Well, I've been reefin for almost 6 years, and have never once had a
quarantine tank, but I've decided to start one up, maybe a 20g.
So how do I go about it? Specifically, what water do I use? I would like to somehow use some of the water that's in my 70g show tank so I don't have to re-drip acclimate the critters again when they're ready to be placed in the tank.
I had an idea. Can I use my "dirty" water from my water changes to partially fill the quarantine tank? Sure the water quality isn't ideal, but it's pretty good, and more importantly, similar to the water parameters in which the new resident will soon reside. Also, I don't have space to keep a QT tank set up permanently, so using water-change water would prevent cycling.
What equipment would I need if I want to be able to set up and tear down the QT? Is a bare-bones tank w/ a powerhead, a hang-on filter and a sm. NO fluorescent good enough? Surely no LR, sand, and all that, right?
I've been lucky I guess, so far, and have yet to every have an incident in which I've been sorry I didn't QT, (except for the fact that sometimes I buy a fish, it disappears behind the LR and dies). The places I buy have live guarantees, so a QT right there is paying for itself, I figure.
