Corals can SURVIVE!

[jazzsam]

So I just got some rock from a felow reefer who got it from another reefer. So this rock came from a tank breakdown, got put into a container with water, then drained and made it to my house, then put into my new tank.

So from all of this after the sand settled guess what I found........ To be expected...... I found some normal star fish that you would always found and a live and kicking hermit crab. I thought that was fun but expected.

The real fun came the next day when I found...........

Some zoos, Kenya Tree, Feather duster, A few different types of mushrooms, and even some type of anenome! (May be bad and need to be taken care of.) That is just what I found in one day. I really love this hobby!

I always have known that coral can resist a lot of issues but coming from one tank, to a bucket, to dry for at least an hour, to my new tank, to taken out for about another hour to design and STILL survive is crazy!

Also, this is a FOWLR system and I have standard light on it and everything STILL jumpted out and looks great?!?!?!?! I know this is probebly because of the mirror behind the tank because I had lots of problems with this generating way too much light before.

 

[mfisher2112]

Wow! Very cool! I haven't been so luck with rock in the past. Glad you found some cool stuff on yours!

 

[mladencovic]

...
, and even some type of anenome! (May be bad and need to be taken care of.)

I would definitively get rid of them. Even in FO tank, do you really want your whole rock covered in aptasias and majanos?

...

I really love this hobby!

You will love that "bonus" until you find out that you also got flatworms or acro-munching bristleworms or crabs or coral boring snails.

:

 

[jazzsam]

...
, and even some type of anenome! (May be bad and need to be taken care of.)

I would definitively get rid of them. Even in FO tank, do you really want your whole rock covered in aptasias and majanos?

...

I really love this hobby!

You will love that "bonus" until you find out that you also got flatworms or acro-munching bristleworms or crabs or coral boring snails.

:

Yea, I know there can be a lot of bad bonuses and I am ready for the challange in my FOWLR. I would not want that in my reef system but I guess I just view them differently.

 

[Carlo]

Yep, got to agree with the bad "bonuses". Forgot the pesky parasites like Ich that come as "bonus too". Seems most of the "free" stuff that comes on and in the rock is bad for the tank and causes untold grief down the road.

But non-the-less it's always cool to identify the stuff.

Carlo

 

[Phyl]

I would venture to guess that there are precious few in this hobby that run an ich free system. In order to do that you'd need to fallow every single invert (corals included) and TREAT (not just quarantine) every single fish. I don't know anyone who goes to such lengths (except for maybe Carlo).

Enjoy the addition, Sam. Any pictures of the bonuses?

 

[Carlo]

Corals, fish, rock, sand, etc. Basically anything you would put in the tank that has been exposed to another tank or water. You actually don't need to treat anything really although I do use several different dips on corals. If you wait 8 weeks (fallow) before introducing any non-fish to the tank/system the parasites would have died off by then. With fish it's actually much easier as you only need to break the life-cycle (for ich) which only takes 8 days if done correctly. Of course I use a couple dips on them also depending on species.

Yep, I'm super anal about it, no doubt. But I think having a decease free tank/system is priceless and worth every bit of effort!

Carlo

PS I know personally at least half dozen people who do this because I've trained them. But yep your right, very, very few people go to such lengths as it takes a lot of patience and spare tanks/lights/filtration. I also do QTing for a few other people who I do tank maintenance for but they don't count.

 

[Phyl]

But yep your right, very, very few people go to such lengths as it takes a lot of patience and spare tanks/lights/filtration.

 

[jazzsam]

Enjoy the addition, Sam. Any pictures of the bonuses?

Yea, I guess I should start a new tank build thread for this one also. I will try and get some pictures up when I can although everyone knows my camera and camera skills are not that exciting!

 

[mfisher2112]

No worries sam. I still think the good outweighs the bad finds any day. Even though I'm chasing down a midnight marauder right now, I have still found WAY more good things in new additions than bad.

I'm still finding wierd little things how long after putting rock into the tank? Enjoy the discovery!

 

[jazzsam]

Corals, fish, rock, sand, etc. Basically anything you would put in the tank that has been exposed to another tank or water. You actually don't need to treat anything really although I do use several different dips on corals. If you wait 8 weeks (fallow) before introducing any non-fish to the tank/system the parasites would have died off by then. With fish it's actually much easier as you only need to break the life-cycle (for ich) which only takes 8 days if done correctly. Of course I use a couple dips on them also depending on species.

Yep, I'm super anal about it, no doubt. But I think having a decease free tank/system is priceless and worth every bit of effort!

Carlo

PS I know personally at least half dozen people who do this because I've trained them. But yep your right, very, very few people go to such lengths as it takes a lot of patience and spare tanks/lights/filtration. I also do QTing for a few other people who I do tank maintenance for but they don't count.

