RedReidys 16Gal Tank

[Ratvan]

I QT for a minimum of 6 weeks, I will treat each fish for internal parasites while they are in the QT. If I spot anything else while they are in QT I will also treat them for that at the same time.

[Clown79]

1 hour ago, Redreidy said:

Okay so I have ordered a small tank, heater and filter to set up a quarantine take. I have been doing some reading of quarantine guides and in essence people are advising quarantine periods of between 2-4 months. They are also advising multiple medication dosing, freshwater dips etc. 

 

Are these people being overly cautious or is this the right way to do it? I'm all for taking it slow but I started this tank at the end of March and at this rate I wont add a fish until the new year!

 

What are the must do's of a marine QT?

Personal choice to prophylactically treat or just observe.

 

I prefer to qt for 4 weeks, observation only and if the fish needs treating, then I treat it.

 

Most qt for 4 weeks and more if the fish need treatment.

 

I think 2-4mnths is excessive unless they are being treated for something.

 

I qt nothing else but fish.

[mcarroll]

I'd add that how/if you proceed with QT also depends on the source of the fish and your expertise at recognizing sick and healthy fish.

 

18 hours ago, Redreidy said:

Okay so I have ordered a small tank, heater and filter to set up a quarantine take.

I would caution against the bare, stereotypical quarantine tank:  small tank, heater, filter + PVC chunk. 

This kind of setup ought to be called a "hospital tank" or "treatment tank" because it's fine for something short-term (a week or less in most cases) like that. 

 

Quarantine may or may not include treatments with medication, but it will include the fish being there for at least a month in most cases (if you're going to the trouble of QTing).  

 

A month is assuming nothing goes wrong.  If something happens in QT, that means at least another month under best-case scenarios -- maybe months.

 

That all adds up to a lot of stress if all that time ends up being in a prison cell-like quarantine like the ones pictured above. 

 

For a long stretch of time like 1+ months you want it to be LOW STRESS.

 

The situation is made worse if the tank is too small....5-10 gallons is too small to be ideal for most cases. 

 

A better quarantine setup is designed for de-stressing and recovery of the fish's own immune system.

 

Considering stress and all factors, for most cases 20-30 gallons should be considered "small" but adequate for quarantine, while 40 gallons and up would be ideal. 

 

This is very dependent on the specific fish being quarantined.  Most marine fish are on the large side compared to most freshwater fish.  So a 10 gallon QT would be fine in freshwater for most cases, but very borderline/tiny for saltwater where the probability of larger, very-sensitive fish is high.

 

A better QT doesn't have to be outfitted with anything fancy.  Just some naturalistic elements like a piece of live rock and a few plastic plants will make all the difference.

 

Better-QT examples:

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

23 minutes ago, mcarroll said:

I'd add that how/if you proceed with QT also depends on the source of the fish and your expertise at recognizing sick and healthy fish.

 

I would caution against the bare, stereotypical quarantine tank:  small tank, heater, filter + PVC chunk. 

This kind of setup ought to be called a "hospital tank" or "treatment tank" because it's fine for something short-term (a week or less in most cases) like that. 

 

Quarantine may or may not include treatments with medication, but it will include the fish being there for at least a month in most cases (if you're going to the trouble of QTing).  

 

A month is assuming nothing goes wrong.  If something happens in QT, that means at least another month under best-case scenarios -- maybe months.

 

That all adds up to a lot of stress if all that time ends up being in a prison cell-like quarantine like the ones pictured above. 

 

For a long stretch of time like 1+ months you want it to be LOW STRESS.

 

The situation is made worse if the tank is too small....5-10 gallons is too small to be ideal for most cases. 

 

A better quarantine setup is designed for de-stressing and recovery of the fish's own immune system.

 

Considering stress and all factors, for most cases 20-30 gallons should be considered "small" but adequate for quarantine, while 40 gallons and up would be ideal. 

 

This is very dependent on the specific fish being quarantined.  Most marine fish are on the large side compared to most freshwater fish.  So a 10 gallon QT would be fine in freshwater for most cases, but very borderline/tiny for saltwater where the probability of larger, very-sensitive fish is high.

