Spscraze37
New member
Never knew you could just buy filter floss instead of inserts.
Guide to setup a Quarantine Tank (QT).
- Thread starter Dr. Reef
- Start date
Cymonous
My Clown Attacks Me
New Quarantine
New Quarantine
I just setup my quarantine tank yesterday. I took some water from my DT and filled the rest with freshly mixed saltwater. I have a heater, filter with just filter floss, air pump with air stone strip and a couple 2 inch elbow PVC pieces. Is the air stone and pump required? The filter does make a little water movement. Or is that not enough? Does the air pump need to be ran 24hrs a day or just a couple hours that I can set with a timer? The air stone strip makes a lot of noise, bubbles and not helping with water loss. I was maybe thinking of getting a small stone instead and also a valve if I have to.
I don't have any livestock in there yet. Do I start ghost feeding right away or wait a couple days and just put in a few pellets of food?
New Quarantine
I just setup my quarantine tank yesterday. I took some water from my DT and filled the rest with freshly mixed saltwater. I have a heater, filter with just filter floss, air pump with air stone strip and a couple 2 inch elbow PVC pieces. Is the air stone and pump required? The filter does make a little water movement. Or is that not enough? Does the air pump need to be ran 24hrs a day or just a couple hours that I can set with a timer? The air stone strip makes a lot of noise, bubbles and not helping with water loss. I was maybe thinking of getting a small stone instead and also a valve if I have to.
I don't have any livestock in there yet. Do I start ghost feeding right away or wait a couple days and just put in a few pellets of food?
if the filter produces enough movement at surface then air pump is not really required. But if there is not much air water mixture/exchange then yes it would be wise to have air pump come on few times a day to bring oxygen in ur water.
If ur going to cycle the tank like a normal tank then yes you can start ghost feeding or put a frozen deli shrimp in the tank for kick start the cycle.
once cycled it will be just like a normal tank ready for fish. faster u start the cycle faster the tank will be ready. so i would start today unless ur not in a big hurry to get fish in.
lets clear up few things. using DT's water will not give u a new tank with bacteria that can sustain bioload.
if u dont wanna cycle the tank then dont ghost feed just test for ammonia everyday and do water changes either with freshly made saltwater or DT's water.
But this a very much misconception in this hobby that using using water from established tank will not cause a cycle in another tank. most of the bacteria live in rock rock and sand and in filters. ur new tank will not have enough bacteria in water and certainly the new filters will not have any either. so ur tank will go though a cycle. there are 2 ways to make sure fish can survive this,
1. either cycle it like normal and wait it out or
2. just keep eyes on ammonia and be prepared to do several water changes when ammonia start to climb or use products like ammonolock amquel prime etc.
no problem buddy. your already moving in the right direction by setting up a QT. lot of people lose tons of money and fish by introducing an infected fish that takes out the whole tank. observe closely and treat accordingly. dont rush the QT process.
good luck and happy reefing.
Great post bnumair! Thanks to everyone for the questions I had, and getting them answered 
I'll take any excuse I can to eat a shrimp cocktail, so starting my QT cycle tonight!
I just washed out my 36 gallon QT with vinegar/RODI water. After that bath, I should rinse it out with 100% RODI water right? Then I can fill the tank with RODI and add my salt/filter/circulation pump/heater/etc..?
I'll take any excuse I can to eat a shrimp cocktail, so starting my QT cycle tonight!I just washed out my 36 gallon QT with vinegar/RODI water. After that bath, I should rinse it out with 100% RODI water right? Then I can fill the tank with RODI and add my salt/filter/circulation pump/heater/etc..?
Great post bnumair! Thanks to everyone for the questions I had, and getting them answered
I just washed out my 36 gallon QT with vinegar/RODI water. After that bath, I should rinse it out with 100% RODI water right? Then I can fill the tank with RODI and add my salt/filter/circulation pump/heater/etc..?
lol i will take any excuse for a shrimp cocktail as well. yes u guessed it right. after vinegar bath clean it with rodi water and soak up the rest with paper towels and dry it out then fill it with rodi water and add salt or get premix saltwater either or will work. have all ur equipment in before adding water.
good luck and happy reefing and enjoy the shrimp cocktail.
anytime buddy, please feel free to ask any questions or concerns u may have.
Happy Reefing
fightinghippo
New member
wow this is a lot of good information for newbies like me.
I would recommend using a Lee's wooden air stone with a quiet air pump 24 hours a day on the tank. I use a Whisper air pump with a Lee's wooden air stone on my quarantine tank and it is pretty quiet. These wooden air stones are far quieter than any other type that I have used and release tons of tiny air bubbles into the quarantine tank.
I use the wooden air stone in the tank which is creating a current in the tank by itself along with a Tetra Whisper 10-30 gallon internal power filter($22.00 at Wal Mart). This power filter has decent water flow on my 10 gallon quarantine tank and I would not go to a smaller size filter with this brand. One benefit of this brand is if you shut the power off to the filter it will restart by itself once the power comes back on.
I use a AquaClear power filter on my second quarantine tank and this design will not start back up by itself if the power goes out. If the power goes out the AquaClear will loose siphon and I have read the pump will burn up eventually also once this happens(if it is not caught in time). I have unplugged the AquaClear power filter I have and it never has restarted by itself once the power is turned back on. I have to get the siphon going again by dumping water into the top of the filter on this brand. I would suggest to avoid this brand on a quarantine tank. I am not going to use this brand on any of my tanks in the future due to this one problem.
