Does an uncycled QT need daily water changes?

[ReefKing101]

I suspected 1 of my clowns has ICK so I bought a 28l QT for the pair. I’m really starting to wonder if all this is nessesary. Do I need to do daily water changes on the uncycled qt ? I dont want to imagine the cost on the salt needed and how much time this will require for the full treatment ? One had spots but they were both acting perfectly fine

 

[Mastiffsrule]

Hi,

You are going to need a way to control ammonia. Eventually it will build up. You can get by a day or so depending on fish size, tank size, feeding, etc. you can seed the tank with a sponge, use prime.

In a hospital or qt tank a seachem ammonia alert badge is a good idea

i have not gone thru this article, but humblefish wrote it

How to Quarantine

How to Setup a Quarantine Tank The following are the bare essentials: Aquarium (10-30 gallons seems to work for most people. Bigger QT lets you house more fish and gives you more wiggle room when it comes to ammonia. Smaller QT is cheaper, easier to maintain and can be setup/broke down...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[FishTruck]

Use an ammonia alert for your QT.

I just booted a 40 gallon breeder QT up a month ago, using a power filter and some live rock rubble to seed it. I used an ammonia alert as a guide.

I ended up doing 10 -20 gallon water changes every three days at first to keep the ammonia levels at or below 0.05 ppm, with three yellow tangs in there, dumping food in pretty aggressively and hanging nori. At about week 3, the water change routine was getting really old... so I dumped in some "Dr. Tims one and only" and tossed in a bigger piece of LR, and at week four.... the ammonia became totally undetectable and I was able to back way off the WCs.

The three tangs survived the ordeal just fine - and went into the display tank at week 4.

I did wait until they were eating and I was sure I could control the ammonia before adding copper.

 

[Birddog61]

You need to protect the fish from exposure to ammonia that is why the water changes , two small to medium clowns that get along could be hospitalized in a 5 or 10gallon tank. You may het away with water change every 2 or 3 days with the 28. You will need to test daily to establish a routine for water changes. Be sure to test your
Makeup water to establish a baseline for clean water with your test kit

 

[AZMSGT]

You can seed the QT with rubble from your main tank and it will be basically cycled with that.

Is it worth it? up to you to decide. But your main tank now has the parasite in it so anything you add to it will also get infected. There are ways to beat it but it takes time and money.

in an emergency, I used Bio Spira to fast cycle a tank. Not ideal but works.

BIO-Spira® for Safely Treating Aquarium Water from Instant Ocean®

Shop Instant Ocean for salt water set up supplies to reduce aquarium nitrite and ammonia, like our Bio-Spira® aquarium bacteria!

www.instantocean.com

 

[ReefKing101]

Thanks for the help guys. I’m just not very keen on doing water changes constantly I find the whole ordeal quite stressful. It was a hard decision for me to make concidering the clowns were acting fine but I didn’t want the ICK to get any worst and possibly kill them.
I added some old filter floss I rinsed out from the DT to the job filter in QT that would have good bacteria yes? And also I might add some live rock to the QT is this a good idea?

 

[FishTruck]

Yep... good ideas. Just get a ammo badge to make sure your seeds do the work. I was surprised (in a bad way) how many water changes I had to do despite all the live rock rubble etc... that I donated to my QT. I just pulled and replaced the water from and to my DT - so that both tanks would benefit from my hard labor.

 

[DungSl1nger]

I have two 10 gallon tanks for TTM but I also keep some bio-spira and Seachem matrix on hand for emergencies. Additionally I have some Seachem Matrix in a sump to drop in the HOB filter. There are a number of ways to prepare, I just always plan for the worst having to set 2 QT tanks up at once.

 

[AZMSGT]

Op, Don’t use your main tank water in your QT once you start treating. You will recontaminate your fish everytime. The key to beating ICK is to keep everything seperate from beginning to end for 76 days.

 

[ReefKing101]

Op, Don’t use your main tank water in your QT once you start treating. You will recontaminate your fish everytime. The key to beating ICK is to keep everything seperate from beginning to end for 76 days.

yes I understand the importance of cross contamination. I’m using an ammonia alert also. My main worry is the ammonia will end up killing them if I miss it one day

 

[piranhaman00]

Use bio spira to cycle quick, I personally wouldn’t be comfortable relying on water changes to keep ammonia down, especially with sick fish.

 

[ReefKing101]

I

Use bio spira to cycle quick, I personally wouldn’t be comfortable relying on water changes to keep ammonia down, especially with sick fish.

ended up getting a bottle of Seachem stability heard good things, hopefully it works