QT system question

[polywise]

My last system did not have a QT set up, and I feel I was lucky that as far as I knew, that I did not introduce any pests that effected my system (other than some crab that grew to 3") I could not catch it and it was tearing some of my coral appart. On my new system I want to incorporate one.

This new QT System will not be connected to the main system.
Tank is a Marineland 24"x24"x18" with dedicated light/sump/heater/chiller

Many questions, but primary question is, After QT of new coral / fish / rock, what to do with the QT system. I am thinking of turning it off, and draining it. Refilling it with water from main system when next used

My thought are, for my QT sump, I have a small bag of live rock that is currently in my main system, and I want to transfer it to my QT sump for use. When turning off QT system, would it be safe to transfer the bag of rocks back into main sump? ( or ) should I let it dry out to kill anything that might have transfered to it? If this is the case, then when I reintroduce the bag of rocks into my main system, how long would it take to re populate the rock so it could be ready for future QT use?

 

[drawman]

I am going to be setting up a similar quarantine system. I will be doing a 24x24x10" setup. This QT will be for coral only. I may end up adding a fish to help get the tank clean but I do not want to have anything that might eat AEFW. I would rather see them and know that I have them. I plan on doing a 6 month quarantine with all of my SPS. Since it will be so long I probably won't end up draining it. If my live rock gets too bad I might take it out and acid bath or bleach it (at this point I would just end up draining the whole thing to give it a good clean.

If you are going to quarantine fish, I wouldn't use any live rock at that point (only for coral). You won't want to be dosing anything with live rock in the tank. You can just get a powerfilter and use the pads for bacterial colonization. Once the fish goes out of quarantine, break the tank down and clean it and also bleach the filter and pads.

If you are going to quarantine coral, the live rock should still be fine once the quarantine is complete. Any pests (hopefully they are all gone at this point but for the sake of the argument...) that you would introduce into your main tank via live rock you would be introducing anyways via your quarantined frags. If you happen to introduce any unwanted algae to your quarantine system, then I would give the rock an acid bath and cut your coral from the base so that you don't introduce it to your main tank. Every SPS that I buy will be fresh cut or cut from the base and remounted before it is introduced to my quarantine setup.

Also, if for whatever reason your rock tends to get a little nasty because of lack of flow, herbivores, etc. you may just want to go ahead and give it a cleaning/acid bath/bleaching once the quarantine is done. You will just have to give it a go and see what happens.

 

[polywise]

thanks for your input.
How long would it take for the rock to re populate, so it can be re used for biological filtration in QT system in the future? any idea?