I prefer using the Eheim Jager heater on my quarantine tank. It is much better than the cheap heaters.
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OK so i have been reading this thread and pretty new to Reef tanks. I have a 7 month old fish only tank and I recently added my last fish Purple tang 3 weeks ago. Well all hell has broken loose.
The tang showed ich in about 3 days, then the poop hit the fan everyone got it and all my fish except the Tang and the Potters angel have died. I tried everything my LFS told me but I am tired of BAD results.
SO I have purchased a 20 gal tank
Heater
bio wheel filter
and two 3" PVC elbows.
I am a little confused being so new to the hobby. I was planning on taking 20 gals from my DT and putting it in the QT
start the bio wheel filter and put PVC in tank.
Replace the removed water from DT with new mixed water and let DT run.
Now I am a little confused with the "sponge"??? what is this??? how long do I put it in sump before I use it???
I want to do this correct so I dont do the job killing the fish.
What copper additive?
What do I do about the elevated Ammonia levels that will start? Do I add chemical?
Thanks for the help!!!!
The tang showed ich in about 3 days, then the poop hit the fan everyone got it and all my fish except the Tang and the Potters angel have died. I tried everything my LFS told me but I am tired of BAD results.
SO I have purchased a 20 gal tank
Heater
bio wheel filter
and two 3" PVC elbows.
I am a little confused being so new to the hobby. I was planning on taking 20 gals from my DT and putting it in the QT
start the bio wheel filter and put PVC in tank.
Replace the removed water from DT with new mixed water and let DT run.
Now I am a little confused with the "sponge"??? what is this??? how long do I put it in sump before I use it???
I want to do this correct so I dont do the job killing the fish.
What copper additive?
What do I do about the elevated Ammonia levels that will start? Do I add chemical?
Thanks for the help!!!!
pfoxgrover
New member
I got 10 ignitus anthias and put them in my 75g QT. 1 male and 9 females. Lost one the second day. 7 females are eating brine and mysis . One male and one female are sitting on the bottom and have not eaten. It has been 3 days. I added some prazipro this morning.
Do you think I should do something more for the two sitting on the bottom? They look pretty normal and are breathing normal.
Also , water parameters look good. No ammonia temp 81. Salt 35 ppt
Do you think I should do something more for the two sitting on the bottom? They look pretty normal and are breathing normal.
Also , water parameters look good. No ammonia temp 81. Salt 35 ppt
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goalk33p3r
New member
Great info helped me fix the mistakes that I had going on nothing big but has made my qt more functional
WARNING: Angels dont do well with copper... dont try copper treatment on it. your best bet at this point will be hypo salinity. if you goto fish disease section there is a great article on hypo salinity by sk8r. i would do that than cooper.
first off i am sorry to hear the loss, that is one reason here on RC we promote QT practice. anyways now that you have setup a QT tank, its best you use newly made saltwater from this point on. reason to do so is because the water from DT is contaminated and using that water will not help ur QT process.
sponge ur talking about is usually a filter sponge or floss or extra filter cartridges that are purchased and placed in ur DT sump long time before such events of emergency. Such floss/filters/sponges start harboring good bacteria
in them and thus when needed can be put to use in a new QT setup giving it a boost of biological filter.
In ur case now just use new water and i suggest cupramine as your cooper med.
here is an article i wrote on how to administer this drug.
i hope ur remaining fish survive and get cleaned up with this treatment and remember to leave ur DT fishless for 9 weeks. this will only apply on tang and some other fish but not on angels.
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?p=20614751#post20614751
Note: i missed the second part of ur question.. you can buy a sponge or floss etc and keep it in ur dt sump for 2-3 weeks but i would strongly suggest not to worry about that at this point as ur remaining fish may not survive 2-3 weeks without treatment.
Make lots of saltwater and keep it on hand. Get a good ammonia kit and also ammonia wheel that stick to inside of the tank in water usually found in petco and petsmart.
place ur fish in qt and then start the treatments.
For cooper (Tang only) follow the link above.
For hypo (angel fish) follow hypo forum.
but in both cases ammonia will creep up and ur test kit (test daily) and ammonia wheel with show ammonia results. anything above 0.25 do 50% water change.
For cooper treatment: re-dose the tank with copper. also keep copper test kit and keep it steady at 0.5 for 2-3 weeks.
For Hypo: do water changes with same salinity water (1.009) to keep ammonia at bay.
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i have a school of 14 ignitus anthias in my main... they are beautiful and very lively active swimmers. anyways i also faced the same problem with a few of them.
most LFS cannot tell gender apart on these fish and who ever sold you those fish with male and female distinction must be really good at it lol. anyways i have a feeling the one's that died were probably males and in such case only 1 dominant male will survive and rest all males will die over time. females will be fine.
Also i have noticed through my personal experience that anthias do much better if acclimated slowly with drip method and keeping lights off for 1-2 days till they adjust to new tank.
Leave the lights off for a day or so and leave them to be. they are in shock. make it dark and comfortable for them and hope they pull through.
If the male dies dont worry a dominant female will convert to a male.
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