Need advice. I've been out of hobby for about 14 years. I need a little help before investing 10K into a new tank.

[shakey]

Ok so I'm dying to start a build. 120 gallon fully automated tank. (I've budgeted 10K for a tank build including stock.) I have basement sump/fish room area. My original tank was a 55 gallon closed down about 2007, and I had decent success with it until a return pump went down on a weekend basically nuking the whole tank. I struggled keeping everything going but did have success. It definitely did not come easy for me. I don't want to spend 10K and fail. Thats a ton of money to me. It will be totally worth it if I can have decent success. Here are my questions I hope they don't sound to unintelligent??

1. I read now that most serious reefers (I will be serious if I do this) are quarantining their fish and corals for up to 72 days? (Quarantine tanks are usually small tanks.) It is hard enough to keep bigger tanks stable. How do you all keep say a 29 gallon QT tank stable for 70ish days with no sump refugiums etc?
2. Is there any reputable online dealer I can purchase pre-quarantined fish and corals free of unwanted hitchhikers from; thus being able to skip this step. (I live in WV I do not have a LFS that I would trust. I will have to drive at least drive 2.5 hours to any legit fish stores.)

My worst fear is spending all this money to have aiptasia, velvet, Ich, etc. outbreak and really crashing my DT tank. Aiptasia is one of my biggest fears. Ive seen several leave the hobby after losing the battle to this problem.

Thanks in advance. I welcome all that would be willing to take the time to help me make this huge decsion.

 

[Ron Reefman]

Make 'back up' hardware part of your budget. Have a spare return pump and other hardware you'll want quickly or that might be hard to replace.

I'll admit to being in the minority here, I rarely quarantine stuff. Oh, some store bought things may spend a day or three in a 5g to 20g 'holding tank' I'd set up. But what I do hold for longer time frames, as in a couple of weeks to a couple of months are things I bring home from the beach or snorkel trips to the Florida Keys.

And to be perfectly honest, I've had very few issues over the 20+ years I've been in the hobby. Aiptasia, flat worms, bubble algae usually show up on stuff in fairly short order. None of my 'wild' stock has ever brought any disease into my tanks. I've never had ick, velvet or any other fish issues other than a fish from Live Aquaria that had swim bladder failure.

 

[shakey]

Thanks, I'll definitely have back up parts, and I'll be doing 2 return pumps. The only reason I'm considering this again is the controllers that will inform me when something is going wrong. Good to know that you have had success all those years without quarantine tanks!

Make 'back up' hardware part of your budget. Have a spare return pump and other hardware you'll want quickly or that might be hard to replace.

I'll admit to being in the minority here, I rarely quarantine stuff. Oh, some store bought things may spend a day or three in a 5g to 20g 'holding tank' I'd set up. But what I do hold for longer time frames, as in a couple of weeks to a couple of months are things I bring home from the beach or snorkel trips to the Florida Keys.

And to be perfectly honest, I've had very few issues over the 20+ years I've been in the hobby. Aiptasia, flat worms, bubble algae usually show up on stuff in fairly short order. None of my 'wild' stock has ever brought any disease into my tanks. I've never had ick, velvet or any other fish issues other than a fish from Live Aquaria that had swim bladder failure.

 

[PatW]

Quarantine is not that hard. I use a 29 gallon, It was inexpensive. I have an inexpensive HOB filter on it and a heater. That is it. I normally treat my fish with copper and prazipro. I have had nothing get into the tank. I also run quarantine for the full 2 months+. One of the big things with quarantine is fish get to me kinda beaten up. They were caught and shipped to a wholesaler. Then bundled up and shipped to the LFS and maybe with another stop in between. It is hard on them. I use the quarantine period to get the fish distressed and fattened up. I want them to get comfortable with what I feed and how I feed it. When they go into the display tank, most of them are pretty prepared to face the competition of established fish. I have a cover on my QT and it does lose some to evaporation but not that much. I hand top it off. But fish are not that fussy about that.

Most of the good coral aquaculture places are very good about not having coral pests. So even a simple dip is probably good enough. But some of them are not that careful about aptasia.

I have not quarantined corals. As for aptasia, even with using dry rock, it is easy to introduce. I would suggest making your rock work modular enough that you can take it out and put into a small tank and nuke aptasia on it when they open up.

 

[snorklr]

there are companies like TSM in new jersey that sell fish that they quarantine and medicate themselves...no i havent bought anything from them so no reveiw here....

 

[dedragon]

If your looking to automate it probably an aquarium controller would help. If you dont like to test much probably the apex controller and trident setup would work, if you do test you water regularly the new hydros one would work probably a bit cheaper

 

[Jekyl]

The Other Way to Run a Reef Tank (no Quarantine)

The other way to run a reef tank (No Quarantine) I was asked by my friend Humblefish to start a thread on my practices of running a tank with no quarantine, hospital tanks, medications, dipping or almost anything else. It is "not" just to take a fish from a store and drop it in your reef...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[DucatiGtr]

Ok so I'm dying to start a build. 120 gallon fully automated tank. (I've budgeted 10K for a tank build including stock.) I have basement sump/fish room area. My original tank was a 55 gallon closed down about 2007, and I had decent success with it until a return pump went down on a weekend basically nuking the whole tank. I struggled keeping everything going but did have success. It definitely did not come easy for me. I don't want to spend 10K and fail. Thats a ton of money to me. It will be totally worth it if I can have decent success. Here are my questions I hope they don't sound to unintelligent??

