Hospital tank / quarantine question

[scottayy]

Thanks to carey's recent adventures (sorry Carey! ) I've decided to quarantine everything I bring in.

I have a 10g with HOB filter and small heater that keeps temp at 78F that I bought for the sole purpose of a hospital tank.

Some questions:

1) What to keep as substrate while the fish are in there? Will PVC pipes do? Just to give them something to hide in.

2) Should I run an airstone? This could keep the surface of the water agitated to promote gas exchange.

3) How long to keep the new fish or corals in there? 1 week? 2?

4) Could I just run copper and/or quick cure on new fish just *in case* during their time in quarantine. Any ill effects?

5) What should I look for during quarantine?

6) What if I get a fish that is rated for NO LESS THAN 55 gallons. Will it be fine during it's time in my 10g?

7) How to clean it after/before uses?

Thanks a lot. A lot of questions I know.

[shadowstars123]

1 : barebottom, PVC is fine
2: definitely
3: 2 weeks for me

[shadowstars123]

Originally Posted by shadowstars123

1 : barebottom, PVC is fine
2: definitely
3: 2 weeks for me

4: no ill effects, although using a tank dosed with copper to qt coral is a nono
5: anything abnormal, mainly parasites and ich.
6: yeah it'll be fine
7: I rinse and clean mine with bleach, the wash and scrub until I can smell no bleach, no soap! If it's just ich however, I just leave it to dry out, but bleach is a surefire way to kill anything in it

[scottayy]

Thank you very much for your input!
Other thoughts/opinions welcome.

[shadowstars123]

I'd just like to add that it's extremely useful to have extra filter material that's been cycled from another tank just for the sole use for a qt, then sterilize that after use if there's anything wrong with the fish or god forbid it dies, so you won't add the extra stress from having an uncycled tank to your new fish

[carey]

I'm in the market to set up a permanent QT, still might use the 55g since its empty but for some sand and maybe 15lbs of rock.

If I need to treat I figure I'll move it to a 10g.

Or should I skip the trip to the 55g and put them straight in a 10g?

The next fish I think I wanna get is a school of blue reef chromis. Not sure how theyd fare in a 10g

[Grizz]

I use a 30g tote with 4 4in elbow's a heater a 50/50 light and and a UV sterilizer no rock no sand it's marked as QT use only I keep a small HOB filter on my DT filled with poly-fill No cycle this way or mini cycle at the most
Everything but coral gets QT'ed for 4 weeks min. when im done it gets broken down and cleaned with white vinegar the poly-fill is tossed and after the filter is cleaned and dry it go's back on the DT waiting for next time I soak every thing for 2 days in the vinegar water mix iv'e done this for the past 7 yrs with no loss of life

[melosu58]

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


Some good info on QT`s

[scottayy]

So if i just throw the filter floss from my HOB filter for the QT tank into my sump it'll turn into a biological filter for my QT tank?

[scottayy]

OK, so, I've got the system up and running and I dumped some bleach in it because I had some sick clowns in there before.

I guess I'll let it run overnight and then try to wash it out as thoroughly as i can and then stick the filter media in my sump.

[scottayy]

Okay so I can't find much googling.. how do you guys make sure the bleach is gone?

[Buffy]

Using RO/DI water I heard that you rinse and rinse and rinse til you no longer can smell even a hint of it.

[scottayy]

OK, I figure I'll just rinse really well with tap water. Then repeat a few (hundred) times because of my insecurity.

Then fill up the tank with tap water, put some Prime in, let the hob filter/heater/powerhead - whole system - run for a day or so like this.

Then rinse really well again.

Then let air dry.

[aaronalam]

Yeah that sounds like a good plan, AFAIK Prime is a dechlorinator is it not, that would remove any left over stuff anyway.

Just fill it with tap water and overdose the Prime.

[Buffy]

Sounds good to me. RO/DI takes forever to make. But I thought it may help better. But just using tap water to clean it would be cheaper on the water bill lol. Do you have RO/DI. When done with the cleaning, I'd use the RO/DI as the water for the fish.

I would not bother with the dechlorinator as long as you're just using tap to clean the tank.

I don't have any experience, I just read to clean til you didn't smell any. I don't think it would take hundreds of times

[Grizz]

Id stay away from the bleach I use white vinegar the acid kills every thing and if you miss any it just messes with your ph. Tap water has enough stuff added any way to kill off most any thing JMO

[scottayy]

Yes, I have an ro/di unit. I'm rinsing with tap water because, well, it's just rinsing and making water for that would be ridiculous lol.

I've got my rid-a-bleach plan down.

Next question is, do I have to quarantine one thing at a time?

I would like to get a pair of clowns and a royal gramma, to replace my ones that died. They are from the same LFS and likely the same distributor and likely same water parameters.

Would it be ok to quarantine these together? I don't want to wait months apart.

[Buffy]

Originally Posted by scottayy

Yes, I have an ro/di unit. I'm rinsing with tap water because, well, it's just rinsing and making water for that would be ridiculous lol.

I've got my rid-a-bleach plan down.

Next question is, do I have to quarantine one thing at a time?

I would like to get a pair of clowns and a royal gramma, to replace my ones that died. They are from the same LFS and likely the same distributor and likely same water parameters.

Would it be ok to quarantine these together? I don't want to wait months apart.

I'm going to qt everything. When I buy, I'm not sure what I'm going to buy, but if I buy a pair, then I'm going to qt that pair together. I don't think I'm going to be buying different fish at once, so I would be qt'ing separately. This is just what I'm gonna do. May take longer but I wanna be safe too.

[scottayy]

Thanks.

I don't think I see anything wrong with quarantining a gramma and a pair of clowns together.

After all, it's not only the fish in the display tank i'm protecting. I'm protecting the surface area of all the equipment, the water, the sand, the rock, the equipment itself, AND my fish (even though it's only 3 green chromis at the moment).

Even by putting the gramma and clowns together in the quarantine, I am only putting the fish themselves at risk, and it's not a great one.

[carey]

I would agree that the three could be qt'd together. I plan on buying 4 blue reef chromis and all four will be going into one qt. I may even buy another fish when I get the chromis, not sure yet. I'm treading slowly and lightly now. lol