Quarantine ..... Do you or don't you?

[peasofme]

lots of misinformation in this thread. look here for the facts:

http://www.reefland.com/forum/marine...ths-facts.html

[whatcaneyedo]

I often dont quarentine fish although I believe that I should. Quite often when I add a new one my other fish get ick for a little while but then get over it. However I rarely buy new fish anymore. On average just two a year lately. My biggest problem has been from not quarantining coral and other inverts. I've introduced a lot of problems and parasites that way... so lately I've been trying to QT everything for at least two weeks.

My QT tank is just a bare 20gal with two powerheads, heater, hang on filter and T5 light. Whenever I use it I do 10% daily water changes by using water from my main system to keep the water in the two the same.

[ponokareefer]

Originally Posted by peasofme

lots of misinformation in this thread. look here for the facts:

http://www.reefland.com/forum/marine...ths-facts.html

Couldn't agree more. Maybe you won't ever have a problem, but if you do, you could wipe out your entire fish population. Is that something you want to risk? Disease/parasites aren't always easy to see and spot and fish can act quite normal when the disease isn't full blown. You'll typically want to use a quarantine tank that is 20% to 30% of the size of your main tank. As others have already pointed out, they are quite simple and unless you have fish in them, they can just sit there running only having to top them up. For the small cost of them and little maintenance compared to the cost of all the fish in a system, it is a no brainer for me.
I also don't understand why a quarantine tank would be more stressfull? They are the first fish in, so there is no quarrell for dominance or being picked on. There are no bright lights to get used to like most people run. There is minimal competition for food. How is that more stressfull than your main tank?

[ScubaSteve]

I don't QT as I believe that it often stresses them out (as said previously). Stressed fish are more likely to contract something. I will QT, however, if I by from certain places that I know are bad for it or depending on the species of fish... I find some fish are just ich magnets.

Corals on the otherhand... I've learned to dip. Can't afford a coral QT but Coral Rx is waaaay cheaper than losing all my corals... Dark times those were....

[Twinn]

+1 of SubaSteve

I do not QT but I do dip corals with coral rx. I may be lucky because I do have good local fish stores in my area. The problem for me was this the lighting and water quality in my QT tank was never as good as the lighting and water quality in my DT. When it came to corals I found making the adjustment from crappy QT lighting to intense DT lighting was hurting the corals themselves too much. That being said every coral gets a good did before entering my system.