Hey everyone, sorry for the delayed update. I was able to get everything up and running yesterday in the evening. So, I decided to go with one 55 gallon QT because two QT would be too difficult for me to manage and would spread my resources far too thin when I could just focus on one tank and pool all of my equipment and resources into one aquarium and manage it even better. Here is a list of equipment that I purchased yesterday for the QT.
Equipment/Supplies:
1 x 55 gallon glass aquarium
2 x 32 gallon Brute Barrels
1 x box of Instant Ocean saltmix(200 gal)
1 x Maxijet
4 x Fluval 500g Biomax
3 x 8 FL. OZ. Nite-Out II Nitrifying Bacteria
1 x 8.5 FL. OZ. Seachem Stability
2 x Bacto-Surge Sponge Filter Kit rated at 125 gallons each
2 x Million Air Pump 400
1 x Large course sponge filter block (more surface area for bacteria to grow on)
2 x Thermometers
2 x Ammonia Alert Badge (two just in case to compare)
1 x pH Alert Badge
1 x API Copper Test Kit (none of my local fish stores had the Hanna Copper tester, they should get it this weekend hopefully)
1 x Ammonia Test Kit
1 x Nitrite Test Kit
1 x Nitrate Test Kit
1 x 125 watt Eheim Jager Heater
20 x various sized PVC pipes and fittings ranging from 3/4" - 2" for the fish to hide in
2 x 5 gallon Homedepot buckets
1 x 10 inch fish net
1 x 12 inch fish net
25 feet of air hose tubing and other various tube connectors
a few different airstones just in case
2 x fully cured and live Marinepure Ceramic Biomedia 2 inch cubes
5 lb of fully cured liverock from Your Reef
(then added another 5 lb live rock from my DT)
Medications:
Copper Power
Acriflavine-MS (for the 75-90 minute bath)
Furan-2
MetroPlex
KanaPlex
Focus
Prazipro
List of fish in QT:
Female Spotbreast Angelfish (Genicanthus melanospilos)
Flame Angelfish
Yellow Tang
L Powder Blue Tang
XXL Male Dusky Wrasse (Halichoeres annularis)
Female Leopard Wrasse (Macropharyngodon meleagris)
Male Blue Star Leopard Wrasse (Macropharyngodon bipartitus)
Mandarine Fish
Neon Goby
5 x Carberryi Anthias (Nemanthias carberryi)
4 x Clownfish
2 x Firefish, Purple (Nemateleotris decora)
So, yesterday, after visiting 5 reef shops I was able to finally get all of my supplies since each store didn't have everything I was looking for or enough of what I needed.. I'm so blessed to have a wife that is passionate about reef keeping as I am, if it wasnt for her, I don't think I would be able to set everything up in time. So, my wife and I set up the 55 gallon emergency QT using 55 gallons of saltwater from my DT, added 10 lb of live rock, 4lb from Jhon at Your Reef and 6lb from my DT that didn't have any corals on it and 2 x fully cured and live Marinepure Ceramic Biomedia 2 inch cubes. I then proceeded to add all the PVC pipes, sponges and bubble sponge filters, heater, powerhead, etc, etc. The one thing that I did was soak a box of Fluval 500g Biomax in 8 FL. OZ. Nite-Out II Nitrifying Bacteria and another box of Fluval 500g Biomax in 8.5 FL. OZ. Seachem Stability for a few hours so that the media became live instantly and was able to penetrate deep into the media shielding it from the copper so it doesn't get zapped. I then got my filter sock from my DT, washed the freaking crap out of it in the DT tank (DT tank was filthy filthy after) because i didn't want all the crap/poop to go into the QT and add ammonia, just the bacteria embedded in the filter sock. I then cut the sides and corners to make one large sheet of live filter sock.
After everything was setup, we tore down our 120 gallon reef tank to catch all of those lil suckers which was a huge PITA!! Once everyone was caught, we divided half the fish in one bucket and the other half into the other bucket with air stones in each bucket to make sure all of the fish were getting enough oxygen. The fish were then given a 5 minute freshwater dip in RO/DI water where they were then placed in a saltwater Acriflavine-MS bath with air stones running for 90 minutes. All of the fish looked like they were doing very well in the Acriflavine-MS bath, did not notice any unusual behavior, there were all out and about swimming normally.. Once the 90 minute bath was up, they were then placed in the QT and I let them chill/de-stress for about an hour n half or so. Then over the course of an hour, I slowly raised the copper level to 1.00ppm (5.4 mL of copper power every 10 minutes for one hour). I dosed the last dose of copper at midnight yesterday to achieve the 1.00ppm.
The following day (Today 10/04/2018) I woke up to the first loss, a female Carberryi Anthia. She wasn't doing so well to begin with, a few days ago in the DT she got beatup by someone and was not in good condition when i started to FW dip her/giving the bath/copper treatment, so I think everything alltogether tipped her over the edge.. My wife having a few days off, She dosed the copper by 0.5mL every 30 minutes starting at 7am while I was at work. So over the course of 16 hours, 11pm pacific time will be the last dose that will raise the copper level of the QT to 1.50ppm. I feel like this is a very good method so am planning on continuing this method (unless you guys think otherwise?) so that the copper is raised VERY VERY slowly for the sensitive fish/so the bacteria dont die in large masses all at once due to large doses all at once.
So far everyone else is going well, do other deaths, fish are not freaking out, they actually look hungry and swim up to the tank for food and are picking on the live rock.. i havent fed them or plan on feeding them for a few days to try to reduce the ammonia from building up since there are so many fish and the QT isnt established.
