Good or bad qt Process 2 part question

[trillyen]

Ok i was just wondering if it would be a bad husbandry idea to intentionally buy a sick (hardy fish, Damsel..etc) or a harder to keep sick fish (pacific blue tang, juvi emperor angel) and try to nurse them back to health just to see what your skill level is at for a qt tank process

i know my tanks arent ready for this yet but i was just wondering

Second, since my qt tank is so small would it be ok to buy 1 tang then qt him for the proper amount of time, then add him to 1 of my sumps for a bit while the other tang that im getting later is in the qt tank, then put the other tang in my other refuge while the third tang is in the qt tank, and then when it is time to add them all at the same time in my display would that be the correct way to do this process

Now a 3 part question
Dr. lee said that it is bad husbandry to hypo a fish for no reason in one of his stickys. So my question is when you qt a fish if you dont notice any blemishes or ick or any thing what is the proper holding time on the fish in the qt process

1 last question

I remembered that when i cleaned out my qt tank i removed the all in 1 hood and put a bigger 75 gallon (hadnt been used in a while) bio wheel in the tank, the only filter media i couldnt reuse was the bio wheel from the all in 1 hood because it was so big but i put all the sponges, and carbon in the tank and big filteer that came out of the new one.

! thing i did add was a carbon sponge filter media cartridge from my fresh water 55 gl tank and im wondering if that didnt start a cycle, i mean i know all the fresh water bacteria was killed by the salt water, but im just wondering if the debree and what not didnt have some kind of negative reaction, cause my ammonia is up to 8 ppm and my nitrite is like 2 ppm. How ever i did introduce live rock into the system for a short period of time but im for sure it was already cured i could tell by the smell.

Does cured live rock start a cycle in a tankl that lr has never been introduced to??

i just put little pieces of rubble in the tank

i think it actually may have started a cycle in my 75 gallon but only a nitrite cycle not a dang ammonia cycle, i think the trite cylce it started in my 75 was only like .50 to 1.0, but that could be because of all the water volume in my 75 gallon

If adding new live rock thats cured starts a cycle that sucks cause im still not done aquascaping my 75 or 125 gallon tank yet!!!

 

[trillyen]

any one come on man
L
LOL I just got alot of live rock today for all my tanks and I'm sure its gonna send all my tanks into a big cycle

Here we gooo!

 

[Kurt_Nelson]

Sorry... you're bouncing around so much in your post, I'm not sure what we're talking about! Sorry I'm not following, but...

There is no separate "nitrite cycle" or "ammonia cycle." There's just one cycle. You'll first see ammonia, then as the ammonia builds you'll see nitrites, then you'll see nitrates. As the nitrites are peaking, your ammonia levels are dropping off and may become zero before your nitrites go to zero. Once your ammonia AND nitrite levels both are at zero... you've cycled. You now have a tank full of nitrates that you need to reduce by doing water changes. It's possible, depending on how often you were testing for ammonia, that you missed it showing up.

Truly cured live rock, depending on how long it was out of the water before getting into your tank, might not cycle at all. I used cured rock in my tank, and I just saw a tiny "blip" of ammonia show up, never saw the nitrites, but then nitrates started showing up. Worked like a charm.

Regarding your QT question... I wouldn't buy a fish to just practice on. Nursing a sick fish back to health is a pain and a lot of it has nothing to do with "skill." A lot of it is just plain blind luck. As you stock your tank, if you're like me, every fish you buy (even the healthy ones) won't end up in your main tank. I'm thinking you'll get your shot at trying to nurse a fish back to health whether you want to or not.

 

[trillyen]

thanks man

Yeah I'm starting to a little ammonia in all my tanks, just like .25 ppm not much and thats like 3 days after I put in the rock.

After they all cycle I'm gonna just test like every three days I have been test 2 times a day.

My qt spiked harder than ive ever seen ANY tank spike before and is still in a 2 ppm spike a week later

I think its cause of the live rock though.

Thanks again man