Do corals need to be in a QT?

I've never owned a coral in my life, but probably will within the next year. I have a QT for all my incoming fish to get them healthy before putting them in the DT. Do I need to do the same thing for corals? Or can they go straight into the DT? Thanks.

 

Either. A lot of people won't put anything into their DT without QT'ing the item. You can also, dip the item (CoralRX among others), to try to rid the pests before putting into the DT.

 

Well Corals, like fish can carry harmful diseases that can be transferred to your other tank inhabitants which i think is what your asking. in my 4 years of having a reef tank i QT only 2 corals that i bout from an online vendor that I had not used before.
The safe answer is YES you should QT your coral so long as you can provide it with healthy lighting and very good water conditions like in your DT. There are "coral dips" that you can buy.. just google it.. I believe they are intended to kill any hitchhikers.
I buy nearly all my coral from the LFS whom I trust very much so I dont feel the need to QT. but if you are buying from Petsmart well thats a different story..

 

due to lack of funds, when i first got into this hobby i never quarantined anything. i still dont i havent had any major parasites in the tank besides i think ich but maybe not. i would reccomend it but its not essential if your on a tight budget.

 

with fish, a QT is good because it allows someone to observe the fish and see if it has any parasties that come onto it during the move from stress, or if it already had one and he can treat it with copper like you would do with ich, but you cannot use copper in a reef tank.

With corals on the other hand, most of them may have hitchhikers such as aptasia, nudis,flatworms,bristleworms(which arent all that bad). And to get those off really you can just dip them in coral RX i think its called.

 

+1 on the coralRX suggestions

only takes 5 minutes
and the amount of things that you see leaving the coral will make you very gratefull you did it on occasion

Steve