[FINDING_NEMO]

i am planning on doing a QT tank for my bigger tank, but not on my current one tho. no space

[Tonz of fun]

A qt tank should be a completely separate tank so you can dose or do Hypo as needed. I remember you saying you were going to get a bigger tank. Its getting pretty crowded in your tank. Im sure those beautiful tangs are ready to swim...

[FINDING_NEMO]

i still am, but im still renovating my house.... my tangs still get to swim in my tank tho..... i got plenty of flow from my koralias and my mag 9.5

[FINDING_NEMO]

a QT tank is just so u can watch your fish closely and make sure he is eating before putting him in a bigger tank......... a medicine tank is a separate tank and is not considered a qt tank as it is not good to leave the fish in medicine for too long and some fish cant be medicated

[wreckdiver]

Originally Posted by FINDING_NEMO

a QT tank is just so u can watch your fish closely and make sure he is eating before putting him in a bigger tank......... a medicine tank is a separate tank and is not considered a qt tank as it is not good to leave the fish in medicine for too long and some fish cant be medicated

I would have to disagree with you one this one. If you are going to use a true QT tank (Highly recommended), then you will not want to keep anything in it. Keep it bare bottom, no live rock at all, and don't be tempted to use it as another fish tank. Keep it broke down until you need it. Get a sponge filter and run it in your sump of your display tank so that you have a biological filter ready when you need to run the QT tank. Then when you get new fish or corals you can just siphon water from your main tank (do a water change) and use that water in the QT. For fish you will want to keep them in the QT for a minimum of 4 weeks before adding them to the display tank. This will allow them time to develop any illnesses or diseases and for you to treat them effectively. For corals I think 2 weeks is good for QT unless they have a problem (like red bugs, or monti nudis). If you put a substrate or live rock in the QT then you cannot effectively treat any diseases or illnesses. This is because if you use the safest method for fish which is Hyposalinity, it will kill any beneficial organisms growing on the live rock. and if you use any chemical treatments like Copper, then it will render the rock useless FOREVER, and make the treatment ineffective as the calcium in the rock will absorb the copper making less available for the treatment of the fish, and when finished the rock will leech copper back into the water, which will KILL any corals or invertebrates in the tank with it. It is just a good practice to keep a QT bare bottom and do not use it for anything else except QT. Most treatment for fish run between 10-14 days depending on what medications you are using. For Ich, Hypo is the safest, but a lot of people opt for copper because it is much quicker (14 days vs 6 weeks in hypo). Also there are only a few fish that don't do well with medications or copper and they are mostly exotics like Rhinopias, Bird Wrasse, etc Most common fish are fine with medications, however, unless there is a need for meds (bacterial Infections) then Hypo will be a lot less stressful on the fish and will cure most if not all parasitic type infections that are most common in this hobby such as Ich, Flukes, etc. Also if you treat with copper you must test the copper levels EVERY day minimum and TWICE a day is recommended as too little will not help at all and too much will burn your fish or even kill them outright.

[Tonz of fun]

Originally Posted by FINDING_NEMO

a QT tank is just so u can watch your fish closely and make sure he is eating before putting him in a bigger tank......... a medicine tank is a separate tank and is not considered a qt tank as it is not good to leave the fish in medicine for too long and some fish cant be medicated

The purpose for a qt tank is not so you can see if he is eating. It is so you dont introduce a tank killing parasite or bug into your whole system. Obviously some fish dont do chemicals well. So you do your research and see what else works instead. Maybe hypo works. If you put a fish into your tank without QTing and lets say it has ich...more then likely you will introduce the parasite into your tank and it will forever be in there unless its fishless for 6 weeks. The purpose of the parasite is to feed off of healthy fish and it eventually kills them. The idea of the QT tank is to keep crap like that out of your tank. Its the better safe then sorry method. There are 2 people. People who QT and then people who dont yet because something really bad hasnt happened to them yet. I would say its even more dangerous in this case because you know that fish was wild caught, How would you feel if all of your fish got ich then died from it? Then how would you feel knowing it all could of been avoided by putting him in a separate tank for a few weeks?

[FINDING_NEMO]

well i have had fish died on me before..... and the fish tend to get ick from stress.... my hippo tang has some ick but he still strong and eating and none of my other fish got it..... same thing when i first got the yellow tang, that thing was ugly but he got better.... and the wild caught clownfish i had it on hold for about a week, so im hoping for the best

[FINDING_NEMO]

and thanks for lecturing me on QT, cuz i didnt know what it meant

[FINDING_NEMO]

basically u need 2 QT tanks, one for fish and one for corals

[FINDING_NEMO]

and who said a QT tank was like a display tank?

