Quarantine tank??

[Flaxon-Waxon]

So almost everyone on here says a QT is needed. I need some opinions... My LFS QT's fish for 2-3 weeks before he lets them go. If he is doing that, do I really need to set up a QT?? He has an entire wall of QT and will sell fish off that wall for a cheaper price if they haven't gone through the entire process (hypo, etc..), but has no guarantee on them whatsoever... Seems like I can take em from his QT after the whole process, drip em, and let em free... What does everything think?

 

[melosu58]

He`s just saying that they are in a tank. In most LFS the same water supplies all the tanks so if there is a sick or parasite infected fish then all fish are liable to have it. I would QT the fish IMO.

 

[Flaxon-Waxon]

And if they do in fact have a separate water supply? The only reason I think it is, is because he does the whole hypo salinity, then blah blah whatever is after that haha, but he has a lot coral only tanks that I would imagine would be severely affected by this no?

 

[Sniperhank]

It is possible you do ahve a good LFS, but it is always recommended that you QT yourself. There are lots of variables that comes from adding a new anything to your tank. I personally don't QT, and I should. I've had corals bring in nudibranches and fish with ich. If I had the room I would totally have one set up...just the small 2.5 gal tank I had on my stove wasn't good enough when I had more than 1 small fish come in...which always happens.

 

[Flaxon-Waxon]

So what equipment do I need for a 10 gallon? Lights, filtration, etc...? Bare bottom I assume, so what type of filter media? Power head? Should I just use water from my 55 gallon? Or need to cycle this one too?

 

[melosu58]

A good QT link

An Ounce of Prevention is Worth a Pound of Cure: A Quarantine Tank for Everything by Steven Pro - Reefkeeping.com