QT, AT - what, why and how

dallasg

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We all know about quarantine and acclimation for our reef friends, but what really do we achieve and what is the end game...

we buy a new fish/coral/invert and we so often acclimate him into our DT and hope for the best, but ideally we should try and do both to help our new purchase and safe the money we spent on him. now some might say i cant have a second tank, QT is to much work etc, but let me state my reasons and possible solutions that will suit everyone's pocket.

QT - the aim of QT'ing a fish/coral is to prevent pests and disease into our DT's, thats it, and from experience i didn't do this once and lost alot, but there are those who have never, Russian roulette anyone?

Lets start with the easy livestock, corals. Here we can buy 3 readily available products here in SA, TLF Revive, Seachem Reef Dip and CoralRX all can be ordered from your lfs. its so simple you can treat in the bag they come with
Don't Risk it! Dip it. | Coral Dipping | Treating Corals | Coral Health
Seachem Reef Dip
TLF ReVive Coral Cleaner

The goal of QT's fish is to treat disease, prevent disease from travel stress and contamination of our DT, now this process required one to have a separate system where we could treat our fish with copper, formalin etc and often neglected due to the extra work. Some will still follow this route but there is now a product that works great, from my experience, and requires nothing more than 90min of your time. Blue Life Safety , with this product now we really have no excuse to not protect our fish. If you can run a dedicated QT then great.

The next process i follow and to me just as important is a Acclimation Tank, this can be part of the system, a separate tank or a section in the sump. The Goal of the AT is to ease the new fish into our system and avoid the added stress of new tank-mates harassing him etc. It also allows us to see that he is eating and recoup of travelling etc. Once he is eating and immune system is boosted we can now add him to our DT without the fear of not eating and less worry for us. Also when adding a new fish, dim the lights and feed the tank, these distractions will also help avoid the tank bully stressing the new fish.

If we look at the costs of livestock, the prevention and acclimation is only a fraction of the cost, and definitely less than loosing fish to whitespot etc. Remember parasites, bacteria, disease can be spread on corals, frags, please dip everything!

From having made this mistake and loosing 90% of my 4 yr old fish, i can say that it is definitely worth doing.
 
Thank you @dallasg for the info.

Maybe you can do a write up on proper acclimitization , as ive seen two new guys doing with marines what they used to do with fresh water. Float the bag for 30 min and then release...that's it! Then they look at you funny when you tell them otherwise.
 
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sure will do a suggested guideline
 
Nice write up, thanks Dallas..
 
Thanks for the info so far Dallas. I wanted to know the following: what hardware should be in the QT and what can be dispensed or "forgotten". I am looking at starting a QT for future fish purchases but don't want to go fork out long bucks on new skimmers etc. So what is essential ? Skimmer ? (filter ok instead?), heater, flow pump, wavemaker, etc ....
 
Thanks @Dallas always informative.
 
Anyone got any comment on the following:
what hardware should be in the QT and what can be dispensed or "forgotten". I am looking at starting a QT for future fish purchases but don't want to go fork out long bucks on new skimmers etc. So what is essential ? Skimmer ? (filter ok instead?), heater, flow pump, wavemaker, etc ....
 
If you use quarantine as intended (i.e only 1 or 2 fish at a time or a period of 4-6 weeks) then..

1.) Aquarium
2.) Thermostat heater
3.) Some type of mature filter. Some people place a filter sponge or other type of media in the sump on standby and allow it to mature for use in the QT filter.
4.) IMO some sort of flow pump/power head to mix it up a little.
5.) A good light that will allow you to see the fish clearly and identify problems as they develop.

Make sure to monitor and maintain ammonia, temp, salinity to the same standard as you would for the DT.

For fish quarantine;

Skimmer not needed
Substrate not needed
Intense light not needed
 
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