 

A better QT doesn't have to be outfitted with anything fancy.  Just some naturalistic elements like a piece of live rock and a few plastic plants will make all the difference.

 

Better-QT examples:

 

Hi - sorry for threadjacking. But do the plastic plants add any proper benefit to a QT? Am wondering if I should add some to mine. 

[mcarroll]

Yes in terms of lowering fish stress levels.  😊   More hiding places.  More natural movements in the tank.  Less unobstructed solid, flat surfaces.  Etc.

[mcarroll]

I should have said "naturalistic" rather than "natural" there...

[Snow_Phoenix]

1 hour ago, mcarroll said:

Yes in terms of lowering fish stress levels.  😊   More hiding places.  More natural movements in the tank.  Less unobstructed solid, flat surfaces.  Etc.

Noted with thanks! 

[Redreidy]

Hi thank you for the ad

8 hours ago, mcarroll said:

I'd add that how/if you proceed with QT also depends on the source of the fish and your expertise at recognizing sick and healthy fish.

 

I would caution against the bare, stereotypical quarantine tank:  small tank, heater, filter + PVC chunk. 

This kind of setup ought to be called a "hospital tank" or "treatment tank" because it's fine for something short-term (a week or less in most cases) like that. 

 

Quarantine may or may not include treatments with medication, but it will include the fish being there for at least a month in most cases (if you're going to the trouble of QTing).  

 

A month is assuming nothing goes wrong.  If something happens in QT, that means at least another month under best-case scenarios -- maybe months.

 

That all adds up to a lot of stress if all that time ends up being in a prison cell-like quarantine like the ones pictured above. 

 

For a long stretch of time like 1+ months you want it to be LOW STRESS.

 

The situation is made worse if the tank is too small....5-10 gallons is too small to be ideal for most cases. 

 

A better quarantine setup is designed for de-stressing and recovery of the fish's own immune system.

 

Considering stress and all factors, for most cases 20-30 gallons should be considered "small" but adequate for quarantine, while 40 gallons and up would be ideal. 

 

This is very dependent on the specific fish being quarantined.  Most marine fish are on the large side compared to most freshwater fish.  So a 10 gallon QT would be fine in freshwater for most cases, but very borderline/tiny for saltwater where the probability of larger, very-sensitive fish is high.

 

A better QT doesn't have to be outfitted with anything fancy.  Just some naturalistic elements like a piece of live rock and a few plastic plants will make all the difference.

 

Better-QT examples:

 

Hi thank you for the advice. The tank I have purchased for QT is only 7g but to be honest my main tank is only 15g. The fish I will be getting will be very small (juvenile clown, clown goby and royal gamma) so hopefully my tanks will suffice. The longer term plan is to invest in a much larger display tank around 100g but that will be in a year or so.

 

In will take your advice regarding making the QT more of a natural environment however.

[mcarroll]

11 hours ago, Redreidy said:

The tank I have purchased for QT is only 7g but to be honest my main tank is only 15g. The fish I will be getting will be very small (juvenile clown, clown goby and royal gamma) so hopefully my tanks will suffice.

 

For best results I'd try your best to do no more than 1 fish at a time in that case.

[Redreidy]

On 8/11/2019 at 6:35 AM, mcarroll said:

 

For best results I'd try your best to do no more than 1 fish at a time in that case.

Oh yes that’s the plan. 

[Redreidy]

@Ratvan can I ask where you get your CUC from? The pickings seem to very slim at my local stores (basically just turbo snails). Do you know any reliable UK based online retailers of CUC?

[Ratvan]

24 minutes ago, Redreidy said:

@Ratvan can I ask where you get your CUC from? The pickings seem to very slim at my local stores (basically just turbo snails). Do you know any reliable UK based online retailers of CUC?

In a  similar position myself at the minute. I got @afcajax73to pop into Cellar Marine in Stoke (https://www.cellarmarinestore.co.uk/store/c1/Featured_Products.html) sounds like a good set up for the standard snails, crabs etc.

