Quick Quarantine Question! (QQQ)

[two11devan]

Ok, just wanted to make sure I have this down. I have had a biowheel running in the sump of my 120 gal tank for about a week now. I was planning on doing a water change in my main tank and using 10 gal I was going to take out of the tank to fill my QT tank. Do I just move the biowheel filter from my sump to the QT tank and test the levels after a few days? If the levels are at 0 I can add fish to the QT? This tank won't need to cycle or anything right?

Also, the article on QT says you should only do 1 fish at a time. I understand that if you were to add another fish after you put one in you would have to start the 4 week process over again. But is there any problem with putting a pair of clowns in at the same time, or maybe chromis at once?

 

[Esra]

Far as i know you can put as many fish in there as you want.

Your just running the chance that if one is infected it could spread to the rest.
However if your sure both the fish have the disease I can see no problem treating them together.

 

[Kurt_Nelson]

You're correct about adding fish to a QT - if you're putting in more than one, put them in at the same time. In fact, some fish (like a mated pair of clowns) would want to be in the QT at the same time so that they're introduced into the main at the same time.

Regarding the biowheel, I don't think one week in your sump is long enough to seed that thing. Unfortunately, I'm not sure what a safe amount of time is, but it seems like a week is pretty quick. You're right though - once that biowheel is seeded with beneficial bacterial, you'd just switch it over from your sump and you'd be good to go.

Before you go out and buy that fish, you might want to transfer over the biowheel into the QT, and throw in some fish food to generate some ammonia. See if your nitrates go up, without getting any measurable increase in ammonia. If no ammonia shows up but you get an increase in nitrates, then your biowheel is ready to go! If you get ammonia, then throw that biowheel back into your sump for a few more weeks.

 

[tecwzrd]

New bio-wheels take 2 weeks to seed if spinning on a cycled tank and 4-6 weeks if on a un-cycled tank. I'd wait another week and then use right away or add an ammonia source to keep the bacteria alive.

The amount of fish you can add to your QT is dependent on the QT tank size. Generally for QT purposes 1" per two gal of water is acceptable due to the short duration. Of course as already mentioned you run the risk of infecting a healthy fish if put with a sick one.

IMO keeping the qt tank sg the same as the main can be too stressful for newly acquired fish/inverts unless you keep your main at 1.019-1.022 sg which is where most fish stores/online places keep their sg at.

If you keep your main closer to 1.025 sg then even drip acclimating for 2 hours can be stressful and can possibly cause osmotic shock in fish/inverts with the rapid change in sg/ph leading to sickness or death depending on the change in sg/ph that the fish was kept in.

Personally I keep my qt tank at the same level as the lfs (ph 8.0 sg 1.019) and slowly raise the sg/ph to the main sg/ph of 1.025/8.3 over the course of 3+ weeks per these two articles in advancedaquarist.com.

Acclimation Procedures: Part 1
Acclimation Procedures: Part 2

The use of a refractometer is highly recommended while performing any sg changes whether if it’s matching lfs sg level or main sg level to the qt tank. Adjusting the sg down is less stressful to fish coming from that environment and slowly raising it a little bit every other day gives them time to adjust. Since you have to keep them in the qt tank for 3+ weeks anyways it just makes sense to me to provide a less stressful environment.

 

[melosu58]

I have to agree that amount of fish is based on size of QT. I would say that the two clowns or chromis would be OK. I also agree that a couple weeks will be needed to seed the bio wheel. That sure is some good acclimating info there.