Coral quarantine setup

[royaleFork]

I am looking into setting up a coral quarantine setup and am wondering what I would need (sorry if this is covered somewhere, but I could only find fish setups with my search foo). Is something like a 10 gallon with light, heater, and HOB filter good enough? Does it need a powerhead? Are there good/cost effective AIO's out there that people recommend? I am thinking of going fishless but having inverts to avoid ich contamination, but I may be missing some important factors here.

Do you have a cool example set up that I could serve as a base setup or know of a good post/sticky I may have missed?

Thanks!

 

[KrisReef]

Corals don’t require a cycled tank but if I was going to do a qt I would set it up with fish that eat flatworms, which would make a 10 gallon too small for me.

If I was going to go with a 10, I would probably set up a brute can to make water changes with so that the water parameters would be stable for awhile.

A hang on back filter would provide some circulation and mechanical filtration. If you are going to medicate or just observe, there are a few things to plan for.

Just some thoughts, I’m sure others who have done this can help more than I can.

 

[hunterallen40]

My frag tank also functions as a coral QT system. It is completely fishless, so I dose a LOT of stuff.

On doser #1 I have two kalkwasser pumps, one ammonium chloride pump, and one sodium phosphate dibasic pump.

Doser number 2 is supplemental NaOH and CaCl2.

I add amino acids to both the ammonium chloride and the sodium phosphate reservoirs (not ideal, but saves a doser). I add a half tsp of AF powdered amino acids to the 1 gallon mix when I make it.

I also dose 1 mL / 10 gallons of brightwell restore manually. I also dose manganese, iron, iodide, selenium, cobalt, and other trace elements by hand daily.

It's not conventional, but the corals certainly grow very fast there. Though that could just be the halides .

The polyp extension is pretty different, maybe due to the massive amounts of amino acids. Bit of an algae issue in this system, but it's not really meant for display so I don't clean it very often.

 

[mike550]

@royaleFork Im using a 20G set up pretty much as you described - HOB filter, heater, light, powerhead. I added a few pieces of rock to keep the tank cycled although I’m still not sure it has to be cycled. Eggcrate on the bottom and a few shelves. This can also double an isolation tank for fish. When I do a water change from my DT I take about 4-5G of water and use it for a water change in my 20G.