 

"Ayup mate. Just been up cellar marine. It seems decent enough. He doesn’t have much in fish wise but there’s a lot of CUC. He reckons he’s a bit low on stock this week because of a delivery issue but he’s got a load coming at the weekend. Tanks look clean enough, nothing dead floating about and all the various snails, crabs etc have their own tanks. "

 

If you want something a bit different, Micro Brittle stars, Stomatella Snails etc 

https://jbsmarines.co.uk/epages/b800eafa-220b-423a-bb7f-34a890ef676f.sf/en_GB/?ObjectPath=/Shops/b800eafa-220b-423a-bb7f-34a890ef676f/Categories/40

 

Other than that the only place that I have found a "decent" price is this one, I have not ordered from these before however

https://mailordercorals.com/clean-up-critters?order=price&dir=asc

 

Important part for me in Red

[Redreidy]

On 8/21/2019 at 10:50 AM, Ratvan said:

In a  similar position myself at the minute. I got @afcajax73to pop into Cellar Marine in Stoke (https://www.cellarmarinestore.co.uk/store/c1/Featured_Products.html) sounds like a good set up for the standard snails, crabs etc.

 

"Ayup mate. Just been up cellar marine. It seems decent enough. He doesn’t have much in fish wise but there’s a lot of CUC. He reckons he’s a bit low on stock this week because of a delivery issue but he’s got a load coming at the weekend. Tanks look clean enough, nothing dead floating about and all the various snails, crabs etc have their own tanks. "

 

If you want something a bit different, Micro Brittle stars, Stomatella Snails etc 

https://jbsmarines.co.uk/epages/b800eafa-220b-423a-bb7f-34a890ef676f.sf/en_GB/?ObjectPath=/Shops/b800eafa-220b-423a-bb7f-34a890ef676f/Categories/40

 

Other than that the only place that I have found a "decent" price is this one, I have not ordered from these before however

https://mailordercorals.com/clean-up-critters?order=price&dir=asc

 

Important part for me in Red

Thanks for the sites I will keep these in mind for future reference. Incidentally I had a phone call from one of the fish stores I had visited who had got hold of some for me. So I now have 3 Trochus and 3 Nassarius snails wondering around my tank. I suspect that he has been to another store to purchase these as his range of CUC suddenly increased. They are quite interesting little guys although I think one of the Trochus is trying to eat my Macro Algae.  

[Redreidy]

Just a quick update. 

 

I now have a QT tank set up and running, I went or 9.5 gal tank with a hood, basic LED light, internal filter and heater. I have used filter media from my canister to fill the internal filter so hopefully I wont require a cycle here I'm going to run it and monitor for a week to make sure. 

 

I have my eye on this fish. I know I previously said I wasn't going to get it because of a dead Chromis in the tank however, i have been going back for a couple of months now and the fish is still there and looking healthy so I think i'm going to take a punt on it if its still there after next Wednesday (payday). 

 

 

Good news is that the diatoms are receding in my tank, thank you all for the advice on patients here! My macro algae also seems to be seeing some regrowth after some initial die off which seems positive. I have also added 3 Trochus and 3 Nassarius snails to the main tank, its nice to finally see some life in there. 

 

Water parameters wise I have now managed to get the salinity up to the right levels again, Nitrates have been removed by water changes and Ammonia remains non existent thanks to the salifert test kit. 

[Redreidy]

So quick update. BTW is there a way I can move this thread be moved to the aquarium journals section and change the title?

 

Since my last post my little girl arrived so very little has happened. 

 

I didn't get the Saddleback Clown it was gone by the time I got back. the store referred to it as an African Clownfish which makes me wonder how much they know about marine fish considering they are native to Indo-Pacific.... Anyway the last couple of days I have visited 4-5 fish stores looking for that illusive fist fish. I have decided on a Royal Gramma, Clown Goby and a Clownfish of TBD variety, I really fancy something special clown wise. Unfortunately I have yet to find any of these in a fish store which is frustrating but My tanks been going for like 7 months now so I'm not going to rush the process now. 

 

Any suggestions of potential future Marine Invertebrates? I think I want to add a shrimp of some sort at some point. 

 

So my main tank is now completely diatom free (pictures to follow) the Nassarius and Trochus snails are still alive and the water parameter remain perfect. The Macro Algae are doing great a couple have almost doubled in size. I think I might look at attaching these to rock rubble in the bear future to give it a more natural look. With that in mind would anybody be able to recommend a good fixing agent? I want it to look as natural as possible so I'm thinking some sort of clear glue?

