Tank EULOGY from a beginner

[tang daddy]

It maybe a good idea to start up a qt tank for new additions, I notice that people with qt tanks lose hardly any fish compared to people that don't.

I saw a small qt tank with angels, anthias, royal gamma and a few other fish all waiting to go into the main display at my friends house. It was a simple set up that was 14g with 2 hob filters running charcoal and sponge. He had a small fluidized filter and air stone. He dosed prazi pro and melafix if needed and ran just a few drops of copper. Changed the water about 5% every 3 days. They all were healthy and eating pellets and flakes... Even the anthias was eating flakes, couldn't believe all the fish got along in such a small tank. After seeing how easy it is, I am thinking of starting a small qt for my new additions so I don't lose anymore fish.

[geweagle]

I agree. I am pretty sure the root cause to the fish loses was disease. I do have a quaratine tank now and will certainly use it. Yes my display tank looked ugly but that I am beginning to think would not kill fish. It looks like it was not chemistry issues at all. But the ICK was not easy to see. It did not help that I did not have a chance to see it in progress on the first two kills. But this last one, which I hope I might have saved, was classic.

I am beginning to think more issues in startups can be disease and less chemistry, but chemistry is easy to point too. You can measure it. You know what the targets are. So if it is off we tend to blame what we can see.

Disease is far less easy to pinpoint and symptoms are often vague. At least my experience is that it can be incredibly fast. Healthy to morbian in 4 days.

[Dearth]

I've been in the hobby a year now but one thing I have learned is that with salt water in the aquarium setting is that when fish get a disease or injury that it could otherwise shake off in the wild in the aquarium it could literally take hrs to kill a fish and if you don't recognize the symptoms and telltales there is little hope of saving the fish/coral.

I don't run a QT tank mostly due to space requirements and once everything is out of my lil tank it is being shut down. Mostly it just boils down to taking your time, basic understanding and patience.