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View Full Version : Who Leaves QT on 365 days a year?


tkeracer619
10/06/2006, 11:39 AM
Since I started in this hobby it seems that the common recommendation was to leave the filter floss in your display until you needed qt.

I did this the first time around but found it a pain to deal with. So I never took down my qt.

Since I have been doing this I have had great luck with my qt tank. It is as stable as my reef.

After every round I prep the system for its next group.

-Clean all power heads, rinse canister filter floss with fresh salt water and add carbon, 3 days of 50% water changes, another carbon change on day 4.

- 3 days before I add another group of fish I will do a large 50% water change and change the carbon for the 3rd time.


*If I only treat with hypo then I will only do one 50% change and add carbon once.


Who also leaves thier qt on all the time.

If you don't why? I am curious.

dc
10/06/2006, 11:42 AM
LOL, well I had one up, but it looked lonely and I put fish in it! :D

jeffbrig
10/06/2006, 12:33 PM
I ran my 55g QT for about 12 months continuously. Every few months, I would run a new batch of fish through. We did mainly hyposalinity treatments, but treated for a few other things. I finally tore down the tank after an anthia died from a nasty (presumed) fungal infection, despite our best efforts. If you ever get something nasty, you need a complete tear-down, bleach, dry, and refill. We'll probably set it back up soon and continue with the next batch of fish.

I have a separate QT that I use for corals, it's been running for ~10 months. It's smaller (10g), so it's easier to do 100% water changes and clean it out. We generally try to hold everything for 1 month to eliminate the risk of introducing ich with a frag mount from an infected tank. Overkill, perhaps, but we like to try. It also gives us the opportunity to look for flatworms, red bugs, etc. before the corals go into the display.

alkataz
10/06/2006, 12:53 PM
I use to run my qt 24/7, but I took it down, because I wasn't introducing any new fish. I use a emperor power filter on the qt and that has been running in my display sump to keep it seeded. I'm going to be making some new additions to the tanks so I'm going to put it back up.

tkeracer619
10/06/2006, 01:34 PM
True I didn't think about a failed qt.

Did all the fish die or just one. Or was the one anthia the only fish.

jeffbrig
10/06/2006, 03:29 PM
The anthia was the only fish in QT at that point. Everything else had made it into the display weeks before.

old salty
10/06/2006, 09:11 PM
I tear it down and sanitize everything between fish. I do this to remove the algae and anything else that may be growing in the tank.

dr_d02
10/07/2006, 12:34 PM
I leave my QT up while I am stocking tanks. Everything I buy goes through QT for at least one month and I only make one purchase at a time so it takes over a year to stock a tank. I have not needed to break the QT down because I have not had any disease problems. Even if I did, I would probably just run w/o livestock for a couple of months.

I use live rock on my QT tank; it is basically a 29G FOWLR that only holds one specimen at a time (except when I am QTing coral). I use a different tank for a hospital tank.