 

finally my quarantine tank is also in place, cycled and in a full diatom bloom at the moment ready to go. 

[kimberbee]

13 minutes ago, Redreidy said:

So quick update. BTW is there a way I can move this thread be moved to the aquarium journals section and change the title?

@Christopher Marks can move your thread to the journals section. He's Nano-Reef's founder! 😊

 

If you want to change the thread title, you can do that yourself by going to the very first post and editing it. You'll be able to edit the first post and thread title there! 

 

My sister lives in Warrington!

[Redreidy]

5 hours ago, kimberbee said:

@Christopher Marks can move your thread to the journals section. He's Nano-Reef's founder! 😊

 

If you want to change the thread title, you can do that yourself by going to the very first post and editing it. You'll be able to edit the first post and thread title there! 

 

My sister lives in Warrington!

Thank you!! 

 

Your sister has good taste in places 😀

[Redreidy]

So an update, 

My tank now has fish life, I found myself a Yellow Clown Goby and a Royal Gramma, They have been in my main tank for about 3 weeks now and are doing great. My original intention was to QT these in the QT tank that I had set up but for some reason on returning from the not so local fish store I discovered that my QT tank had turned weirdly cloudy almost milky. I still don't what happened to that tank but with a lack of options available to me I popped the two fish in my main tank. I have since stripped the QT tank down and restarted it. 

I had fears initially that I had messed up as the Royal Gramma disappeared into the rocks, which I didn’t realise contained so many fish size caves, and didn’t reappear for 3 days. Luckily when it did emerge it was ravenous and has developed into quite the little character.  The clown goby did not eat the pellets or the frozen cyclopeeze that the fish store sold to me and hasn’t since. It did develop little lumps all over it at one point and I feared that it had white spot (the lumps were yellow though) but upon research I discovered that clown goby’s develop these when they are malnourished. I went to my local shop and bought every type of frozen fish food going and discovered that the clown goby loved every frozen food offered….. Bar cyclopeeze. Anyway its looking nice and plump now and the little lumps have completely gone. So far I might be 

The water parameters are doing well, the only real issue that I have at the moment is with the Three Trochus snails. I lost one; I think it was due to a lack of food as there is next to no micro algae in the tank. I have since bought some nori which I add overnight a couple of days a week but I have yet to observe the remaining 2 eating it. It’s difficult to add it to the tank in a manner which is conductive to snails eating it I find.  

I do plan to add a clown of some sort to the tank in the near future but for now I think I will let the tank mature with its current inhabitants and turn my attention to adding my fist coral. After next payday I will be looking at a way in which I can remove the T5 and fit a LED light, hopefully I can maintain the lid otherwise I will have to come up with a solution to that also. 

Anyway I’m completely new to corals, I have been doing some preliminary reading and I was thinking of picking up a couple of Zoanthids as they have some nice colours, and relatively easy to care for. Does this sound like a good idea? any alternative suggestions? 
 

[Wonderboy]

Thikngs are sounding on track  :]   zoas are the pretty much the best place to start. Palys, too.

[Ratvan]

Mushrooms are fairly hard to kill, but can take over

[Redreidy]

Turns out it is white spot 😡

[Redreidy]

 

Maybe it isn't white spot they had white spots on them last night but it might have been sand its hard to tell. I can't be sure with the clown goby as it lumps have returned but they are yellowish. The Gramma's had more obvious white dots on it last night but they appear to have gone today, however, it is now looking battered and its fins are looking bit torn up as you can see in the picture. 

 

I have tested the water 0 ammonia, >10ppm nitrate, salinity is correct. I have been feeding them twice a day on frozen food, mainly brine shrimp with garlic or Spirulina, or frozen marine mix. I have tried Vitalis flake and pellets but the Clown Goby won't touch it at all and the gramma only nibbles. 

 

What do you guys think, I have the QT tank set up and I have bought a copper based treatment and copper test kit today. Do you think I should move these guys over and start treatment. I am going away for the two nights early in the morning and I don't want to come back to dead fish....

[Redreidy]

So the clown goby looks like death this morning, I didn’t treat them and I need to go shortly... I doubt they will be around by the time I get back 😥.