Ick free plugs and sps

[chicago]

Many of us take great steps to avoid issues of ick and other nasty critters. How do you guys handle sps frag purchases. I have a routine of taking the frags off the plugs upon arrival and then placing on a new plug and putting in my QT sps 30 gallon tank.. problem is for some reason since I have no fish ect in the 30 gallon I can only keep them in there a two week until they suffer and some do not make it.

I do this to avoid stages of Ick that might be on the plug. How do you guys who do heavy QT handle the plug issue. I would like to simply put these frags right into my tank and avoid the QT stage but not crazy on that idea.. I have been doing this for 40 plus years. I have had tank wipe out from ick on two occassions ... for the past five years anything wet gets QT but not so easy... frags fail to make it through the QT ...

Thoughts ?

 

[Dburr1014]

Do you dip also?
I have thought about setting up a qt for coral but I have not. Nor have I had any issues except aptaisia. I have caught algae before going in the display and other things. I'm curious also as what others say. I do dip in revive and have been using a magnifying glass to inspect.

 

[chicago]

I do dip all new frags.. bayer dip.. .. my issue is evil ick.. my system is sps with many nice angels and wrasses.. back in the day I had a pair of conspics that got ick and lost them both.. I then did a complete hypo of the tank and more.. and took years to recover not sure I would ever do that again.. pulled out all sps and more.. and frankly not sure if worth all the effort.. thats another story for another day... I am looking for a solid way to QT frangs.. my 30 gallon SPS qt is just .. I think to sterile ect.. I do not keep fish in it as ICK is what I am looking to avoid.

 

[Kactai]

If you’re looking to avoid ich only, it does not encyst on live tissue. I’ve imported colonies and got some mini colonies from local LFS which had ich in their systems. I cut off the plugs or discs and glued all exposed skeleton over with super glue gel. Glue to a new disc and you are good to go. So far I’ve not had any problems. I went this way after failing to get two batches of SPS frags through quarantine and just like you, they would mostly not make it. The important thing is that no exposed rock, skeleton or plug make it into your system or tank.

 

[chicago]

yea.. i agree.. I am a little more paranoid.. but i cant believe my sps qt is so bad..
shows the need for fish in a system I guess.

 

[Kactai]

I’m paranoid too but I had to weigh the risk and reward. $1000 of lost sps to protect 500$ worth of fish just didn’t make sense. To me it makes more sense to turn that coral QT into an extra fish hospital tank and if something does slip by I have enough room to treat all of the fish. That’s not what I did though. The coral QT lives on and all inverts, LPS and softies go through QT in there. With SPS I feel like by cutting and regluing, I can mitigate enough of the risk to sleep at night. I do have totes, air pumps and everything need to set up hospital tanks on the fly if I do catch anything.