT, it doesn't take much to get your nitrates up there. And (2) I didn't plan to use meds in my QT tank either, but I did. SW fish are a bit touchier to stress than FW. Substrate just adds one more thing that can interfere with the meds in a way you can't predict. Adding sand later is easy enough.
 
sorry if i was mean that was not my intention and im not gonna be dumb and make a comment back at you because no thats not what i did because it wont be a QT once i stock my 29gal it will be my place to put other corals and things like that sort of like a frag tank ... and my whole intention of starting the QT was to reduce my loss of fish which i have found out is due to something other than not having a QT

Ray
 
Hey ray, sorry to hear of the loses you have experienced. I know it is frustrating. The first question that needs answering is why you have realized so many deaths. There are several possibilities and I am not sure a QT is the only answer. Don't get me wrong, I advocate using a QT tank whenever possible, but also understand that not everyone has this option. I suggest you turn your attention to your main tank and acclimation process. Please refresh our memory on the tank's history (age, cycling process, water parameters, filtration) and let us know how it is doing now. Any livestock in it now?

A RO/DI system is one of the best investments you can make in the SW hobby. However, I do not feel this alone would contribute to your fish lose. There is something else, I am sure.

I do not agree with your plans for your QT tank. Please remember that a QT is designed to be used short-term. While they do require attention, the use of good biological media (i.e. LS and LR) is counter-productive. Save that good media and money for your main. A QT tank should also be used for a hospital tank. Don't hand-cuff yourself to not using meds in your QT. That is partially what is for. If you have ambitions of starting a nano reef later, I suggest you concentrate on doing all you can to make your 29gal successful first. Good luck!
 
My tank is around 5 months old .... was fishless cycled with die off from my 45lbs of live rock because it was uncured ..... my parameters are 0 ammonia and trites, about 10 trates, between 8-8.2 PH, and 1.025 SG ...... my filtration is the 45lbs of LR ... a CSS 65 skimmer and a fluval cannister filter for flow along with a maxi jet powerhead ... i drip acclimate my fish for around an hour after floating the bag .... right now the tank has a sandsifter goby which has been in there around 2 or 3 weeks and a lawnmower blenny which has been in there since that day the cycle finished ...... i am getting my RO/DI system this thur and plan on getting as much of my water in my tank switched to the RO/DI water .... i have many soft. zoos. shrooms, and LPS corals that are doin awesome in my tank under the 2x65watt corallife light .... so the only reason and most of the people on my local fish forum could think of for my deaths is contributed to using tap water .... i figure ill find out soon if thats the case and im sorry if i caused any uproar but my original intention was to do a true QT with bare bottom and pvc pipe which is why i asked for advice but when i discovered the true cause (that i believe) of my deaths i dont feel like doing a QT now and want to actually make it into another tank .... but if you didnt understand that from my previous post then im sorry ... and i do consider my 29gal a success so far i just cant seem to keep the clowns or wrasses ... but this is my first SW tank and i think im doin ok so far .... thanks

Ray
 
If you want another tank, that's cool... but even though I'm a newbie myself, I have to agree that your tap water doesn't sound like the culprit.

You posted back in October about your SG climbing high and it turned out you weren't doing any freshwater top offs, just doing a partial water change with saltwater when you noticed your water levels being low. Sounds like from your last post that you got your SG issue under control, but could that play in here somewhere? Did you have your fish in there when you were adjusting your SG downward?

While I don't argue that RO/DI water is the best way to go, if your water parameters (ammonia/nitrite/nitrates) are not too far out of whack, and you're taking care of the heavy metals and chlorine with a water conditioner, then using tap water shouldn't kill your fish outright. You might have algae or pH/alkalinity issues, but it doesn't seem like it'd kill your fish. Seems like your corals would be the first to go if water quality was the issue.
 
then what killed my fish?

edit: yes i lost most of them after i got my SG under control and i have kept it steady
 
Maybe some kind of parasite? I use tap water with the water conditioner and my tank has been doing okay. I have lost a lot of fish though. Partially because I didnt know what I was doing and because of my acclimation process. Now I have that fixed and my latest additions have been doing awesome. I have had my clowns in my tank from the day that it finished cycling. They are very hardy. I really dont know what is killing your fish but I agree with everyone else when they say its probably not just the tap water. Have you done a tds test on your tap water?
 
