Quarantine? Who does and who don't?

[jond]

I have a succesful reef of about six months old. I have never qurantined on my own, but my local fish store will for me. I have lost fish, but never to ick. I was thinking of starting to quarantine and use a Eclipse 12. My questions:
How long does the tank need to be set up and running before you add the new fish to it?
Would using a couple of gallons of my main tank water be enough to seed the new tank?
If the new fish is healthy and eating at the LFS, is it harder on it to put it in a small quarantine tank than right into your main tank?
Thanks for your help.

 

[marine qa]

I have Qtd myself and have also paid my LFS to do it. I prefer the latter. My qt/tx tank is only 10g and iv'e found it hard to keep water quality good. Especially when medicating. I will probably have my LFS Qt from now on, or until I get a larger qt tank.
As for your questions:
Many people set up their qt/tx tanks only when they need them. An authority from this bb suggests using a powerhead sponge filter from your main tank and several gallons of the main tank's water to cycle the qt quickly. I don't think using the main tank's water alone would be enough to cycle the qt as the bacteria needed is mostly in the filters and substrate, not the water.
Unfortunatley if you medicate your qt the biological filter is destroyed anyway. I have personally experienced this.
Finally, the fewer times you transfer fish the better, but I would not add a fish to my tank w/out thier being qtd first.

 

[jond]

Thanks for the reply. I think it is a "catch 22". Damned if you do and damned if you don't. I think I will have my LFS contiune to do it for me, they don't charge anything for it.

 

[caymanlovers]

I went through the same questions about QT & hospital tank and finally set one up, put it through the cycle and have it stocked with two damsels. If I were to do it all over again, I would just set it up as needed and start with water from the main tank and then do regular water changes rather than try to get it to cycle. Medications are going to zap the bio filteration anyway (if you need to medicate.) Rather than have a small tank that needs to be fed, changed and cleaned (sounds like a baby) along with the main tank, I would rather spend my time with the main tank.
The key will be to monitor the water quality while using the QT/RX tank and be ready to make regular water changes.

 

[zaxs]

one of the books I have recommends doing a fresh water dip on all new fish before adding them to the main tank. I also don't dump any of the water from the LFS into my system. I personaly don't Quarantine I ask the LFS to hold the fish for me for a week then if it still looks good I take it home.. so fare I'v only had one case of Ick and that was probably caused by My PH droping to low at the same time.