QT

[Pslreefer]

I don’t QT anything and never had an issue in over a decade.

 

why do reefers these days, as in the past 3-4 years feel that a completely sterile tank is the way to run a tank?

[seabass]

Trying to prevent the introduction of disease is different than having a sterile tank.  In fact, I'd say that lately people have become more aware of the need for biodiversity (especially since so many people are starting with dry rock).

[Pslreefer]

Well sure to prevent introductions of diseases bit a stable tank with healthy fish 9 out 10 times will be able to fight off most any disease or parasites. 
 

Therefore qt is not necessary and actually causes much more stress on fish, which accounts for the high mortality rate one often reads about from other hobbyists, wondering why their fish dies in qt. 

Back in the day one rarely read about disease/parasites killing livestock en masse.

[Tired]

As a general rule, it's better to have to treat a sick fish in a quarantine, than to get it into your main tank and have to deal with the disease in all your fish. Quarantining fish is important unless you plan to have just 1. If you haven't had any problems, great, you got lucky. 

If healthy fish almost always fought off disease without that disease spreading to other fish, diseases wouldn't exist. And what about that 1 in 10 times it doesn't work? 

Badly done quarantine can be stressful, sure. I always wonder why people don't cycle their quarantines- it's not as though it's hard, if you already have a tank up. Just put a sponge in the filter somewhere for a bit to get bacteria on it, then put it in your quarantine when you get fish. I don't understand the quarantines that are completely empty or just have one pipe in them, either- at least put several pipes in! They can be sterilized. If you have to quarantine something that burrows, give it a bowl of sand. Heck, put some fake plants in there as hidey-holes. 

Quarantining corals is not a bad idea, but a good dip and close inspection will generally catch any problems. 

Quarantining live rock is a decent idea to check for crabs and such. 

 

There has been a surge of people starting with dry rock, I know I've seen plenty of discussions about it. I think it doesn't help that it's easy to go online and find horror stories about what came in on someone's rock, and new people may not realize that's fairly rare. I also notice that most of the types of places a new reefer looks for information don't talk about how the worms and other creepy-crawlies on live rock are a good thing. And I wonder if it might be at all related to the people who tried to ULN systems- a lot of things on rock that are normally harmless will definitely be a problem if you're starving the entire tank. 

[Clown79]

3 hours ago, Tired said:

As a general rule, it's better to have to treat a sick fish in a quarantine, than to get it into your main tank and have to deal with the disease in all your fish. Quarantining fish is important unless you plan to have just 1. If you haven't had any problems, great, you got lucky. 

If healthy fish almost always fought off disease without that disease spreading to other fish, diseases wouldn't exist. And what about that 1 in 10 times it doesn't work? 

Badly done quarantine can be stressful, sure. I always wonder why people don't cycle their quarantines- it's not as though it's hard, if you already have a tank up. Just put a sponge in the filter somewhere for a bit to get bacteria on it, then put it in your quarantine when you get fish. I don't understand the quarantines that are completely empty or just have one pipe in them, either- at least put several pipes in! They can be sterilized. If you have to quarantine something that burrows, give it a bowl of sand. Heck, put some fake plants in there as hidey-holes. 

Quarantining corals is not a bad idea, but a good dip and close inspection will generally catch any problems. 

Quarantining live rock is a decent idea to check for crabs and such. 

 

There has been a surge of people starting with dry rock, I know I've seen plenty of discussions about it. I think it doesn't help that it's easy to go online and find horror stories about what came in on someone's rock, and new people may not realize that's fairly rare. I also notice that most of the types of places a new reefer looks for information don't talk about how the worms and other creepy-crawlies on live rock are a good thing. And I wonder if it might be at all related to the people who tried to ULN systems- a lot of things on rock that are normally harmless will definitely be a problem if you're starving the entire tank. 

I never qt'd fish before but i lost a purple firefish and the new fish to velvet. It happened so quickly there wasn't time to get in a hospital tank and meds. 

 

Meds now are pretty impossible to get here so i qt all fish now.

 

 i think a qt is a great practice 

 

 

[Tamberav]

8 hours ago, Pslreefer said:

Well sure to prevent introductions of diseases bit a stable tank with healthy fish 9 out 10 times will be able to fight off most any disease or parasites. 
 

Therefore qt is not necessary and actually causes much more stress on fish, which accounts for the high mortality rate one often reads about from other hobbyists, wondering why their fish dies in qt. 

Back in the day one rarely read about disease/parasites killing livestock en masse.

I QT my fish and have a high survival rate...I keep leopards and other somewhat delicate fish. I have a pencil Wrasse and longnose butterfly coming out of QT and going into an observation tank tomorrow. 

 

My DT is not sterile as I use live rock and such..my rock is over 10 years old at this point.

 

I see fish die in janky QT tanks and I see fish die in established tanks to disease too.

 

Here is the big reason for me. I use QT to train difficult to feed fishes onto prepared foods without competition of established fish and so they can adapt in a lower light low stress environment and get FAT while observing or treating for disease before entering the highly competitive display tank. 

 

People should probably stop using short cuts for QT if it's something delicate or easily stressed. QT is totally fine if done right. Most just have too many fish in too small of a tank or an uncycled tank. Fish hate white PVC so it shouldn't be the only thing in the tank. 

 

QT is an amazing tool.... Just not 10g PVC tanks filled with toxic copper and multiple fish while using a janky color reading test kit of light pink vs lighter pink (extreme example of many bads).