Naked QT tank questions

[Michael Hoaster]

"I'm sure it is better to always run the QT tanks and not uninstall them."

Not if you want to be absolutely sure your QT is free of pathogens. If you don't start out with a 'clean slate' you'll never be sure that your QT is not the source of the problem.

For example: Uronema. This parasite needs no fish host to survive. So if you've had it, you still do. Unless you sterilize. Uronema is more and more prevalent in the hobby, and it kills very fast.

Honestly, I felt the same way you do, until I watched fish after fish succumb and die. Having a stable QT with well established bacterial filtration sounds ideal, but that is not the priority for QT. You can add sand, rocks, PVC and macro algae to help lower stress and ammonia, but once treatment is over, toss all but the PVC, which you can sterilize. Bleach sterilize everything wet.

 

[Fiish]

Excellent answer, so it suggests that I dispose of all the biological material that I added to the qt and put in new when another fish enters a new treatment, does not it?
What do you think about using paraguard instead of cupramine?

 

[Michael Hoaster]

"Excellent answer, so it suggests that I dispose of all the biological material that I added to the qt and put in new when another fish enters a new treatment, does not it?"

Yes it does.

"What do you think about using paraguard instead of cupramine?"

I'm not familiar with those products, but I think they are copper, right? In my opinion, copper is too dangerous and I use hypo salinity. Tank transfer method is maybe better. I haven't tried it.

 

[Imaexpat2]

I kill off my QT tank everytime I am finished using it for a coral or fish for all of the reasons Michael Hoaster mentioned previously.

By kill off I drain the tank and allow everything to dry out after a good thorough rinsing and cleaning before using again. When I need to set it up again, I do a water change on my established tanks and power up things again for the next victim to do their time in the "SHU". At this point my main over riding goal is to not introduce pest to my main display tanks. Everything else is secondary and there are ways to deal with any other issues.

 

[Fiish]

"Excellent answer, so it suggests that I dispose of all the biological material that I added to the qt and put in new when another fish enters a new treatment, does not it?"

Yes it does.

"What do you think about using paraguard instead of cupramine?"

I'm not familiar with those products, but I think they are copper, right? In my opinion, copper is too dangerous and I use hypo salinity. Tank transfer method is maybe better. I haven't tried it.

Well, doing a quick search I find that Paraguard is aldehyde based, and supposedly not as aggressive as copper (Cupramine) so I'm opting to use Paraguard. What do you use to treat internal parasites with your fish in qt?

 

[Fiish]

I kill off my QT tank everytime I am finished using it for a coral or fish for all of the reasons Michael Hoaster mentioned previously.

By kill off I drain the tank and allow everything to dry out after a good thorough rinsing and cleaning before using again. When I need to set it up again, I do a water change on my established tanks and power up things again for the next victim to do their time in the "SHU". At this point my main over riding goal is to not introduce pest to my main display tanks. Everything else is secondary and there are ways to deal with any other issues.

Nice info. Thank you for your input.