Quarantine Tank? FW Dip? Is it all really necessary?

Excellent explanation of how Ammonium and Ammonia affect fish differently at different pH levels.

I often drip acclimate with ammonia removers. Obviously it depends on the variance in specific gravities. If the bag is 1 point off in specific gravity, I temperature acclimate and dump. However, I've received shipments of fish at 1.017. Well, if your tank is at 1.025 and you just dump them in after temperature acclimation, that will cause enough osmotic shock to burst cell walls. You just killed or severely weakened your brand new fish.

 

Here's the thing about people who QT and those who don't. It is just like backing up your hard drive on your computer. Everyone knows they should do it, but it's a hassle, they'll have to buy an external drive, zip drive or pay for a service so it's costs a little amount of money too. Those people don't (or rarely) back up their hard drive.

THEN IT HAPPENS......

One day, you turn on your computer and it won't turn on or it will turn on but you can't access most data. While you're in a panic you start remembering things like, OMG!!! What if all of the pictures are gone? Oh no, what about my tax data for my sideline frag business? Oh no, what if my address book is gone? yada, yada, yada After that happens, they pay a whole bunch of money to recover their data and they start backing up on a regular basis.

Unfortunately, many people seem to need to lose everything or close to it. Then they'll QT fish and corals. Do you know anyone who lost several thousands of dollars worth of fish to Velvet because they didn't QT? I do. Do you know anyone who lost thousands of dollars worth of SPS (and 5 years of their life) due to red bugs and AEFWs? I do.

I'm not telling you what to do....it's your tank after all. However, with that said, YOU'VE BEEN WARNED!!!!

 

I don't dip or QT anything. However, I do inspect every inch of coral before it touches my tank.

 

I have debating with myself whether to get a QT but simply don't have the room for it. So far I have been lucky but I might have to get creative in the future. I can only recommend it!!

 

I have all my data on one set of (more reliable) WD hard drives, and Windows/games on a pair of SSDs in RAID0. I have no clue what the analogy there would be lol. Maybe having a frag tank, with at least a frag of every coral, and a DT with everything that constantly gets moved around?

 

LOL I'm not saying have a backup of your tank. I'm saying that most people don't back up data until they've had one crash. Most people don't QT fish and corals until they've experienced a severe loss.

 

I don't think you can compare backing up your HDD to QTing a fish. Not backing up your HDD is just because you are lazy. Most people that don't QT do not have the space for a QT. While you can QT a lot of fish in a 10 gallon which is cheap, easy, and doesn't take up much space, a 10 gallon is not big enough to QT tangs, and other larger fish without stressing them out even more. QTing coral is even more expensive. I know a number of people who can afford a nice DT, but to setup another tank as a QT for when they get a new coral would break their budget.

I think inspecting all inverts and fish will prevent most issues.

As to backing up your coral...I give frags of all my coral to my friends so I can always get a frag of it if something were to happen.

 

Well, that's the thing. I don't have a "backup". I have all the installers, music and movies on a separate hard drive. I was kinda comparing the installers to having a spare frag in another tank, since it can "grow" into a "full unit". You see where I was going with that?

 

Most people also don't have the will or space to have a spare HDD to back up to....

 

Space? a HDD is 3"x.5"x4". If you can't find space for that you have bigger problems than a crashed PC. Horders anyone? To not have the will to backup your HDD is just laziness. You literally click a button and walk away.

Anyway, I think all people shoul;d atleast carefully inspect anything that enters their tank.