Qt. system?

[bruce 1]

I am close to putting fish in my new 227 gallon tank. What do I need to do? What medicine do I need? Or do you just put the new fish in the qt. Tank and wait? How long do you leave them in there? I will be adding several new fish. And want to add them first. Do they all get treated the same?
Thank you Bruce

 

[jennm]

Article I wrote, http://www.imagine-ocean.com/best-practices-quarantine-procedures-obtaining-new-fish-specimens/">HERE.</a> Should answer most of your questions.

Jenn

 

[gmpolan]

Take your time and def qt each fish as i didnt and had some issues with disease thus wiping out all the fish in my 250

 

[rdnelson]

gmpolan;771586 wrote: Take your time and def qt each fish as i didnt and had some issues with disease thus wiping out all the fish in my 250

Been there, done that, paying for the T-Shirt right now.

 

[jef4y]

This does bring up a good question on QT'ing multiple fish at once in the same QT tank. Jenn, I don't know that your article covered that. Any thoughts/opinions?

Obviously there is the risk of killing whatever new fish you QT at the same time, but it would be better than wiping out an established tank I'd think.

 

[jennm]

Well, IMO one should either QT one at a time and not add another to QT til the previous one is moved out, or if one adds a new fish to a QT that has something in it, that restarts the clock.

Example: Fish 1 has been in QT for 10 days, and you add Fish 2. If you remove Fish 1 4 days later, as it had no issues, but Fish 2 is brewing something you can't see yet and develops a problem in 5 days... then Fish 1 may have gone into the display, infested/infected.

So either QT individually, or in "batches" (multiple fish at once if the QT can handle the load), watch for problems, treat as necessary etc., and when they're all ready, they're ready.

Sometimes even when one does everything right, problems still happen. I'm living proof of that :-/

 

[bruce 1]

What about wrasses? Do you put sand in there so they have a place to hide.

 

[jennm]

We put a little plastic dish of sand for the wrasses and leave the tank bare-bottomed. One dish per wrasse, of appropriate size, and depth of sand. They find it at bedtime.

Jenn

 

[bruce 1]

So does any medication need to be put in thee water prior to adding fish?

 

[jennm]

Not necessarily. In my opinion it's better to do without medication UNTIL there's a problem, and then treat that particular problem.

For example - if you run copper as some folks do, but you encounter Brooklynella, the copper won't help, and you can't run another medicine with it.

Or if you run Formalin, that will treat a variety of ailments but if you encounter trematodes, that won't work, and you can't run PraziPro with the Formalin.

And if Murphy's Law always catches you, like it does me, you'll be stuck trying to reset your quarantine for the right medicine, or worse, risk an interaction.

You do want to make sure the tank is cycled first, and monitor water quality carefully, especially if using medicines that interfere with the beneficial bacteria in the tank - many medicines can do that, some don't - it just depends what you're using, but always always keep a close eye on the water quality.

If you're medicating, you usually can't use activated carbon as well, or it will remove the medicine.

Jenn

 

[rdnelson]

bruce 1;771608 wrote: What about wrasses? Do you put sand in there so they have a place to hide.

Been meaning to ask that question for a long time but just kept forgetting. Know that I read Jenn's answer it seems so straight forward but I never would have thunk it.

 

[jennm]

Surely you've seen little dishes of sand in our systems?

(And yes, I called you Shirley! :lol: )

Jenn

 

[rdnelson]

JennM;771653 wrote:
(And yes, I called you Shirley! :lol: )

Jenn

You have been hanging around me TOOOOOO LONG Jenn. LOL

 

[jennm]

Indeed!

 

[grouper therapy]

The potential problem I see with batch QT practices is the heavy bioload you put on your DT system when you remove them from QT to the DT especially if corals are already in place.

 

[jennm]

If you want to clean/sterilize/reset, we use bleach on non-porous stuff. We're in the process of resetting our fish system here, took out all porous stuff and ran some bleach through the whole system for 24 hours (poured bleach into the existing water). Drained, washed out, rinsed out, used Prime to get rid of any residual chlorine, and then we'll re-cycle the system with new media. Same procedure works on a small scale.

Jenn

 

[containerman1]

Great info