Carlo, I know you are very very detailed about what to do to put things in your tank and take a lot of steps to do it. Everyone has their own ways of doing things but I am really curious. Have you ever gotten anything to get past you and make it into your system? I would hate to go through all that work and then something STILL make it past me.

 

[concept3]

i'm sure everyone's had at least one thing go past them- it happens to the best of us, ditto

 

[Carlo]

Carlo, I know you are very very detailed about what to do to put things in your tank and take a lot of steps to do it. Everyone has their own ways of doing things but I am really curious. Have you ever gotten anything to get past you and make it into your system? I would hate to go through all that work and then something STILL make it past me.

So far I can honestly say NO. I'll qualify that by saying no signs of ich, velvet or other fish decease, no aptasia or majanos, no type of known coral bugs. Basically there is nothing in the tank that I know of that wasn't put there on purpose by me.

Honestly I'm not that worried about any type of coral bugs as they are pretty easy to fix in my opinion. I also wouldn't get bent out of shape if I were to find a few aptasia or majanos either. I just hate ich and a couple of other parasite type fish deceases more then anything. It's the hardest thing to eradicate in my opinion but quite easy to control from the onset so I do.

I do have "fail safes" in place for ich just in case. For example I run ozone system wide and more importantly have UV sterilizers on the return of EACH tank with specif flow rates that will kill off the parasites. I even run the rates at half what is needed to allow for bulb degradation. In this manner if a specific tank were to get it somehow it wouldn't get passed from tank to tank through the system. In the event that would happen I could then break down one tank and fix the problem.

In my tail of the tank thread I had mentioned someone helping me by moving a fish out of QT (should have been moved to another QT tank) into my trigger tank. The next morning I noticed it and completely broke the tank down, put all fish in that tank back in QT, cooked all the rock, removed sand and changed it out for new/fresh sand, cleaned tank and refilled. It was a pain but took only about 3/4 hours (and 8 days for fish to re QT) from start to finish. Even though I was fairly confident the trigger fish in question was fine I didn't want to take a chance. I wasn't worried about my other tanks because of the strategic use of the UV sterilizer on the return.

That's the closest I've come to a "problem" so far.

Carlo

BTW, before I moved to my current location I did have ich in my tank and it was nasty. After learning my lesson the "hard way" I vowed to myself "never again".

 

[Carlo]

BTW, I'm not preaching QT to anyone. That has to be their choice. Some people who do QT might put a fish in a small tank for a couple of days to watch them. Better then nothing and gives you a chance to see if anything develops. I'll just help with recommendations from time to time on different ways to fix specific problems like "cooking" the rock here in this thread.

QT isn't for everyone. Some people just don't have room to do it and if they were forced to do it would probably rather give up the display tank. Heck I know a few people who even dump water from the bag with fish purchases into the tank and have been doing this for years. No signs of ich or other disturbing things from what I can see. I do feel they have been quite lucky and it's only a matter of time before they get "bit". But for them it works. I would never be that lucky!

Carlo

 

[harryk]

I have to agree with Carlo. I QT everything before it goes in my tank. Inverts and coral for 8 weeks, fish for 3 weeks and i do dip them depending on the species. I did have a bad outbreak of ICH that was almost impossible to eradicate. I did the 6 weeks fallow and that didn't work. I finally did 14 weeks fallow and that worked but i lost hundreds of dollars worth of fish in the interim. So far 3 months now and no Ich. I am pretty confident that I have an Ich free system unless i choose to introduce it.

Mind you I'm not preaching it's just my personal opinion a QT is a necessity with a marine system only because of the amount of money involved and the time most people put into it and also the labor of love involved. I learned my lesson the hard way.

 

[blange3]

I QT all fish for 4 weeks.

Cycle rock at least as long.

I dip all corals, but do not QT, but I don't focus on those weakling stick things. If I kept acros I would probably QT.

Inverts, acclimate and right into the tank.

I have had ich in the FOWLR, all good now. I let it go fallow for 3 months.

It's all fun stuff!

 

[HerbieK]

I got some rock from Hef (thanks Hef sorry your leaving the hobby!), which had a good deal of tag alongs. Coral can survive a 1 hour ride in a tub with no water, just covered in wet paper towel. There was some purple cap, pocillapora and hydnophora that survived the ride and are doing quite nicely! It's funny when I mount frags, I want to make sure I get everything back in the water ASAP. I guess we don't give these critters enough credit - they do survive.

I once saw this picture of a shallow lagoon that was loaded with huge table type acros. When the tide goes out, these guys are sitting there drying out under the tropical sun. Maybe I pamper my frags too much when I am mounting them, but it somehow just doesn't feel right to keep them out of the water for any extended period!

Just my thoughts.

Herb

 

[Carlo]

I QT all fish for 4 weeks.

Cycle rock at least as long.

I dip all corals, but do not QT, but I don't focus on those weakling stick things. If I kept acros I would probably QT.

