SPS QT Tank How Tos

[Horace]

Hey guys, I think I am going to bite the bullet and setup a SPS QT tank. I used to fear red bugs, but honestly the crap going around these days seems so damn prevalent that if you trade corals, its nearly guaranteed your going to get AEFW or similar. I am going to have far too much invested in my new tank to allow some *$!@ like that to wipe out all my investment of time and money.

So what I am asking is if you were to setup an SPS QT,

1. How would you do it?
2. What gear would you use?
3. Most importantly what process would you use to treat/QT the corals prior to taking the "rubber" off .

As a side note, I am actually tempted to say screw trading and just buy nearly 1 of every coral ORA produces and call it a day. Assuming I can get the frags straight out of the bag from them (ie they dont ever hit the LFS tanks) I think i should be confident they are pest free. Thoughts?

[ClownNut]

cut the base off, make sure no bare area(if any glue over those areas) and dip. have kept me AEFW and other bugs free for years.

[Horace]

Originally Posted by ClownNut

cut the base off, make sure no bare area(if any glue over those areas) and dip. have kept me AEFW and other bugs free for years.

Thanks but thats not a QT strategy, and honestly I dont think that is a safe-enough approach. I think its been shown that a single dip and even cutting off the base isnt good enough.

[ClownNut]

Originally Posted by Horace

Thanks but thats not a QT strategy, and honestly I dont think that is a safe-enough approach. I think its been shown that a single dip and even cutting off the base isnt good enough.

then you just dont do sps anymore, because everytime you add anything to the QT tank the clock reset. with your standard, 6 months qt will be minimum which mean, you have to add all the sps to your display tank at once and never add anything again. or you adding any type corals every 6 months. in that case you QT will be another display tank.

i personally havent found anything that will live through the dips i do. so if you have something that will make through the dips. then more than likely the QT wont do anything for you anyway.

[Bluemon]

I honestly think dipping and swirling them around vigorously does the job. But if you really want do a qt tank, just get a shallow tank, a frag rack and some good lights and maybe a hob filter and some powerheads. I'd just watch them closely for a week or so

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[ClownNut]

Originally Posted by Bluemon

I honestly think dipping and swirling them around vigorously does the job. But if you really want do a qt tank, just get a shallow tank, a frag rack and some good lights and maybe a hob filter and some powerheads. I'd just watch them closely for a week or so

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if you don't cut the base off and make sure no bare spot for laying eggs. the dip(s) don't do anything to eggs. you might as well save the money not buying the dips. if you doing a week and call it good. you are better off not doing the Qt, at least that way you don't have to waste the money getting all the equipment.just like wearing a raincoat go out in a rain and take it off after 1 min.

[jda]

I keep some substrate in the bottom, a few peppermint shrimp and emerald crabs. They will really clean the frags. I feed them pellets with an auto feeder so that the tank has some nutrients. I use the same salt (duh) and exact same lights as the display with a good skimmer and flow. I use a 58G Oceanic.

I just dip, inspect and replace the plugs. Most importantly, I am really choosy who I get frags from - I will pay a lot more to get them from a quality source. I will never take an AQ stuff since these are the ones that are nearly always full of pests. If I take a wild acro, I want frags instead of colonies.

[WLachnit]

Originally Posted by jda

I keep some substrate in the bottom, a few peppermint shrimp and emerald crabs. They will really clean the frags. I feed them pellets with an auto feeder so that the tank has some nutrients. I use the same salt (duh) and exact same lights as the display with a good skimmer and flow. I use a 58G Oceanic.

I just dip, inspect and replace the plugs. Most importantly, I am really choosy who I get frags from - I will pay a lot more to get them from a quality source. I will never take an AQ stuff since these are the ones that are nearly always full of pests. If I take a wild acro, I want frags instead of colonies.

I'm curious as to why just a frag and not a whole colony from the wild? Is that because a frag has a better probability of adjusting to a tank or is it an environmental thing?

[jda]

I can keep an eye on a frag and make sure that it does not have any pests. Too many nooks and crannies in colonies for pests to hide. ...kinda like lice and crew cuts.

[WLachnit]

Originally Posted by jda

I can keep an eye on a frag and make sure that it does not have any pests. Too many nooks and crannies in colonies for pests to hide. ...kinda like lice and crew cuts.

Haha....makes complete sense.

[Horace]

So are you guys using multiple dips? Bayer...etc?

Again please share the details? What dips? How many dips? How long?