Viperboy said:
then what killed my fish?

edit: yes i lost most of them after i got my SG under control and i have kept it steady

But were the fish that you lost in the tank when you had the high SG? Or was your tank fishless at that point?

What exactly is it about your tap water that makes you think it was the culprit? Again... from my understanding - and I have no corals yet, and could be dead wrong here, so please correct me folks if I'm wrong - but if you have water chemistry problems, you're going to see it cause problems in your corals before your fish.
 
Well im glad my corals arnt showing it first and no i havnt done a TDS test on my tap and that will be obsolete in 2 days anyway since im getting the RO/DI .... and the fish that were in there when my SG was a little high is my clown that was killed by my decorative spider crab which i got rid of and the blenny that i still have .... after i got my SG down i lost another clown and 2 six lines wrasses along with a firefish .... i drip acclimated them all with lights off ... if im doing something wrong then someone please tell me and i will say that it is not just tap water but right now that is the only thing i can think of and what most of the experienced reefers on my local forum also said the problem is stemming from .... just cause i am not seeing algae or my corals are hurting doesnt mean that it could have some adverse affect on the fish .... then again i could just have bad luck with fish and LFS and it could be none of my fault .... i would like to believe that by i believe the fault lies somewhere within what im doin and so far the only thing i can attribute that to is the tap water ..... if something else sticks out then please speak up

Ray
 
I think you are doing well with your drip acclimation. Did the fish die around the same time, is it possible they were already sick, when you got them from your LFS? Did you see them eat at the LFS, in your tank? To be honest, if it was your tap water, I would tend to think the corals would be the first to go... If you have been keeping up with your water, I would look at your LFS....
 
I got them from different LFS and they were spread out at least a week in between .... there is the chance as i stated that they were already sick from the LFS but from different ones and multiple fish ? also all the fish in question were eating well in my tank on mysis and flake food .... its just that so far you guys are telling me no its not the tap water but havnt given me any other real reason to believe something else

Ray
 
Obviously, there's no way anyone can say what exactly killed your fish with 100% certainty. But I don't see what's so hard to believe that you got some borderline sick fish from different stores at different times. If you think about everything these fish have been through (assuming their wild, and not tank raised), by the time they hit your fish store they've got to be at their wits end and stressed out to the max. Depending on how long they've been at your fish store, they may or may not be settled down a bit. But either way, yet another netting and transport to yet another new place with different water parameters probably puts these little guys/girls right over the edge.

Just because folks can't pin down with 100% accuracy what the culprit is, doesn't mean it's the water. Again... what exactly in the water do your friends think it is? Copper? Chlorine? ... It's my understanding that water conditioners like Prime take care of that. Think I also read that some salt mixes have stuff in there to bind up the heavy metals. Is it high TDS in your tap?... I don't think that's harmful to fish unless it's some astronomically high number. I'm guessing your water is on the hard side, being from Kansas, but that shouldn't be an issue as long as you're watching your pH - which you are.

Whatever it is, I think you're right to go RO/DI and at least remove that variable from the whole "what's killing my fish" equation. I'd just restock slow though. From your list of deaths, it sounds like you had 4 fish die over the course of less than a month. Maybe just try adding one fish at a time, with about a month in between fishes.

[Edit: PS... Just thought of something - have you been mixing up your saltwater for water changes 1-2 days before you use it? If you're mixing it up and immediately dumping it into your tank, that can cause you problems. How exactly are you mixing/storing your water change water?]
 
The main thing that I was concerned about in the tap water would be the copper which will be hard to get out of your tank if there is any in there. I dont know if the water conditioners take care of copper or not but I know some fish dont do well with copper in the system. I could be wrong but that would be my best guess on the tapwater situation. Did you check your water perameters after each fish died? Kurt_Nelson also had a good point about mixing the salt. Stress can do a lot to a fish.
 
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