1. I read now that most serious reefers (I will be serious if I do this) are quarantining their fish and corals for up to 72 days? (Quarantine tanks are usually small tanks.) It is hard enough to keep bigger tanks stable. How do you all keep say a 29 gallon QT tank stable for 70ish days with no sump refugiums etc?
2. Is there any reputable online dealer I can purchase pre-quarantined fish and corals free of unwanted hitchhikers from; thus being able to skip this step. (I live in WV I do not have a LFS that I would trust. I will have to drive at least drive 2.5 hours to any legit fish stores.)

My worst fear is spending all this money to have aiptasia, velvet, Ich, etc. outbreak and really crashing my DT tank. Aiptasia is one of my biggest fears. Ive seen several leave the hobby after losing the battle to this problem.

Thanks in advance. I welcome all that would be willing to take the time to help me make this huge decsion.

I’ve been through a lot..
I qt all fish after buying most established.. you can buy qt fish but there are very $$
coral I usually watch 90 days..
I have two large qt tanks for fish and two for coral.. i have another back up pump and a generator .. more fail safes the better

 

[shakey]

Quarantine is not that hard. I use a 29 gallon, It was inexpensive. I have an inexpensive HOB filter on it and a heater. That is it. I normally treat my fish with copper and prazipro. I have had nothing get into the tank. I also run quarantine for the full 2 months+. One of the big things with quarantine is fish get to me kinda beaten up. They were caught and shipped to a wholesaler. Then bundled up and shipped to the LFS and maybe with another stop in between. It is hard on them. I use the quarantine period to get the fish distressed and fattened up. I want them to get comfortable with what I feed and how I feed it. When they go into the display tank, most of them are pretty prepared to face the competition of established fish. I have a cover on my QT and it does lose some to evaporation but not that much. I hand top it off. But fish are not that fussy about that.

Most of the good coral aquaculture places are very good about not having coral pests. So even a simple dip is probably good enough. But some of them are not that careful about aptasia.

I have not quarantined corals. As for aptasia, even with using dry rock, it is easy to introduce. I would suggest making your rock work modular enough that you can take it out and put into a small tank and nuke aptasia on it when they open up.

Thanks, I will keep that in mind about the quarantine tank. Aiptasia scares me but a filefish will be on my stocking list for sure.

I’ve been through a lot..
I qt all fish after buying most established.. you can buy qt fish but there are very $$
coral I usually watch 90 days..
I have two large qt tanks for fish and two for coral.. i have another back up pump and a generator .. more fail safes the better

Thanks. I think I will quarantine too. To much invested to take a chance. I will have a backup pump and I've got a generator. My generator is not one of those automatic ones, but It will do as long as I'm not gone when electricity goes out.

 

[shakey]

If your looking to automate it probably an aquarium controller would help. If you dont like to test much probably the apex controller and trident setup would work, if you do test you water regularly the new hydros one would work probably a bit cheaper

Definitely Apex and Trident!

 

[dedragon]

agree with everyone above if concerned with parasites. Buy from places that quarantine and buy small frags from trusted sources that can still be removed from frag plugs to dip before introduction to the tank. Lots of coral frag sellers and fish sellers that have good reputations with qt ie. wwc, unique corals, TSM aquatics, marine collectors, Pieces of the ocean just to name a few of some r2r sponsors with great track records. If you dont want parasites i suggest getting nothing wet from any LFS especially with the budget given its not worth it, unless you know their specific qt protocol

 

[dedragon]

also use bottled bacteria and dry rock. I used fritzyme 9 which worked really fast to cycle but dr tims has a good track record as well, microbacter 7 gave me weird growths in my tanks before so i avoid it. Sometimes people here sell bulk dry or live rock for cheap, just treat the live rock in either muriatic acid or bleach and ur good

 

[shakey]

agree with everyone above if concerned with parasites. Buy from places that quarantine and buy small frags from trusted sources that can still be removed from frag plugs to dip before introduction to the tank. Lots of coral frag sellers and fish sellers that have good reputations with qt ie. wwc, unique corals, TSM aquatics, marine collectors, Pieces of the ocean just to name a few of some r2r sponsors with great track records. If you dont want parasites i suggest getting nothing wet from any LFS especially with the budget given its not worth it, unless you know their specific qt protocol

Thanks, I really appreciate the thoughts, and I will check out these sellers. I just don't want to be one of those that leave the hobby within 24 months because of failures. If I do it I want it to be a 5-10 year tank.

 

[sarcophytonIndy]

Check out the BRS videos. I would go with an Apex controller. Love Kessil lights. Biocubes make good QT tanks.

 

[shakey]

also use bottled bacteria and dry rock. I used fritzyme 9 which worked really fast to cycle but dr tims has a good track record as well, microbacter 7 gave me weird growths in my tanks before so i avoid it. Sometimes people here sell bulk dry or live rock for cheap, just treat the live rock in either muriatic acid or bleach and ur good

Thanks, I think this is exactly how I will procede. I'm in no hurry as I have done this before. I'll remember that about about microbacter 7.