Coralgrowing

You finally found that one showpiece coral that your tank is missing. You have the perfect spot for it in your show tank, but wait you shouldn’t just put it in your tank. You already know the coral has to be slowly acclimated to your tanks water temperature and chemical parameters, but there’s more to do here. It doesn’t matter if your new coral comes from the ocean or from your trusted local fish shop, first stop should be quarantine.

Why?
You don’t know what you got for free with your new coral. Sure the coral looks very healthy and is nicely colored but you could have gotten some unwanted hitchhikers with it. Nudibranchs, flatworms, pyramid snails and box snails just to name a few, are animals you don’t want in your reef aquarium. Even if you don’t see any of them on the first inspection of your newly acquired specimen they can still be there.

How long?
Quarantine should take a minimum of 3 weeks, although most reefers keep their newly acquired animals in quarantine for a month or even 6 weeks. You probably heard this one before: “only bad things happen fast in a reef tank” Patience is the key to success here.

What setup do I need?
A proper quarantine setup needs the same as any other tank: heating, filtering and lighting. Filtering can be done in several ways, some people have a complete quarantine system with sump and skimmer but even a canister filter will do. If you plan to have several different species in the quarantine tank at the same time, carbon filtering should be used to filter the chemicals out of the water. To maintain a good water quality in the quarantine tank frequent water changes should be done, at least 15% water should be changed twice a week. Many people even advice a 15% water change every other day.

Great even more cost…
Yes an additional tank, pump, heater and lights will cost some money. Have a good look at your show tank, how many corals do you have in there? Do you want to risk loosing them all after introducing one new coral to your system? I didn’t think so…