Can you maintain a coral quarantine without a fish?

[Shilpan Patel]

Hey guys! My QT is almost cycled just waiting for that last bit of nitrite to come down (normally I don’t want for nitrite to be 0 but cause I’m getting LPS I thought I probably should). I’m running a cheap Chinese LED while the coral are there. Couldn’t afford buying another set of hydras like my main tank.

I was thinking I’d need to add a fish to keep the cycle going. But obviously it carries a risk, if it carries ich without displaying signs I would never notice and I’d contaminate my DT.

Any suggestions on how to run a QT successfully without fish and only
Corals? I’m worried the tank will end up recycling.

 

[infinite0180]

U can dose aminos and reef roid or reed chili i think to keep it cycled

 

[Shilpan Patel]

Do most people do this? Or do most people just put a fish in there?

 

[robocop1906]

QT without fish because you run the risk of fish diseases that require a longer QT period i.e. ICH. Plus if you had an outbreak most medications are not reef safe. How big is your main display and then your QT? I just dump my DT 150g water in the QT 10g as a water change. After the initial dump, I just change 5g each week. That prevents it from cycling plus it get's all the dosing and etc from the display.

Personally, I wouldn't stuff corals in a newly cycled tank unless you are 100% that it's completely cycled. Any spikes could kill.

 

[Shilpan Patel]

Ok so maybe put in 1-2 coral frags at a time and see how they go?

150g display
And 40gallon long QT (my QT is large because I quarantined tangs previously).

Ok so once the QT finishes cycling (nitrites 0), I use DT water change water to change my QT and that’ll keep the cycle going along with ghost feeding?

 

[Shilpan Patel]

Ok so maybe put in 1-2 coral frags at a time and see how they go?

150g display
And 40gallon long QT (my QT is large because I quarantined tangs previously).

Ok so once the QT finishes cycling (nitrites 0), I use DT water change water to change my QT and that’ll keep the cycle going along with ghost feeding?

 

[robocop1906]

As long as you have never used copper to treat for ich in the 40gal you should be fine. There are other non-reef safe medications so if you've treated with anything read the label. ghost feeding wouldn't be necessary as long as you continue the water change cycle. In this hobby patiance is key trust me I've learned the hard way. I'd do a few more weeks of small water changes from the DT just to be safe. Coral is expensive, I've lost some in the past and it's not fun at all.

Also not sure which cheap china light you have but be careful. If it's the black box from amazon those things are powerful and will fry coral especially LPS. I have a PAR meter so that saves my life because you can just look and tell what the par is. I'd see if there is a local reef club, local fish store, or buddy that can't let you rent or borrow one. The more expensive lights give you PAR ranges based on depth that are helpful but cheap lights don't so it's a huge dangerous guess. Again not sure what light you have but hopefully it's adjustable. So at a minimum place on a low setting and adjust up. Pay close attention to how the coral reacts.

 

[Shilpan Patel]

Yup adjustable!
Yeah I’m gonna get 2-3 small cheap test frags first and see how they go.

I have used copper before so I’m leaving a bag of seachem cuprisorb in there at all times. The copper test kit is still measuring 0. So that’s another thing for me to find out whether or not I’ll be able to successfully keep coral in there or not.

I did change all the filter media and canister media and scrub the tank clean. But who knows maybe trace amounts of copper somewhere I can’t detect so I’m leaving the cuprisorb in there

 

[Shilpan Patel]

Just an update, I have a hammer coral and a Kenya tree in there now and they’re both doing fine, they didn’t open for 3-4 days but now they’re opening well. I also have a bag of cuprisorb in there too.

I chuck a cube of fish food in every week just to keep the cycle going and that seems to work fine

 

[brandon429]

hey just saw the thread. pretty neat.
here's some biological facts to answer your first set of questions:

-ghost feeding is not required. That's an invention of web forum posters, nobody who works with bacteria for a living believes an inoculated volume of water, fed and cycled already, exposed to home air currents will soon turn sterile unless you add fish food to the mix. You can design a test to prove this or not, discover for yourself whether its true. A cycled aquarium kept wet doesn't uncycle, we have myriad examples in various threads detailing this but for summary purposes what it takes to keep bac alive is beint wet.


