Cycling a QT tank

[seamonster124]

How does one cycle a QT tank without any LR for the nitrifying bacteria to live in? Or do you have LR in the QT? Or do you not cycle QT? If you use water from the tank, again where do the bacteria live without surfaces to live on.

 

[Ron Reefman]

I remove water from the QT and refill it with water from my reef tank and then use new water to refill the reef tank. The alternative is to just swap out old water from the QT and replace it with new.

Keeping LR in the QT is just providing a place for pathogens to survive.

 

[reefgeezer]

For QT'ing new fish, I keep a bag of ceramic bio-media in the sump. When I need to run the QT, I place that media inside an el-cheapo HOB power filter running on the QT tank. I place new bag of clean, sterilized media back in sump for the next time. Once the QT is done, I sterilize the used media for later use.

I also use old water from the DT to start the QT, and keep an ammonia alert in the tank.

 

[ca1ore]

Yep ...... Exactetacerly

 

[nuxx]

I keep a bunch of seeded MarinePure spheres at all time

Also when I start a new QT, I just dump the spheres in a HOB filter, put a filter pad on top and add a dose of BioSpira.

I then also dose Stability everyday.

Never had a problem with levels, even with two heavily fed Crosshatches in a 40 breeder.

 

[jd371]

I have 20g for a QT with a API HOB filter. I started with a filter cartridge placed in the sump for a few weeks to get seeded. I moved it to the QT and now I just sandwich 2 filters together so when the first one is ready to be thrown out there is another right behind it that has been in the QT long enough to be seeded with bacteria. I take a new filter and place it behind the seeded one and let that get seeded and repeat when it's time again. If the QT sat for awhile without fish I'll dose some Stability the first couple of days when I introduce a new fish into the QT.
If I'm dosing medication I cut the cartridges to remove the Carbon inside.

 

[seamonster124]

So you guys are making sure ammonia and Nitrites are zero in QT before putting the fish in?