Build a Coral Quarantine Tank (QT) - what would you add?

[agiacosa]

Hi all,

I appreciate you looking and giving me some of your advice.

I will be setting up a 60g SPS tank within the next month. My last experience ended with a bad red bug and bubble algae infestation. I'm trying to avoid the introduction of pests as best I can. I will be dipping all coral and want to QT them for 30 days before placing them in the DT.

So, I want to build a good QT for the corals. Here's what I got so far:

1. 10 gallon rimless cube
2. LED from Build My LED with controller
3. Heater
4. UV Sterilizer (internal)

Here are my questions:

1. Would you add a hangon filter for biological filtration?
2. Would you add a small internal or hangon skimmer?
3. Would you add a small internal pump for flow?
4. Would you keep the QT going 24/7 or would you only set it up when you get new corals?

Thanks!

Art

 

[dkeller_nc]

I have a full-blown 20g that I maintain for QT'ing of corals. I use a Tunze in-tank 9004 skimmer (you might have to have the 9001 due to the 10g's water level), a Hagen aquaclear 70 for media (GFO & GAC), and a Tunze Nanostream 6040. Lighting is a Radion XR15w, mainly because my current DT is lighted with a Radion XR30w Pro, and I want to keep intensity/spectrum the same for the QT as the DT.

Filtration is by natural Indo-Pacific live rock.

Since I'm switching the DT to T5HO, the QT will also be switched to a 4-bulb ATI T5HO.

 

[agiacosa]

You going to keep live rock in there? I was thinking of only having the frag racks.

 

[Hentz]

I'm in the middle of setting mine up as well.. Only have the tank. I think I'm just going to run mine as a full on tank with a refugium and what not.

Though I do run ZEOvit on my main, so I may just do ZEOvit on the frag tank as well.. Still undecided on that

 

[agiacosa]

You bring up a good point. My DT will be Zeo run. Should I also maintain ULNS in the QT or does it not matter because corals will only be in there 30 days?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[DylansGolden]

Currently have a 20G Long filtered by a HOB Filter. Was running a Skimmer but stop using it. Only have a bag of chemi-pure elite and square of filter floss in my HOB. Using an MP10 for flow on reef crest. Lit by a Radion XR30 Gen3. No dosing minus running Kalk in my ATO. 1tsp per gallon seems to be the sweet spot. No rock or anything. Great growth on all SPS. Even my Oregon Tort is encrusting very well.

The new tank is a 66G SCA Kit by a ATI 8 bulb fixture, so I also will be mounting T5's above the QT instead of the Radion shortly

1) I use a HOB for filtration.
2) if your doing weekly/Bi-Weekly water changes and don't have any fish, I don't see the need of a Protein skimmer as being a necessity.
3) Yes a small wave maker would be ideal.
4)That depends how frequently you buy coral, you could just leave it up when your about to purchase coral, then do at least a 10G WC on your display the day before to use the Water change water from the display to fill your frag tank, get it running a day before buying coral and you would be good to go.
Or keep it going 24/7 if you buy a lot of coral.

 

[dkeller_nc]

I use "real deal" indo pacific live rock for all filtration for any tank, including sacrificial live rock for fish QT. The Fish QT LR is sacrificial in the sense that it may occasionally go through a hyposalinity cycle if necessary because of ich, after which I take it out and bleach it.

From the standpoint of ULNS for a coral QT, I think that depends. My coral comes from a LFS that runs coral systems somewhat "dirty" - 10-20 ppm NO3, 1 ppm or so PO4. Since Acros don't like quick changes in nutrients, I run my QT "dirty", and over 30 days or so I clean the water up gradually with water changes and small amounts of GFO in the Aquaclear. At that point, the corals are generally well-acclimated to conditions in my DT, which runs around 5ppm NO3 and <0.05 ppm PO4.

 

[illumnae]

I'm hoping for some comments on my planned QT setup too.

Planning on a 2 tier 24" x 24" x 12" rack made out of 80/20 aluminium profile. Both tanks will be bare tanks as I want to keep the systems separate and there's no space for a sump.

Top tier

Top tank is a coral/invert QT tank to serve 3 purposes: 1. fallow all inverts (including corals) for 72 days to prevent introducing ich into my tank; 2. weekly dips for 4-6 weeks to get rid of aefw and other pests; and 3. frag tank. This tank will not contain any fish at any point in time.

I plan to run the following equipment on this tank:

1. Maxspect Gyre xf130
2. HOB filter filled with Sera Siporax for bio-filtration
3. Bubble Magus QQ1/QQ2 skimmer (optional)
4. ATI Sunpower 8x 24W

Bottom Tier

This tank will be a fish QT tank for the next 6-12 months while I stock my display tank. Once the display tank is done with fish stocking, I intend to convert this into an identical tank to the top tier tank. At that point in time, this bottom tank will likely be the coral/invert QT tank and the top tank will be dedicated as a frag tank as my corals would likely have grown out and need to be fragged by then.

Main concerns I have is the medications that I will use on this fish QT tank in the meantime:

1. I chose the bottom tank to be the fish QT tank to reduce the chance of cross contamination arising from water from this tank dripping into the coral/invert QT. Since this tank is lower, drips will be to the floor and not into the higher tank.

