Posted from wet web media
"After three months of searching, you have finally located that beautiful colony of bright pink Pocillopora damicornis that you’ve been drooling over! Wow! It’s gonna look great on that spot on top your reef…. You rush the coral home, slowly acclimate it to your aquarium’s water temperature, open up the bag, and place the coral onto the spot on your reef that you have reserved for it. Not only have you introduced a beautiful coral to your tank, you have (also) introduced (unwanted) flatworms, box snails, and planarians. Yikes! Could this have been prevented? Yep! How? Quarantine!
Quarantine: It’s Not Just For Fishes Anymore!
Everyone knows the value of quarantining newly acquired fishes by now, right? Well, let’s hope that you do! By properly quarantining corals and invertebrates, you can (just as easily) avoid introducing a whole host of nasties into your reef system, from box snails to nudibranchs. Protecting your reef from these unwanted guests isn’t just the right thing to do for your reef; it’s also good for your reputation at the next club frag swap. Imagine what it will do for your popularity when someone refers to you as "the guy whose Xenia put (replace with brought) RTN into my system!" Not good.
Quarantine practices for corals and invertebrates are absolutely standard procedure at all public aquariums, and they should be in your fish room, as well. Why risk the health of your entire reef on one coral or invertebrate, when very simple procedures, requiring minimal, inexpensive equipment, can virtually assure that your system will remain disease free?
What Do You Need?
You need a glass or acrylic aquarium of suitable size for the number of corals and invertebrates that you will be quarantining. Typical sizes would be 10-20 gallons. A heater of correct wattage is required, as is an outside power filter, sponge filter, or canister filter. A protein skimmer would be a nice addition, but is optional, particularly if you perform frequent regular water changes. No substrate of any type is required. That’s all the equipment that you need. Easy!
Quarantine of Corals
Quarantine of corals requires a bit more "strategy" if you will, because you need to address the chemical warfare (allelopathy) that takes places between different coral species. You must make the effort to physically separate your specimens during the quarantine process.
Use common sense placing your corals in the quarantine tank. Corals that are legendary for deploying huge "sweeper" tentacles, such as Euphyllia, should be placed well away form other corals, which may not be equipped to defend themselves.
Mobile corals, such as Heliofungia, should be confined in an area of the tank to avoid encountering and possibly injuring other corals, or kept in separate quarantine tanks.
You need to have a means to deal with the compounds (waste materials, mucous, and allelopathic chemicals) emitted by corals as part of their daily existence.
For this reason, I recommend using filters (inside box, power, or canister) that allow you to utilize chemical filtration media, such as carbon, ChemiPure™, or Poly Filter™. Use of these products, coupled with frequent water changes will help you effectively reduce and/or remove many impurities from the quarantine tank water.
Did I just mention water changes? Yep, I sure did! It is very important that you maintain high water quality throughout the quarantine process, and this is easily accomplished through small, frequent water changes. Small water changes, done twice weekly, or more often, will go a long way towards (sustaining) the health of your animals during their stay in your quarantine system.
The quarantine period should last a minimum of 21 days, although many hobbyists employ a 30-day quarantine with great results. Regardless of how long a quarantine period you utilize, be sure to perform regular water changes and maintenance during this time. Use water from your main system. I favor small (5%
, twice-weekly changes, which serve to dilute the potential build up of waste and toxins, and put the hobbyist in the habit of regularly observing the animals. If you are really on the ball, smaller daily water changes would be outstanding.