-You may ghost feed if you want, other animals want the feed and bac are still fed whether you input it or not, this is how they survive in nature, wo fish feed. Ammonia gets in the system anyway. The reason its important to trust that bacteria are strong and wont go away with any type of tank care/arrangement/changes is so that we're free to be deliberate and effective in what we do to a tank vs hesitating, the real danger.

 

[Shilpan Patel]

Ok thank you! Yeah that’s why I added some of my DT water to cycle my tank.
I assume the bacteria need a nutrient source to survive though? Otherwise there’s a limited source of nutrients in the tank and the population will drop significantly?

Or is it that because I only have corals in there it doesn’t matter?

 

[brandon429]

the truth is they will not die for years, we have fallow test threads where some live rocks sat in a garage, unfed, for 36 months and not even topped off very often. Documented well in the thread, he oxidize tested them and they passed the usual amount of ammonia in 24 hours, just like any fed reef aquarium does.

Yes the bac require food and support, but we've tricked ourselves to thinking that microscoping animals can't survive on microscopic vittles :) admit that's funny. Even though we can't see the feed getting in: they're eating fat always.

I have another fallow example posted/collected in our cycling thread in the new tanks forum where someone vat-cured live rock for three years and didn't feed it, did keep it topped off and the rock still passed all the usual cycling tests. These proofs are hard to find, you have to scope forums for years and catch on to small details to be able to collect them.

The #1 reason people misunderstand tank bacteria is from the effects of API and similar ammonia tests where colors are always slightly off. From that variance alone, our whole cycling science has been knocked decades out of whack and the toughest animals we keep are now thought of as the weakest. You cannot kill the bac in your tank without precise and sustained medication, boiling, or dry-as-bone drying.

 

[brandon429]

here is a funny trick I do on my 13 yr old nano. I drain it to the ground for 30 mins, in the air, then refill it and it never recycles.

I know that's not like nutrient starving, but if you started a poll: "if I drain my tank for 30 mins will it recycle" then the respondents will vote a resounding yes.

Yet, here it is on tape not occurring. about 100 times over and over lol

bacteria are tougher than we give them credit for, ill put my hard work on the line as proof.




12 hours later

 

[bluprntguy]

I use my coral tank as an invert/snail quarantine as well. There’s always at least a few snails in there. If you are at all concerned about maintaining bacteria, just keep a few snails. No fish.

I do agree with others above, we probably don’t give bacteria as much credit as we should. They are remarkably resilient.

 

[brandon429]

Agreed.

an entire retail industry exists to take money in the name of bacteria support

The time to use bottle bac is when speed cycling is desired, so we don't have to wait for normal time pathways to setup the cycle by just adding water. Any form of 'support' type dosing of bac or bac feed/micronutrients is likely just taking your cash

I truly think Ill do 50 mins next round, its the sps that are setting my max drain limits not the bac. We have a poster in our thread who set wet live rock alone on some plastic in a closet, no water, and it passed a digest test after 30 days in a dark closet...all collected in our cycling thread over the years. its possible to mimic portions of those challenges right now, its fun to literally make tests to see just how strong bacteria are. If corals were not present, I estimate I can drain the bowl for 7 days or better and it will keep being able to oxidize upon refill, I don't know what the true desiccation time of live rock would be- nobody has charted that for science yet but I estimate much longer than a week we already have 30 days on file.

The final takeaway in the notion is that we don't have to factor bacteria in anything we do to a reef, don't worry about them. If you are medicating then that's different, no meds, you'll never harm the bac simply forget about them.

Even ripping the entire sandbed out of a running reef tank all at once doesn't leave the system short of bac (says 23 page sand rinse thread where that is done over and over)

 

[btmedic04]

You can most definitely run a coral qt/frag tank without fish. However I am of the mindset of having a couple small utility fish in there that serve a purpose other than being ornamental. I like a six line wrasse or damsel for pest control and a tailspot blenny for algae control personally.

 

[Shilpan Patel]

Awesome thank you for the wise words of wisdom everyone yeah as someone who works as a doctor, I know just how annoyingly resistant these bacteria can be

The QT is running fine at the moment, no issues with ammonia spikes (I test every second day), and it’s a bit time consuming testing parameters for Alk/ca/mg in both the QT and the DT but I’ve worked out a schedule.

The tank was fine with 2 frags for 2 weeks, so now I’ve put the last 5 in and I’ll see how this goes