Quarantine Tanks

howme127 · Aug 27, 2020

What's the consensus out there about QTs? Should I have 1 for fish and 1 for invertebrates? or just QT inverts first and clean out and then QT fish?

Reefer1978 · Aug 27, 2020

Fish and coral require different regiment. I.e.. fish get treated with copper, coral die from it. If you plan to QT both, separate systems is the way to go.

howme127 · Aug 27, 2020

Reefer1978 said:
Fish and coral require different regiment. I.e.. fish get treated with copper, coral die from it. If you plan to QT both, separate systems is the way to go.

Could you use the Coral QT for the Inverts as well?

Reefer1978 · Aug 27, 2020

howme127 said:
Could you use the Coral QT for the Inverts as well?

When you said inverts I assumed that was coral. Yes, should be good to go.

JCTReefer · Aug 27, 2020

Well personally for me I like having two Qt for fish. By having two of everything. That includes heaters, power filter, powerheads, etc, I can transfer the fish to sterile Qt after two weeks of therapeutic levels of copper. The second tank is identical to the first. It’s just a sterile Cycled tank to transfer the fish to after the copper treatment. By having a second tank I can avoid keeping them in there the full 30 days of copper. I find some fish start to get bacterial infections from the copper if left in there for the full 30 days. This is just an opinion though. It really depends on what your aiming to do with the Qt process. And of course if you need to treat your fish with meds, you can’t really do that with inverts in there. So I’d say 3 Qt tanks. Lol!!!! One for corals and inverts. And two for fish. I have two 20 longs for this purpose. If it’s a new build, I usually quarantine all fish first. And then the clean up crew when needed. And the coral, when the tank matures enough. By the time I’ve quarantined all fish it’s usually several months down the road. Quarantining several batches takes time. I always like to add fish slowly over a period of months. That’s just my take on it though. You can certainly use only one tank. It just takes a little longer to push everything through.

howme127 · Aug 27, 2020

JCTReefer said:
Well personally for me I like having two Qt for fish. By having two of everything. That includes heaters, power filter, powerheads, etc, I can transfer the fish to sterile Qt after two weeks of therapeutic levels of copper. The second tank is identical to the first. It’s just a sterile Cycled tank to transfer the fish to after the copper treatment. By having a second tank I can avoid keeping them in there the full 30 days of copper. I find some fish start to get bacterial infections from the copper if left in there for the full 30 days. This is just an opinion though. It really depends on what your aiming to do with the Qt process. And of course if you need to treat your fish with meds, you can’t really do that with inverts in there. So I’d say 3 Qt tanks. Lol!!!! One for corals and inverts. And two for fish. I have two 20 longs for this purpose. If it’s a new build, I usually quarantine all fish first. And then the clean up crew when needed. And the coral, when the tank matures enough. By the time I’ve quarantined all fish it’s usually several months down the road. Quarantining several batches takes time. I always like to add fish slowly over a period of months. That’s just my take on it though. You can certainly use only one tank. It just takes a little longer to push everything through.

yeah, I would want 2 tanks I think, but that kinda pushes the cost... umm who said this was a cheap hobby?? Do you think the invert tank could be smaller? Like I could get away with a smaller QT for the coral and other inverts?

JCTReefer · Aug 27, 2020

howme127 said:
yeah, I would want 2 tanks I think, but that kinda pushes the cost... umm who said this was a cheap hobby?? Do you think the invert tank could be smaller? Like I could get away with a smaller QT for the coral and other inverts?

Of course the qt for inverts could be smaller! A 10 gallon would be great. I just purchased the two 20 Longs for fish more than anything. I think I paid 34.99 for the 20 gallon at petsmart. If you have a petco, I’ve heard they have really cheap sales. Like the dollar a gallon sales. Or at-least they used to. Unfortunately we don’t have a petco here.

howme127 · Aug 27, 2020

JCTReefer said:
Of course the qt for inverts could be smaller! A 10 gallon would be great. I just purchased the two 20 Longs for fish more than anything. I think I paid 34.99 for the 20 gallon at petsmart. If you have a petco, I’ve heard they have really cheap sales. Like the dollar a gallon sales. Or at-least they used to. Unfortunately we don’t have a petco here.

Yeah I think there are 19 of them here, like no joke.

JCTReefer · Aug 27, 2020

If you’re looking for a inexpensive light to quarantine your corals, this is a good choice.
It’s about the best bang for the buck I could find.
It would work well over a 10 gallon tank.

ZA1201 AQUA System Pico LED Light

The perfect light for pico reef tanks! Recommended Spread - 12" x 10" For smaller soft coral and low light LPS tanks, we really like this cost efficient light. It comes with its mounting bracket and acrylic shield and takes less than a couple minutes to get the light out of the box, mounted and...

www.bulkreefsupply.com

JCTReefer · Aug 27, 2020

If you’d like to read up on Qt inverts, here’s a good read by Humblefish. There’s one very similar to it here on Reef2reef. There’s lots of good info in it.

Coral/Invert Quarantine Time Frames

Coral/Invert Quarantine Time Frames Preface: The purpose of this article is to outline time periods required to properly quarantine (QT) marine corals & invertebrates. While unable to host ectoparasites the way fish do, corals/inverts are still able to “carry” fish diseases in one of two ways...

www.reef2reef.com

Daniel@R2R · Aug 28, 2020

Agreed on 2 separate tanks for QTing fish and inverts.

howme127 · Aug 28, 2020

Would 2 10s work? I worry about an ammonia spike in the 10 for the fish though. Not like I would introduce several at once though.

Suohhen · Aug 28, 2020

I prefer 20g but it totally depends on the number and size of fish. Regardless water changes are what make a qt work so as long as you can keep on top of that 10g is fine for most fish.
Also regarding the initial premise I personally use my qt for fish and inverts because I don't do preventative medication. I believe the biggest benefit of qt is having time and space to familiarize the fish with you and the knowledge that you are the source of it's food so that it can compete with your established fish when they go into a feeding frenzy. So if that means putting them in the sump or refugium, I still call that quartantine.

Hugh Mann · Aug 28, 2020

General consensus I believe is a separate QT for inverts and fish. However not entirely necessary. I use the same tank (cleaned and sterilized) between inverts and fish. No issues as of yet.

Most will say copper in a tank will make it forever useless for inverts. Which is not true. 100% water change, new filter media, and run Cuprisorb for a week or two prior to switching to inverts if you dose copper, and you're good to go.