advice on QT

I have finished setting up my new 75g. Right now I also have a 20g set up with some LR rubble and clean up crew. What is the best way to go about having a QT? I also have a refug that I would have room enough to use. I am thinking I don't want invertebrates in a hospital tank because of possible medications treatment. So I guess it wouldn't make much sense to leave the 20 (if that's what I would use) up and running with no clean up crew. I also have an extra 10g tank I could use taking water out of my big tank to use if I needed to treat fish.

Right now I am thinking refug as quarantine and 10g as hospital if I need to treat something with non reef safe meds. Is this the best way to go about this do you think or have any other suggestions?

 

I wouldn't use the fuge for quarantine as it is linked to the display and there fore if the fish has problems it will be carried to the display.

 

That 10g with nothing in it would be an ideal Q tank. I mean nothing in it, except maybe a small piece of PVC pipe for fish to hide in. Bare bottom, no rocks, nothing but maybe a little carbon filter, heater, and water. And medicine of course.

The best time to use a Q tank is when you need it. Meaning, don'g have it up and running if you don't need it. Leave it empty if there are no sickies. If your Q tank is empty, that's a good thing.

 

so you would just have get everything together when ever a fish gets sick? what if its a delicate fish wouldnt you have to have all the params right ?

 

Our q tank is a 10g cheopo setup from wally world. We have an upgraded heater for it, a length of 3" pvc, and that's it. The filter is stock, and the sponge in the filter would be the only thing that has to "cycle" if you started the tank fresh. To solve the potential cycling problem, keep the carbon filter sponge in your main tank, like in the sump or something. Then it's ready to go, you just gotta move it over to the q tank.

An adjustable heater is also good. Keeping a higher temp is rumored to help speed up the Ich process and other things (i've never had experience with it though). I really like the Marineland Stealth heaters.

Fill the Q tank with display tank water when you need it, let it run for around 24 hours, then in goes the sick fish. Follow the directions on the medicine bottle if you need it, lights off to reduce stress, and check the params often to keep everything safe. (obviously your fish isn't going to worry about calc/mag/alk levels, mainly any nitrate or ammonia. the sponge in the filter has been in your display tank for however long it has been, so you should be safe.)

Of course, the best way to treat sickness is to prevent it from happening in the first place. Sometimes it's unpreventable. Most of the time it isn't.

 

o i see makes sense to do it like that

 

I never had a problem with the parameters when quarantining a sick fish because with most meds they recommend that you do daily water changes before each treatment. I used Amquel+ thereafter to keep the water stable for the remainder of the watch out period. This seem to keep the Nitrites and Nitrates reasonable for the period that the fish is in the QT. I couldn't test for Ammonia because Amquel+ will flip out most brands of test kits for that.

For new arrivals I would probably set up the tank about a month prior to buying fish to let it cycle or resort back to Amquel once you see things spiking.

 

o see i never had a chance to use a qt when i had my cichlids either i notice the prob and ask what i can do about it or they just be dead when i wake up in the morning but so far with my salty only one casualty due to a jump out but thats about it

 

Our only casualties in salt have been gobies. One died after acclimation (he didn't look too good to begin with...but he was paired with the pistol shrimp we were buying), and the other goby jumped. We were used to him vanishing for a day at a time, so didn't think anything of it. Whoops, look who vaulted behind our tank. Now we have a yellow watchman with the shrimp, and he's too much of a beast to die.

 

dude i wana do that but i cant find none anywhere tiger pistols are cool but i want pair it up with a singapore shrimp goby