You can use your existing tank’s water no problem. Just do a waterchange on your main system and keep the water you drain out to fill your QT.
You really don’t want to add any sand or liverock into a QT. The medications will kill of your bacterial load and could cause more harm than good.
This is what I did for all of my QT’s (the one I’m setting up now is gonna be completely different though).
Go to the store and get your stuff you need - or whatever. Get a HOB filter and get a bunch of sponges for that filter. Throw the sponges in your main tank’s sump so they can colonize with bacteria. When you start up your QT, use the water from the main system and put one of the colonized sponges in the filter. Get yourself an ammonia alert badge too as well as test kits.
Once you start medicating fish, pay attention to the alert bade and your kits and if you have ammonia spikes, you can do a waterchange on your QT tank with new water and replace the sponge with one that’s still in your sump. Throw the old sponge away, do not re-use it.
All you’ll really need for a QT would be something like a 10 or 20 gallon tank (depends on the sizes of your fish) - bigger is better obviously but not always cost effective. Get some plastic decorations or PVC pipe and fittings to throw in there so the fish can hide if they want to. NO SAND, NO LIVEROCK. Get a heater, small powerhead and a HOB filter and you’re golden. Your fish will need to be in there for 4 weeks or so and your display will remain fallow so the ich can die off as it goes through it’s life cycle.
Just to clarify on the fallow tank - 4 weeks I believe is the minimum amount of time to leave it fallow. The ich life cycle is about 4 weeks long. I believe the genral consensus in the hobby is to leave it fallow for 6 weeks just to ensure you dont have a reoccurence and have to repeat the QT again.
20g long
Aqueon Quiteflow filter sized accordingly
Heater size accordingly
Small powerhead for some extra flow
Ammonia Badge
Thermometer
Air pump w/ air stone on a 1/4" hose.
PVC for shelter
Lighting is an old AquaticLife LED strip, but you could just use a clip on with a CFL bulb.
I had a similar problem in my 12g and 110g. Every time I would add a new fish, one would die, either the one I added or an old one. The vast majority of the time there was no disease in any of the fish. I eventually attributed the problem to a bioload problem. My tanks were maxed out with fish and I couldn’t add any more without upgrading my filtration.
Yup. Set up the QT and take all your fish out of the display and put them in the new QT. It sucks but if you want healthy fish that’s what you gotta do.
This is my opinion. If the rest of the fish in your DT are doing well then I would leave it alone and concentrate on your water parameter to bring it up to par. Do up an hospital/QT tank for your future purchases. It seems to me the water parameter really needs attention.
So the question is now are the fish currently in the tank healthy? Do you want to do a 6 week QT? Don’t forget the QT needs frequent water changes to control the quality of the water especially in the beginning. You can QT a single fish easily but with a tank full (crowded) things can get hairy. There is benefit to removing all fish but with considerable risk. You are in luck if you need a tank, I got a few that need to go. PM me if interested.
I have to agree with A on this one. QT all future purchases. With the number of fish you currently have in your tank you would need a very large QT tank in order to not induce cramping related stress. I’d fear that you’d end up losing more fish than you’d save.
Now if there is definitely ich in the tank, it is something to consider as anytime you move a new purchase from QT in to the DT you’re going to create stress, which COULD leave the new fish susceptible to contracting it.
A QT is a great way of keeping new purchases separate from everyone else and ensuring their health and viability prior to adding them to a tank that you probably wouldn’t be able to get them out of if an issue pops up.
ON another note - you mentioned a 2-3 hour drip acclimation. While this is great to slowly adjust your new purchase to your current salinity there are draw-backs associated with drip acclimation of this length.
First and foremost is temperature. I’ve yet to meet anyone that includes a heater in their acclimation bucket. The fish is being kept at (probably) about 80 degrees in the store, the water cools significantly on the drive home (assuming you don’t live less than 10 min from the store). As your acclimating the temperature in the bucket continues to decrease to room temperature - this time of year around 70 degrees. Then you move the fish directly in to 80 degree DT tank water. That’s the equivalent of doing a cannonball in to a hot tub in the middle of February for us. Creates stress at the very worst time.
You might want to consider adding a small heater to the acclimation bucket, or doing a temp/bag acclimation by opening the bag as it floats in the DT - this will keep the temp equal, then add a small amount of tank water to the bag every few minutes. This gives you the benefit of temperature management and salinity acclimation.
Depending on the salinity of the stores water you may only have to add a small amount of tank water to get everything to match. Have you ever checked the stores salinity?
editors note: I’m a horrible example on acclimation - I float the bag for 10 minutes then dump the fish in to my tank. But I know what my LFS keeps their salinity at and I know it’s not drastically different then my own. I also rarely lose a new fish.
Just another suggestion: I dont think you have enough biological filtration on that 20L…I use marineland filters with at least 2 biowheels on my qt…or chuck in a sponge filter…Some of the meds used in qt will either harm beneficial bacteria or cause ammonia spikes…
A good product for reseeding the bio filter after long term meds is called aqua gold by national fish pharm…works in as little as 24 hrs…
[quote=“Cdangel0, post:29, topic:6702”]
I have to agree with A on this one. QT all future purchases. With the number of fish you currently have in your tank you would need a very large QT tank in order to not induce cramping related stress. I’d fear that you’d end up losing more fish than you’d save.
Now if there is definitely ich in the tank, it is something to consider as anytime you move a new purchase from QT in to the DT you’re going to create stress, which COULD leave the new fish susceptible to contracting it.
A QT is a great way of keeping new purchases separate from everyone else and ensuring their health and viability prior to adding them to a tank that you probably wouldn’t be able to get them out of if an issue pops up.[/quote]
I agree with the above. Since you already have ich in your tank the only way to eradicate it permanently is to QT all your fish and leave the DT empty till the ich parasite runs through it’s life cycle. But if your fish are healthy then it’s just not worth it IMO. It sounds like your problem is a bioload/overcrowding problem.
I agree with Craig on the acclimation as well 2-3 hrs. is a long time. The length of time should be dependent on the difference between the LFS and DT parameters (salinity and pH being the drivers). I always test the water in the bag before I decide how long to acclimate. I’ve always had a problem with temperature during acclimation. I usually just crank up the flow once I’m close to the right parameters and try and get within 5 deg of the DT. I’m going to try the method Craig said next time and see how it goes. Here’s a good video.
Ok so heres what i did today. Took a water sample to a lfs for testing. Levels were close to what i stated in the begining of the post. We determined it was an ammonia issue maybe due to over feeding or over crowding. heres the plan. Go back to weekly water changes. Cut down feeding to every other day. I added start smart complete to raise bacteria. I also cleaned out my reactor and put in de-nitrate from seachem. Ill keep everyone posted.
I have 10 pounds of live sand in the refugium. Along with about 7 or 8 pounds of rock rubble. But if youre willing to part with it, it sure cant hurt my situation.
