New fish in quarantine tank

I don't understand why someone would use dirty aquarium water in a qt tank. The water is way better fresh than it is after it has been in the display for a while. Water holds none of the bacteria needed for the nitrogen cycle either so lets look at something:

Freshly made saltwater

1.026 sg
0 ammonia
0 nitrite
0 nitrate
ph 8.4
and it's pure
has all of it's trace elements


Dirty tank water
1.026
0 ammonia
0 nitrite
usually 10+ nitrate
ph 8.4
with fish poo in it that is going to start creating ammonia right off the bat
partially depleted of trace elements

 

I have used DT water to start an emergency HT and my QT, it's always been after a WC. For my QT, because it's small, I check the water daily and I've had to change out 10-20 percent, at times more than once a day if levels were high. After a week or so, the chemistry levels off in my QT and I change 20 percent out every other day. I feed sparingly and use a turkey baster to remove extra food and waste a couple times a day. So far so good.

 

Alright, there are many ways to do this successfully, apparently. I'm going to go with the method that involves taking the water from the DT. I thoroughly tested the water in my DT today and it has no Nitrate, no ammonia and no nitrite (also checked other things, but not listing here). As far as some other comment about 2 clowns making 10 gallons of RO/DI dirty within 2 days...I mean...yeah...they dirty it up a little...but to the point where it's dangerous to them? Ridiculous. So, I'll be doing the water changes from the DT and replacing it with RO (mixed to the appropriate salinity, of course).

Glad I finally have a dedicated quarantine tank. I really have to resist the urge to turn it into some kind of mini display tank after the clowns go in the DT!!!

Take care everyone.

 

Couple of things.....are you treating the fish with any medication, or just quarantining them? If you are going to use copper-based medications, that piece of live rock that you put in the tank can never be returned to the DT, as it will irreversibly absorb the copper which is toxic to invertebrates.

Regarding where you get your water....why waste DT water? You can certainly use dechlorinated tap water (treat with an agent such as Seachem Prime). The main reason that we like to use RO/DI water for our DTs is that the phosphates and silicates in tap water can contribute to algae and diatom blooms. But this is not an issue for a QT, where you are going to change out the water very frequently and not keep it full for long periods of time.

If it were me, I'd use treated tap water with frequent changes.

 

No copper in there, else I wouldn't have added the live rock. I appreciate the post though. As far as using DT water goes, I'm doing it because I want to be doing a lot of water changes on my DT because when I filled it initially about 6 weeks ago, I filled it with tap water and the phosphates have been high. By using the DT water to add to the QT I'm doing water changes on both tanks and I can replace the tap in the DT with RO water and still use the DT water to add to the QT, that way I don't need any dechlorinator and maybe there's some free-floating nitrosomona in the water as well, who knows?