Over 25 years or so of keeping saltwater fish and corals I have never quarantined, and never had a problem...I now consider that extremely lucky. I will say that I have mostly kept hardy fish like damsels, clowns, pseudochromis, blennies, etc. and reasonably inexpensive corals and inverts.
However, over the last few months I have been reading all the forum threads about QT and fish loss due to all kinds of diseases and shipping stress. There are so many stories of people loosing $1000s on fish and coral due to one fish or infected coral plug. Amazingly, even many of those people still refuse to quarantine and just buy all new fish and go on like it never happened, swearing off QT just as before. Unbelievable.
Anyway, I haven't bought (or lost) a fish in four years (knock on wood), and acquired only a few corals in that time, so in the next few months I plan to go shopping for new stock for my two nano tanks, while I also continue planning for a high-end 180 build for my office later in the year. This time around I will be quarantining for the first time, and figured I would document the experience, and maybe learn something in the process as well.
Since I will be doing the QT in my home office, I wanted everything to look presentable. No ad-hoc and DIY tanks here! And, at least at first, I will be getting smaller fish and just a few corals (and not at the same time) I decided to go with two IM10 Fusion tanks I got in a President's Day Sale. In the future, for larger fish like tangs and angels, I'll likely need bigger tanks, but for fish like clowns and a small number of coral frags I believe these will work well enough.
Arrival Day
In place in the office prior to setup.
I will likely just set one up, and prepare the other one just before a tank transfer, then remove and sterilize the other. For now they are just both setting here waiting.
I want to stress that I DO NOT plan to QT coral and fish at the same time (even in different tanks). I'm happy to take this slowly, and will be certain to decontaminate the tanks and equipment, remove any trace of copper/bayer, etc. before switching from fish to corals and inverts.
Hardware includes:
However, over the last few months I have been reading all the forum threads about QT and fish loss due to all kinds of diseases and shipping stress. There are so many stories of people loosing $1000s on fish and coral due to one fish or infected coral plug. Amazingly, even many of those people still refuse to quarantine and just buy all new fish and go on like it never happened, swearing off QT just as before. Unbelievable.
Anyway, I haven't bought (or lost) a fish in four years (knock on wood), and acquired only a few corals in that time, so in the next few months I plan to go shopping for new stock for my two nano tanks, while I also continue planning for a high-end 180 build for my office later in the year. This time around I will be quarantining for the first time, and figured I would document the experience, and maybe learn something in the process as well.
Since I will be doing the QT in my home office, I wanted everything to look presentable. No ad-hoc and DIY tanks here! And, at least at first, I will be getting smaller fish and just a few corals (and not at the same time) I decided to go with two IM10 Fusion tanks I got in a President's Day Sale. In the future, for larger fish like tangs and angels, I'll likely need bigger tanks, but for fish like clowns and a small number of coral frags I believe these will work well enough.
Arrival Day
I will likely just set one up, and prepare the other one just before a tank transfer, then remove and sterilize the other. For now they are just both setting here waiting.
I want to stress that I DO NOT plan to QT coral and fish at the same time (even in different tanks). I'm happy to take this slowly, and will be certain to decontaminate the tanks and equipment, remove any trace of copper/bayer, etc. before switching from fish to corals and inverts.
Hardware includes:
- IM10 Fusion w/supplied return pump and cover
- Cobalt NeoTherm 50w heater
- Hydor Koralia Nano power head
- PVC
- Kessil A80 Blue
- Seachem ammonia alert badge