2. Once I am done with fish QT, I intend to sterilize this tank by first running GAC and Cuprisorb for a couple of weeks to adsorb all traces of medications. I will then give it a thorough wash and soak with bleach and vinegar before converting it into a coral/invert QT as well.

Do you think that I have sufficiently mitigated any potential issues that may arise?


Any feedback on whether my plan will or will not work, or how to improve the plan would be greatly appreciated.

 

[dkeller_nc]

Keep in mind that Copper (in its various forms, including Cupramine) is not appropriate for all fish, or all diseases for that matter. One common genera that should not be treated with copper are dwarf angels, but there are others.

I suspect you'll be OK with a generous handful of cycled Siporax or other media for the fish QT, particularly if you're QT'ing one fish at a time.

But I'm not so sure about a coral frag/coral QT tank that should keep the coral healthy and growing for 72 days. It might be OK, but then again you may have to plan on adding a little bit of live rock, coral rubble, or the like to the tank to ensure that you have sufficient biological filtration.

By the way - there's no need to run Cuprisorb when you're finished with the fish QT. Simply wash all of the equipment and the inside of the tank with a reasonable amount of vinegar, follow it with a thorough washing with hand dishwashing soap, rinse thoroughly and dry. And throw away any porous media that was used in the tank with copper-based medications.

 

[illumnae]

Thank you dkeller! Just some responses to each of your points below.

1. Definitely noted. I have in my medicine shelf not just Cupramine but NLS Ick-Shield powder, Prazipro, Metronidazole tablets, Paraguard and a couple of different antibiotics. I mentioned copper in particular as it's particularly toxic and also rumoured to be hard to remove.

2. Do you think 24 x 24 x 12 would be too small a volume or too shallow a height? Maybe 24 x 24 x 18 would be better? My display tank is 20" height, so with 18" height on the QT it may be better in terms of light acclimating the corals while in QT?

3. The plan is for a HOB filter with Siporax to run on the QT tank. The HOB I have in mind can probably hold about 800ml of Siporax. Would that be sufficient bio-filtration for the 72 day QT? I prefer not to add live rock to keep maintenance easier. I also dose the Aquaforest range of products in my display tank and can do the same with the QT tank to ensure consistency in water parameters between both tanks.

4. Thanks for the tips on cleaning up the fish QT in future - very useful in light of the reputation of copper being so hard to remove and supposed to linger in tanks forever (e.g. I've heard that copper can be retained in tank silicon and leach back out to kill corals if the tank is reused at a later date).

Once again, thank you very much!

Keep in mind that Copper (in its various forms, including Cupramine) is not appropriate for all fish, or all diseases for that matter. One common genera that should not be treated with copper are dwarf angels, but there are others.

I suspect you'll be OK with a generous handful of cycled Siporax or other media for the fish QT, particularly if you're QT'ing one fish at a time.

But I'm not so sure about a coral frag/coral QT tank that should keep the coral healthy and growing for 72 days. It might be OK, but then again you may have to plan on adding a little bit of live rock, coral rubble, or the like to the tank to ensure that you have sufficient biological filtration.

By the way - there's no need to run Cuprisorb when you're finished with the fish QT. Simply wash all of the equipment and the inside of the tank with a reasonable amount of vinegar, follow it with a thorough washing with hand dishwashing soap, rinse thoroughly and dry. And throw away any porous media that was used in the tank with copper-based medications.

 

[dkeller_nc]

Do you think 24 x 24 x 12 would be too small a volume or too shallow a height? Maybe 24 x 24 x 18 would be better? My display tank is 20" height, so with 18" height on the QT it may be better in terms of light acclimating the corals while in QT?

For corals, I'm not sure that the water height makes all that much difference, since with T5HOs you can simply raise the height of the light to cut back on the PAR, or use less bulbs. You'd need a PAR meter to do this, though. However, most corals can deal with reasonable changes in intensity levels, particularly from a diffuse source like a T5HO fixture.

The plan is for a HOB filter with Siporax to run on the QT tank. The HOB I have in mind can probably hold about 800ml of Siporax. Would that be sufficient bio-filtration for the 72 day QT? I prefer not to add live rock to keep maintenance easier. I also dose the Aquaforest range of products in my display tank and can do the same with the QT tank to ensure consistency in water parameters between both tanks.

I honestly can't say. When talking fish, the answer's relatively straightforward - biofiltration's sufficient if there's no detectable ammonia. For corals, it's more complicated. No ammonia is the first pass (if there's any, you don't have enough biofiltration capacity). But the bacteria in live rock typically does more than just convert ammonia to nitrate, there's also a substantial conversion of nitrate to nitrogen gas if it's "real deal" live rock. The bacteria that convert nitrate to nitrogen gas depend on an anoxic environment, which exists in a sand bed and in the inner pores of larger pieces of live rock. Whether or not this would be true in the small pieces of Siporax would require experimentation to determine.

 

[illumnae]

Ok understood thanks!

Now to get that system built!