Looking for and effective quarantine tank process

I am about 5 weeks into my tank. A 60 gal with a 55 gal sump, half of which is my fuge.

Three weeks ago I introduced my clean up crew and three chromis. Things seem to be plugging along well. My diatom bloom is in recession, Nitrates are a tad high 3 ppm, but ammonia and nitrites are at 0.

Starting to plan for the next additions to the tank, namely some more invertebrates and two more clown fish. I have a 10 gal QT tank with an Eheim 2227 wet/dry canister filter. This has been running on a tank for the past three months and is well established. I just ran tests on my QT tank and I am at 0 Ammonia, 0 Nitrites and somewhere between .5 and .75 PPM nitrates. The QT tank also has about 10# of live rock. Salinity is at 1.022 and pH is at 8.0

Today I purchased (on line, should arrive sometime on Wednesday after shipping and processing) Two brittle stars, one for my DT and the other for my fuge, two gold stripe maroon clown fish, and a cleaner shrimp, a sexy shrimp and an emerald crab.

I know I should QT the fish for at least a month to ensure that there is no Ich on the fish, and have read that the inverts could also carry some diseases so they too should be QT. But from what I've read the QT period for the inverts is less than that for fish.


Questions:

• Is it safe to QT all the animals I get in the QT tank for 5 weeks or will this have a detrimental effect?
• How should I go about feeding the QT tank? I have some elos shrimp pellets, I figure this would be good for the fish as well as the other inverts as they can eat what is not consumed by the fish.
• How long should I acclimate the animals? 1 hour, 2 hours, 1 day?
• The QT has been on its own for several weeks now with its own water etc. I just did a 10% water change, but other than that no water has changed in the tank. Should I do another 20% change and replace with DT water? Or is the system set up now sufficient?
• Do I need to even QT the inverts? Is it safe to just acclimate them then introduce them to the system?

Thanks.

 

You're gonna find so so many opinions on QT that it makes your head spin.

You dont really want live rock in a QT. It becomes a host for bacteria, and potentially not good ones. QT's arent a home, its a hospital room in a sense.

My personal technique:

I use either a 10 or 20g tank (yeah petco $1 sale, in fact the stickers are still on the side lol). I dont even keep it set up. Maybe if I am planning a trip to the store a day or two prior i'll set up up. Anyways I keep a couple 5-6" pieces of 2" & 3" diameter PVC with elbows laying around to drop in and give the fish place to sleep & some refuge. I keep a 30g rated hob on the side of my sump that I leave running just so the filter has some bacteria and what not in it. I switch it out monthly, for a few bucks a filter it dont hurt to have it there. Anyways put said filter on the QT, add heater, small power head. For water I add about half from a water change out my reef & half fresh sw. all done up & running. no light, just some eggcrate as a jumper barrier.

I dont medicate, hypo, none of that. My opinion is they've already been shook up, shipped around, netted, renetted, shipped somemore, etc. Hypo, medicating, fw dips is all additional stress that is places on the livestock. Plus hypo or temp high temp should be eased into over a course of days, not a 2-4 hour drip in a plastic bag. I drip aclimate everything, but thats me. Once everything matches up in they go to QT. Now once they are there if I am seeing signs or symptoms then yes I will react accordingly.

From there I start with small little feedings 2-3 times a day to see what they are already used to and what they are interested in. I'll pretty much offer everything I have but if they go bonkers for something in particular I'll return to it more often just so they keep eating.

After a couple days I drop in a snail or two just to help out with extra uneaten food, deterius, etc. I'll also do 2 or 3 gallon water changes every other day.

I won't lie if everything is looking happy, eating and healthy around two weeks I will add it to the DT. Sometimes longer if it isnt looking or eating right. I think the longest i have went was 4. Now once I get the 225 up and running and step to more expensive livestock i will definitely been going around 4 weeks minimum.