[wreckdiver]

Originally Posted by Tonz of fun

TThere are 2 people. People who QT and then people who dont yet because something really bad hasnt happened to them yet. I

I know this from experience. When I first setup my reef, I did the same thing and just took the chance if the fish looked alright at the LFS. I then ended up getting three ORA percula clowns that developed a bacterial film infection and died within 48 hours. Took the dead clowns out and though I will be fine now. About a day later I noticed the same film starting on my Strigosis Tang. I spent the next 8 hours of pure frustration, tearing down 88 pounds of live rock and corals just to catch the 5 fish I had at that time. (no one told me when getting into the hobby that catching marine fish is not like catching guppies or mollies in a freshwater system ) After catching them all and moving them to a 29 Gallon QT tank it took another 3 hours to put the rock and corals back together and refill the ninety gallon tank. That is when I realized that I was never going to let that happen again and stated QT'ing on a permanent basis. All new fish to my reef go through a minimum of 2 weeks in Hypo Salinity 1.009 - 1.010. This means that acclimation from the LFS to my QT takes approx 4-5 hours, but have not ever lost a fish that way since. Some fish do not like Hypo either such as the Scorpion Fish family (including lionfish) so they have to be treated in other ways but they are also very very resistant to most diseases. The only time I ever violate this process is if I get a very delicate fish that does not do well outside of an established reef tank such as the African Leopard Wrasse or a Regal Angel, These fish are hard enough to even keep alive unless they go straight into a reef environment and that is why they are classified as advance aquarist only fish.

[FINDING_NEMO]

u know what i just notice? this is the TOTM thread and we're talking about QT... lol, we should've took this to another thread... wreck ur seem very knowledgeable and i understand the importance of QT but i havent done it till this point cuz i dont have time as i work 7days a week plus i been fighting with my wifey bout getting the big tank, but for my new tank im definitely doing a qt tank, only fish that wont get it is my 2 tangs and the foxface. i had the foxface for 5 months, the yellow tang for 2, and the blue tang for 1

[wreckdiver]

I realized the same thing and was wondering if one of the moderators could move this thread on the QT to its own thread in the board

[FINDING_NEMO]

at least we made this thread interesting cuz we the only ones that gave it traffic...... with 63 post

[rlcline76]

I quickly browsed this, and I could comment a lot. I have already been inspired...just yesterday...to get a importance of QT thread started up in Reef Discussion. No need to splice and dice.

My concern, NEMO, is that you bring in a nasty parasite with that clownfish and the nice tank we are looking at now will be fishless by the time this contest is over. lol

Let's get back to the general pompous behavior necessary for a thread like this.

[FINDING_NEMO]

my fish are soldiers........ so when the contest is over my fishies will be the last ones standing

[Tonz of fun]

Originally Posted by FINDING_NEMO

and who said a QT tank was like a display tank?

You said this. "i am planning on doing a QT tank for my bigger tank, but not on my current one tho. no space".

In my mind it sounded like you didnt have space to QT. But if you got a bigger tank you would have the space. I just wanted to make sure you werent talking about a divider ya know...No harm intended just looking out for the family.

[FINDING_NEMO]

i do got the space but i want it next to my display tank. and since my big tank is going in my room i'll have space to do that

[Tonz of fun]

I get it now sorry for the confusion.

[FINDING_NEMO]

is cool greg

[Jeremy0322]

About the quarantine tanks...My grandfather had freshwater fish all of his life and he is out of that for now so i stole a 10g with a hang on filter and stuff from him. If i cleaned everything out really good would it be alright to just use that setup for my QT so i didnt really have to buy anything?

[FINDING_NEMO]

but if ur grandfather used copper on the tank before u wont be able to quarantine any corals

[Jeremy0322]

I will talk to him and see if he ever did. If he did though there is no way to clean the tank out really well and get rid of that. Plus, i thought you should not get any corals until the tank was fully established and doing really well. That was just my understanding on it all.

[FINDING_NEMO]

u can get corals once u got all ur water parameter down.

[FINDING_NEMO]

i lost fish but i havent lost any corlas and i got lots of them.... i think is easier to fill the tank up with corals and than stock it up with fish