How to prepare corals for my tank

[nikki_kaiser]

When receiving new corals, what is the best dip to use to remove all parasites? Do you quarantine corals like you do fish? Can a coral be a carrier of marine ich? I'm wanting to order corals however I need to know the best way to prepare them for my tank as well as protect my fish now. Thank you!

[scottayy]

I use SeaChem's Reef Dip, it's pretty good AFAIK, haven't had a problem yet since I've been using it. A lot of people use Coral Rx.

No, I can't set up a separate quarantine tank for corals only, so they get dipped and then put in the display.

Yes, corals can bring in marine ich and other parasites.

[nikki_kaiser]

So they can't actually host the ich right? Just carry?

[scottayy]

I don't think they host (could be wrong). But the water or corals or anything from another aquarium can have one of the stages of marine ich on it. It's a dangerous battle. (thumbs up)

[nikki_kaiser]

So how do you QT them without having to duplicate expensive equipment ( especially lighting and protein skimmer) in order to not introduce ich into a tank that's parasite free? I've really put a lot of effort over the few years to QT live rock, fish, and shrimp to avoid an outbreak.

[scottayy]

Yeah. Obviously quarantining new corals in a separate environment free of fish is the ideal situation. This allows for coral inspection too, to make sure it's free of disease and bad coral creatures (so technical, i know, but i love these parenthesis!).

However, most of us put so much money, time, and effort into our DT that affording (at least a few hundred bucks for a nano coral tank) and maintaining (it's harder with smaller tanks) a separate tank for quarantining corals is almost impossible.

I think it's safe to say that most people only dip their corals.

BTW, it was a coral that infected my tank with marine ich a while back. That was before I dipped. Probably 10 corals since then, all dipped, and no problems.