Tankerini

Just wandering if you need to quarantine shrimps, crabs and snails...

Taku

Yes, all creatures should be quarantined until your 100% sure they are free from infection and/or disease.

defcon11

How long do you quarantine small snails?

Taku

Well, for freshwater snails, i do one week.

NirvanaandTool

Wouldnt you need a separate QT tank for inverts then for saltwater? Since your fish QT tank will be subjected to copper medication treatments which is harmful to inverts?

Oil_Fan

That's only if it was subjected meds. If it's only been used for quarantining fish and such, then the water would be fine.

Allie

All new things should be quarantined. You should have a QT tank and a hospital tank going.

Taku

This is why it is a good idea when you QT anything to change the water and let it cycle afterwards.

NirvanaandTool

True but in order to do this you'd need a separate hospital tank like Allie said to treat any sick fish. QT would just be for isolating new fish/inverts/corals and determining if they are sick.

This would be a really good idea but inverts/corals would have to be in the QT tank for 1-2 months in elevated temps to starve out any fish disease on them. You'd need the appropriate lighting for this too.
I dont know about everyone else but I just cant afford to get another tank for a hospital tank and set up my qt tank for coral.

Oil_Fan

Neither can I. I just have my QT tank only. I've only ever had to use it once as a hospital tank though when I had a sick clown fish. Unfortunately he never made it. I totally drained it after that and changed out all media. Then refilled it with water from my main tank from my water changes to continue to use it as a QT tank.

As for using it to quarantine corals...forget that...I don't have the lights to do that. And I'm not about to upgrade them for my QT. And I've never quarantined any of my inverts as they really need LR and LS to properly survive. Maybe I'm just lucky that I never had an issue with any of them.