+Hydro Posted December 22, 2011 Share Posted December 22, 2011 I wish that the other thread hadn't got locked because I would have posted that when Jake got back from vacation he contacted me. He offered to take good care of me and a friend of mine. Just wanted to thank Jake for that. For the persons questioning my QT methods before, if you knew me you would know I take this very serious and do everything possible to keep my live animals alive. I didn't take it personally because you don't know me, that's cool. Not that I feel like I should explain but this info may help someone readin this. I have a 55 gallon QT running that has been established for many months with a pair of crosshatch triggers in it right now . I use water from my DT tank for water changes and put the fresh saltwater in my DT. My DT is full reef so my levels are always close to 0 on nitrates and phosphates. I've written threads about my QT pocedures on this forum trying to encourage people to do it right and I've literally QTed thousands of dollars in fish and you can bet you do the best job you can when you spend that kind of money. BTW QTing fish isn't just to protect your tank against parasites and disease, it also give the fish a chance to learn that they shouldn't fear you and most importantly that you are the source of food. So throwing a fish in your DT that hides from you every time you approach is hard to feed. The person that questioned my QT procedure first mentioned that they were having trouble with their QT, mainly with amonia. I have some simple advice for you so that you can eliminate your amonia problem. Simply change the water....if you do a 50% water change you will remove 50% of the amonia, its that simple. You can throw a dozen fish in a brand new tank and if you change the water enough you will never have a problem, its that simple. I wanted to mention my QT procedure to offer good advice for anyone willing to read it...if I get fish to live 2 days they never die on me. Usually if they die within a couple days its due to stress of everything that happens to them from catching, holding tanks, planes, more holding tanks, shipped by ground, more holding tanks, put in a bag and brought to yet another aquarium where we finally get to control what happens to them. When I get new arrivals from a LFS I drip acclimate them for 2 hrs or so and then drop them in the QT tank. The QT is a 55 gallon with a korlia, small hang on skimmer, about 20 lbs of live rock with a nice cave, about 1.5" of sand for wrasses, and lids on the tank for jumpers. Once the fish go in the QT I cover the tank with towels to let them chill out. The next day I pull open part of the towel to let some light in and usually offer a little food soaked in vitamins and garlic. Over the next few days I remove more and more of the towels but I usually leave a towel over the top of the tank, the fish feel more secure that way. I wait anywhere from 2 weeks to 4 weeks before I move them. They have to be eating really well and obvioulsy look healthy before I give them the ok. If I order them online I'm a little more aggressive with the acclimation. I usually will give them 20% water from my DT right away and then drip accimate for 2 hrs. removing cup fulls of water every hour or so. Usually the fish need some oxygen and fresh water after being bagged for 12hrs. You got to be careful though in acclimation. When fish arrived after being shipped the water usually has a low ph because of lack of oxygen, so the ph must be brought up slowly or it will cause extra stress on the fish. Anyways for what its worth that's my 2 cents Thanks again RCA. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Hydro Posted December 22, 2011 Author Share Posted December 22, 2011 Pic of my QT and a pic of one of the triggers. The other one still hasn't come out of the cave yet, I've only had them a couple of days. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CapsAzN Posted December 22, 2011 Share Posted December 22, 2011 Jake and his staff are some of the best at customer service. I apologize for coming off harshly. In your original post you said that you ran the quarantine tank with new water from the display, not that the qt had been up and running. May have misread that, but that's how I remember, and again I apologize if I came off rude. I figured you knew what you were doing, maybe I was looking for a little clarification (perhaps I shouldn't play the devil's advocate on message boards). I'm new to quarantining livestock, but I won't add anything without it anymore due to a crypt breakout I suffered that wiped out half my fish a few months ago. It came on a frag...or the water it was in...Poor husbandry, I realize now, but I hope I've learned something. I've been doing 20-30% water changes on my qt daily or every other day in addition to dosing Prime and Stability. I dropped the ball on properly cycling the qt, so I'm trying to be vigilant and make the cycle less harmful to an already sensitive fish. Please don't take my previous comments as a personal affront, I question merely to further my understanding, and perhaps others' while I'm at it. Thanks for the excellent advice on the quarantine, by the way, I may find use for some of your methods in the future. I'm off to find your previous posts if I can. I don't want to hijack another of your threads, especially one meant to plug RCA's great customer service. I am sincerely sorry if I caused you any trouble. --Tom Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Hydro Posted December 23, 2011 Author Share Posted December 23, 2011 No worries, its all good. Before I put the fish in the QT I do an 80% water change using water from my DT, that's what I was referring to. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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