Inverts, acclimate and right into the tank.

I have had ich in the FOWLR, all good now. I let it go fallow for 3 months.

It's all fun stuff!

Looks like I'm not the only fanatic.
blange3 is it pretty safe to assume you are mostly worried about marine ich and other parasites on the fish and not worried "as much" about other stuff?

If you don't mind me asking, what type of dips are you using for your corals? I mostly just use Iodine but if it's a stick coral then it gets a FWE (flat worm exit) bath too. While I do think you need to QT corals for 6 to 8 weeks to be sure they don't carry ich into the tank I also think the chance of bringing it into the tank this way is pretty low.

If you don't mind a suggestion, do a coral dip and move it to a 10g tank with strong flow in it (even if it's a coral that doesn't like high flow) from a powerhead or two. Hand rotate the coral in the high flow so every part of the coral gets blasted a couple of times. In the event there was any parasite hitch hikers on the coral/rock/plug the high flow stream will knock them off. You could of course combine this with the bath. Or saying it another way do the bath in a 5-10g tank filled part way up water with an Iodine solution in it and the powerhead. Killing two birds (not fish) with one stone.

You can do the same with most inverts also only hold the iodine. In other words give them a good blast of high flow water to knock off any hitch hikers before adding them to the display.

The high flow water trick goes a long way towards knocking off many types of hitch hikers and is pretty easy to do.

blange3 do you find doing QT is a pain or do you get something of a fulfillment from doing it? I myself don't find it to be a pain and in a way gives me "special" time with the animal before it hits the display. What do you think?

Carlo

 

[jazzsam]

I got some rock from Hef (thanks Hef sorry your leaving the hobby!), which had a good deal of tag alongs. Coral can survive a 1 hour ride in a tub with no water, just covered in wet paper towel. There was some purple cap, pocillapora and hydnophora that survived the ride and are doing quite nicely! It's funny when I mount frags, I want to make sure I get everything back in the water ASAP. I guess we don't give these critters enough credit - they do survive.

I once saw this picture of a shallow lagoon that was loaded with huge table type acros. When the tide goes out, these guys are sitting there drying out under the tropical sun. Maybe I pamper my frags too much when I am mounting them, but it somehow just doesn't feel right to keep them out of the water for any extended period!

Just my thoughts.

Herb

I know the feeling. I just mounted a frag to a plug last night and the glue was takig way to long to dry so I got nervous and then I though about............. Wow, they can SURVIVE! In the wild they get so much more abuse but at the same time I am sure they get other things we can not give them.

 

[blange3]

Looks like I'm not the only fanatic.
blange3 is it pretty safe to assume you are mostly worried about marine ich and other parasites on the fish and not worried "as much" about other stuff?

If you don't mind me asking, what type of dips are you using for your corals? I mostly just use Iodine but if it's a stick coral then it gets a FWE (flat worm exit) bath too. While I do think you need to QT corals for 6 to 8 weeks to be sure they don't carry ich into the tank I also think the chance of bringing it into the tank this way is pretty low.

If you don't mind a suggestion, do a coral dip and move it to a 10g tank with strong flow in it (even if it's a coral that doesn't like high flow) from a powerhead or two. Hand rotate the coral in the high flow so every part of the coral gets blasted a couple of times. In the event there was any parasite hitch hikers on the coral/rock/plug the high flow stream will knock them off. You could of course combine this with the bath. Or saying it another way do the bath in a 5-10g tank filled part way up water with an Iodine solution in it and the powerhead. Killing two birds (not fish) with one stone.

You can do the same with most inverts also only hold the iodine. In other words give them a good blast of high flow water to knock off any hitch hikers before adding them to the display.

The high flow water trick goes a long way towards knocking off many types of hitch hikers and is pretty easy to do.

blange3 do you find doing QT is a pain or do you get something of a fulfillment from doing it? I myself don't find it to be a pain and in a way gives me "special" time with the animal before it hits the display. What do you think?

Carlo

Hey Carlo,

You are correct about the marine fish parasites. Hard to treat in a reef environment. Most other stuff can be managed through good husbandry.

I dip all corals in iodine and Flatworm Exit. I drip acclimate first, then add the iodine and FWE. I shake them in the dip container, usually 1 or 2 gallon size, to dislodge hitch hikers. I have some mini jets that would work great in a small container. I'll give the powerhead thing a go.
For zoas I use the Mucho's reef approach - buffered / ph matched freshwater with lugols and FWE. I guess you can tell the other thing I worry about is flatworms.

I don't mind QT'ing. I find it fulfilling in the sense that I know I've given my fish the best chance to acclimate and survive in the new tank. I also feel I owe it to my established tank inhabitants. I have a pair of ocellaris clowns that are 9 years old and an LTA that is 8. I want to protect those guys as well as give the best care to my new guys. And you are right, it is a great way to bond with the new fish.