 

I was going to QT my inverts when I got them in, but I was warned about it, as the extra stress is not good on them. Also I wouldn't use a filter that will remove any medications that you use. I don't know much about canister filters, but I know the HOB type with the carbon filters will do that, so I have put filter floss in place of the carbon filter. I agree with khowst about the live rock, replace it with a piece of 2" or 3" elbow pvc pipe.

I will say that all of this I am posting is from the information I have read, not from experience.

 

Thanks for the recommendations. I'm glad to hear that some of your recommendations were things I was already thinking about.

• I have my eye on a small HOB Filter with UV light. While I don't have my QT tank up and running I can just run it on my sump, as you suggested. Great idea.
• I'll pull the LR out and pick up some PVC tomorrow. I dont know where I"m going to put it, My sump is plum full and my DT is pretty full of rock already. I spose I could just keep it for the 'nex' tank.
• However, even if I order that filter system I wont have it in time, nor full of good bacteria. So I think in the interim I'll continue to use that Eheim wet dry canister filter. It's been running for months and based on my tests of the QT it's doing a great job.
• I was also not planning on dosing any meds until I noticed something on the fish. I will however let them sit in there for four weeks or so. I'd like to let the Nitrates (measuring at 3PPM) down a bit further.

[SUB]On a side note, I was futzing around with the poly fill and sponges on my baffles and hadn't realized how mucked up the sponges go. I took them both out and rinsed them in mixed salt water in a 5 gal bucket. HOLY **** were they filthy. It's only been a month with three chromis and a CUC. I may test Nitrates again tomorrow to see if this had any effect on the chemistry of the tank. I just added a new task to my weekly maint process. [/SUB]

I didn't read if you also QTed your inverts. I am hoping I can just let these guys go after they're acclimated to the tank and its parameters.

Does anyone have recommendations acclimation time for the livestock?

 

Acclimating Invertabrates I was sent to this post when asked a simular question. Also, your QT should be completely sperate from your main system, sump and all. What Khowst was talking about, is his HOB is always running to keep the bacteria ready when he needs it. He leaves it on the sump. If you run your QT off your sump it wouldnt be a QT.

I wanted to add the the UV steralizer is known to degrade medications you use for treatment. I would just use a plan jain HOB filter with no carbon.

 

Here is what I do: Do not QT inverts, just acclimate and add to DT. Same with corals. However I will soon be setting up a frag tank, which will essentially be a QT for corals. Anyways, I do QT all new fish, for 6-8 weeks. My QT is a 46 gal tank with LR, sand, powerheads, skimmer, HOB 'fuge, and UV unit. The only thing I prophylactically use is Prazi-pro. Otherwise, just monitoring for any signs of disease, get them eating well, etc. I use a seperate 10 gal tank for my HT. This is just has a HOB filter, HOB skimmer (one I had lying around), small powerhead, and some PVC and decorations for the fish to hide in.

 

I wouldn't think you need to quarantine inverts either. One word of caution that you will see when you get your order - sexy shrimp are super cool but they are unbelievably tiny. You may want to keep it in your sump - just a thought....

 

I wouldn't think you need to quarantine inverts either.

If I only have three chromis in the tank would the shrimp be OK, or do you think the clowns will attempt to eat the shrimp once everyone's in the DT.

 

In a larger tank, either the Sexy will be a nice snack for someone, or you will just never be able to find it. I think they only belong in a nano for these reasons.

 

Unless you're going to treat the fish, I'd use LR in the tank...sounds like you have plenty of seasoned LR. It's a lot more calming for the fish and will already have biofiltration "built-in".

If you end up having to treat, you can always pull the rock, and add PVC or fake decor for the fishes to hide in.

We're expecting some new fishes on Tuesday, and we set up their QT this weekend using LR we already had running plus a dose of live bacteria. Since the fish are bottom-dewllers, and do best when they can partially bury themselves, the tank also has substrate in it.