Anyone Have Successful Coral QT??

[starrd27]

With the AEFW scare, I have been working on setting up a good coral QT system. So, far I've had minimal success. I have tried various size tanks for a coral QT - and they all have their drawbacks. Larger tanks (10g) are a problem because of space and every time you put a new coral in, the QT "clock" has to start over again. I'm thinking I may never get my corals out of this 10g tank!

I have smaller tanks (2.5g) that work great because you can start up a bunch and continue to cycle corals in and out of them. The problem with these tanks [obviously] is keeping the parameters stable. The most difficult thing I've found is the temperature. Even if I use very small heaters, the water gets too warm. I'm now trying not to use any heaters at all and rely on the heat generated from my T5 lighting and the small powerheads in the tanks to keep the temp stable. So far, the temps in these tanks is stabilizing around 78.

Does anyone have a successful coral QT setup that they would like to share? I'm not talking about the QT that people have set up for the treatment of large numbers of corals. I'm talking about setting up a QT system that will work for a small number of incoming corals that you buy at different times.

TIA!

 

[sfsuphysics]

10g is large? yikes.. not even close.

As to the "QT clock"?? 2 weeks or so is all you need, have some self control and wait on getting new corals

 

[starrd27]

From what I've read 2 weeks is not NEARLY enough. I've read some posts where people think 6-8 weeks minimum. It's not about self control (thanks for the flip and not very useful answer), it's about keeping them in good conditions for long enough until I'm sure they are safe to put in the display.

 

[Stoney Mahony]

10g and smaller are going to be more than "difficult" to keep at adequite conditions for an SPS QT. Your swings throughout the day will be one more added stress on the corals.

 

[Wiskey]

I did for a short time. I was testing it with a monit cap and the cap accually recovered from being in the sand and started to grow.

One thing that really helped is I isntalled a float valve in my 10G tank and ran it gravity feed from a holding tank, perfect, cheap autotopoff.

The problem is that something fell off a shelf and cracked my tank.

HTH,
Whiskey

 

[SaraB]

Wiskey - that's a great idea for freshwater top-off for the 10 gallon. I had to fill mine 2x a day and when I travelled, I had to have the neighbors do it for me. You solved my biggest problem!

 

[starrd27]

I know a small tank is more difficult to keep stable, but I hate the thought of setting up and maintaining a large tank for 1-2 frags at a time. But I will if I have to. The auto top off is a good idea Wiskey - thanks.

Does anyone else have any QT success stories they can share?