QT best practices

[ErikVR]

Hi all,

I've just started in the salt water hobby and going the QT route for the first time. I'm wondering how I should go about running it.

My QT tank is a 120L fresh water tank with a canister filter on it.It has been running for a month now and I'm done adding new fish for at least a month or 3.

Do I leave it running and ghost feed it?

Do I shut it down? Remove the water and transfer the biological media to the main tanks sump?

Or do I start over in a few months when it's time for new fish? Boil the bio media to prevent contaminating the main tank, then place it the sump of the main tank a few weeks before restarting the QT tank?

 

[fishski13]

I would keep it up and running just to have a tank set up just incase something ever happens to your fish.

You dont want to transfer any of the water or media into the main display since if you QT you used medicine, maybe Copper that leached into the media and you dont want to transfer that into your display.

 

[Sharkbait19]

It’s always good to have an extra tank running - you never know when something may go south in the DT.
I definitely wouldn’t transfer anything over to the reef, but if you do break it down I would save it with the qt for when you do need it.

 

[ErikVR]

Thanks for the advice. I definitely won't transfer anything between the QT and DT then.

Wouldn't it be a problem to leave it running without bio load for months on end? Do you feed the empty tank to have some nutrients in there?

 

[Sharkbait19]

I don’t think there would be a huge problem - ghost feeding should be enough to keep the bacteria fed for the time being.

You can tear it down and restart, I just think it’s more work than it’s worth.

 

[ErikVR]

I don’t think there would be a huge problem - ghost feeding should be enough to keep the bacteria fed for the time being.

You can tear it down and restart, I just think it’s more work than it’s worth.

You're right. I mentioned the tear down because I was only thinking of new additions and not about sick/beaten up fish from the DT.