The devil is in the details

[ClownNut]

cut base & inspect for bare spot. 500ml tank water with 2 caps of revive and 10 drops of kent iodide. 5 mins and turkey baster for 1 min before reglue to new plug.
if AEFW or AEN or MEN or RB found, garbage can it goes.

[Captain smoke]

Last year I had a outbreak of AEFW in my display. I bought a JBJ20 frag tank, Eshopps skimmer, Ecotech Radion Gen 2, cheap heater. I removed every SPS From my tank and cut off any areas that was affected by the warm.

I dipped my SPS every couple days in bayer or Coral RX and used a baster. I also cut off all SPS on any rock work.

For new Corals I add to the frag tank I cut them off of any frag plugs and glue it to a new plug, I inspect them with a set of loope glasses, then I dip in Coral RX 3x for two weeks. For corals that are in the frag tank I dip once a week. Before I add any coral to my DT or sell I inform them to dip the corals 3x week for 2 weeks. I keep a record of my dips.

Its been a year in October since my outbreak and I successfully be the AEFW and I only lost 1 coral to the warm and 1 coral to my learning. If anyone needs a write up of how I beat them Ill be happy to share. Since doing my QT on new frags I've also beat Red bugs within a week buying the frag. QT everything

[jda]

After I take everything off of their plugs and stuff...

I use Coral Rx in a top-down viewer - it is clear on the bottom. I want to see if anything comes off. If I see something, then I dip more. If not, then into the QT tank where I observe and look for months, or more. I don't dip again unless I see something.

I don't like Bayer unless I have to since I cannot see if anything comes off. Knowing what you are dealing with is most of the battle, IMO.

I am VERY careful about where I get frags, BTW.

[WLachnit]

What is the life cycle of AEFW eggs?. How long before they hatch?


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[ClownNut]

Originally Posted by WLachnit

What is the life cycle of AEFW eggs?. How long before they hatch?


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http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2346292

[sfdan]

My very minimalistic SPS QT setup:

20 gallon tank, MP10 for circulation, heater for heating. Egg-crate for the frags. Lighting is a 4x24" T5 light with 2 ATI coral+, 2 ATI blue plus. Tunze ATO. No other equipment. Measured the PAR at the frag rack and it is about 200-250. A little on the low end but the corals will survive.

In preparation for getting frags I'll do a 15 gallon WC in my DT and use the water to fill up the SPS QT tank (I don't fill the QT tank all the way so there is less splashing).

Get a bunch of frags at once. Be it online, other people or the LFS. Once you put any new coral in with your existing ones, the timer resets. So you want to do it in batches.

Step 1: Inspect all the frags very closely. If I'm getting the frags from an online merchant that I really trust, I might leave it on the frag plug at this point, but if I'm getting it from somewhere I don't trust (like my local LFSes), I'll immediately cut the frags off the plug and do the initial dip unmounted.

If I find eggs in the inspection I'll either throw that frag away or clip off a small section of that I can closely inspect and see doesn't have any eggs. Just because I can't see any eggs doesn't mean they can't be there, but I'd much rather chop the frag than try to salvage a larger piece with eggs I can plainly see.

Step 2: bayer dip. As an aside, this OXO steamer is by far my new favorite tool to assist my dips. Really easy to go from regular saltwater --> dip water --> back while minimizing handling (or mishandling) the frags.

Then inspect the water coming out from the bayer dip and look for any bad guys. If I see something like an AEFW I'll make a note of it but no reason to panic. I'll probably double back and re-inspect all the frags to see if I can find bites, but generally I'll have already seen this.

Step 3: Put them in the QT tank. The light is setup to turn on with the lights on my reef tank, so now the monitoring begins.

Step 4: Every 3rd or 4th day, do the whole process over again. Take out all the corals from the QT tank, inspect them for any bites/eggs, do a bayer dip, and inspect the bayer water after the dip is over. While the dip is going on I normally do a 6-7 gallon WC for the SPS QT tank.

I've now used this setup twice so I'm pretty happy with it.

The first time was when I got a couple of montis from a non-local LFS I knew nothing about. I think these were in QT for ~4 weeks, dipped every week and saw no evidence of any bad guys so they went into the DT.

The most recent time was a shipment of 10 frags was from a very reputable online retailer, and over 3 weeks and 6 dips I saw no sign of any bad guys, so after that point I moved them all to the DT.

I've dealt with AEFWs before and I'm pretty confident I can weed them out in the inspection/dipping phase, but I do like the extra confidence I get from monitoring them over a longer period of time. And none of the corals that have gone through the QT have had any health issues, all of them are happy and growing in my DT.