A little nervous...second time QT'ing

[StephLionfish]

The first time I QT'ed a fish was a D. Zebra. It made it about two weeks into hypo and then one day he took a bad turn and died the next day. I'm about to do QT on a P. Volitans, and I'm a little nervous...
I have a couple of "Just to make SURE" ques. and sorry if they are already mentioned in all the stickies ( I read them all ).
This is all assuming it will have ich-- since hypo is what I failed at the first time.
I have a 20gH I'm going to do it in. Is that harder to do QT in, as far as params going bad quicker? Should I get a bigger tank?
I'm going to buy a sponge for the inside of a HOB filter, stick it in my tank to seed it, then when I'm about to set up the QT, stick it in the HOB and fill the tank up with water from my DT.
I'm going to put a powerhead in the tank.
Daily 50% water changes.
Drop the salinity slowly to 1.008 over a course of a week? Or is that too fast?
Daily 50% water changes.
Do this for 7 wks, then, if showing no signs of ich, slowly raise the salinity to 1.025 again.
Put fish in DT.

Yes? No? And are the huge water changes every day for the whole 7 wks? How old does the SW have to be? And what kind of alerts do you guys use? ( or do you test the water every day?) Just the ammonia ones? And what brand ( or is there more than one?). How often should I feed the lion? I saw one of the stickies said 1x per week...but that seems a little long to go w/o feeding the fish...

Again, sorry if all of this is already mentioned in the stickies, I just don't want to kill another fish through hypo.

 

[geaux xman]

if your filter is established and can provide biofiltration, you will not have to do a WC everyday. hypo will not kill the ammonia/nitrite processing bacteria, it might retard their processing capabilities for a day thats it.

Despite what some people say about not having LR in your QT, you can have a 5lb piece of LR in there and it'll provide the biofiltration and also help buffer the pH. I did that with a power brown tang(6 weeks) and only did water changes about 25% every 2 weeks. Just make sure to top off and keep the salinity steady at 1.008-.009.

Unless the lion is huge, I think the 20gH should do. I like using 29g QT tanks.

 

[StephLionfish]

I thought the low Salt would kill the lr?? So it won't? And won't, when I put the lr in the tank, the tank cycle?

Thanks for the reply.

 

[sandwi54]

the low salinity will kill what live in the live rocks, worms, pods, etc. it will not kill the nitrifying bacteria however. i agree with having a small amount of live rocks during hypo as they help buffer the pH and prevent pH swing, which is the biggest issue with hypo.