Adding new items to tank...

[fishman]

I want to know what all people QT before putting in their tanks? I see a lot of people on here with all sorts of things in their tanks and I cant imagine QT every single thing other than fish before it goes in. I bought some frags a year or so ago and ended up with ick in my 2 year old tank...never had ick before. I QT my fish and did hypo and they are fine now. I want to buy some shrimp, clams, etc and am afraid to add anything from the LFS without basically washing it off and drying it before it goes into my tank. Please tell me what you guys do to make sure nothing unwanted gets into your tanks.
Thanks!

 

[skennelly]

First of all......coral, inverts, clams, shrimp do not carry ich so there is no relationship between you introducing new frags into the tank and your fish getting ich. What could have happened is that when you introduced the frags to your tank the tanks parameters changed violently and the fish got stressed out and cought ich.

1. Quarantine new fish before introducing them into the main tank
2. properly acclimate new specimans before you place them into your main tank.

 

[tripper]

I disagree. It is possible that the parasite was nestled within some frags due to the fact that the originating tank had ich. It is not common, but it can definitely happen. No amount of stress is going to "cause" ich if the parasite is not present in the system. It is not like a disease that just appears, it must be introduced.

As far as adding new additions to the tank, you could always set up a QT for corals and inverts. You would never use copper or hypo, but if you acclimated them in that tank, kept them in there for 6-8 weeks, then you could introduce them to the main and be very confident that you are not introducing ich.

That might be a little overkill, but if you want to be absolutely sure, that's what I would suggest.

tripper

 

[fishman]

I think how I got it was the guy I bought the frags from told me up front his tank where the frags were coming from had ick...I think I let the water from his bags get into my tank and thus the ick...

I just want to know what others do when introducing say a coral like a clam, shrimp, etc.
Isnt there a "coral dip" you can buy?