Mr. Saltwater Tank TV Friday Am Quick Tip #99: Ask Before You Buy
If your new finned friend came from a hyposalinity environment, you need to raise the salinity slowly over the course of a week of more. Therefore, when shopping either at your local fish store or online, ask this question before you buy.
Browse the Store! Questions?
Thanks for the great tip Mark!
Good tip Mark, I ran into this once and adjusted my quarantine tank to match the level. 🙂
And just to be paranoid I would suggest ALWAYS testing the salinity of every fish bag that comes in your door.
Jason…a good idea as well!
Thank you for helping me and many others save and enjoy or creatures better!
Here is a quarentine question for you. Can snails and or hermit crabs bring bad things into our tanks? I ask this because I feel pretty sure flat worms came in to my tanks this way. If this is true how the heck can one kill hitch hikers on new crew members?
Awesome shirt!! Haha
i often wonder if lfs do this as a marketing tool. of course they dont want disease in their system. but also who would buy that graet looking yellow tang if was covered in white spots. a question about arnolds comment. i would love to set up a qt tank and leave it running but who wants to look at a totally bare tank. is there anything safe we can put in there to keep things interesting, or is this defeating the whole purpose of a qt. and after watching the first two installments of qt, im wondering if after you qt a fish for 30 days or more, does the whole tank need to be sterilized after. especially if we are proactively treating with meds. or will running carbon and a skimmer rid the tank of the med so its ready for the next fish down the road.
Great tip!
Hey marc,
Awesome tip thanks so much
i was miss informed about this
By an lfs here locally thank goodness
I did not have any issues.
I do drip acclimation but i
was unaware of the potential
danger to my new friend so thanks again
Great vid !!!
Your tank looks awesome so clean
do you run some type of reactor or what
Thanks again for the vid have a great
Weekend.
Robert…thanks for the complement! I run a phosphate and activated carbon reactor. All the details of my build can be found here
ska d…uneducated hobbyists wouldn’t know that a yellow tang with white spots is a bad thing! All they see is the fish.
A QT tank should have PVC pieces for the fish to hide. And as discussed in the Quarantine guide, if there are no fish in the tank, no need to keep it running.
arnold..it is a small chance that inverts could bring in pests to your tank. Colonies of coral would be most suspect.
You can’t pick off the hitchikers on inverts. Some you can like large flat worms, but others are too small to see. Best thing to do is to QT the inverts if you want to be uber careful, and of course dip all incoming corals.
I love all your tips, but the shirt is hilarious although the outbreak was not 🙁
Top Tip … Top Top… 😀
Wow Mark! You didn’t smile once during this quick tip. Must have been an early morning or maybe you caught the dog humping your pillow again… 😀 thanks for that tip Mark!
Truly love your show. About one year in to the hobby ! question : I have a rose bubble tip and a long tenticale anemones ilodine supplementing what are your views on this and also what do you recommend for lighting meaning how many actinic , days & purple or pink Thanks Mark !!!
phil…the anemones don’t need the iodine so you can cut that out. Lighting is largely your taste other than I like to run my main lights no more than 8 hrs a day.
the dude…the dog humped my leg…I was upset!
jrockfilmflam…I wear it to remind me how important QT is.
Hi Mark. Is there a pair of the new black snowflake clownfish I thought I saw in your tank?
at our store we do weekly salinity and PH checks and write them on each tank to make it easier for our customers 😀
I love your shirt!
Hey Mark,
I am just getting into this hobby. I just bought my first tank, a 90 gal. with stand for dirt cheap. I want to get my water cycling as soon as I get my bulkheads replaced. This 90 gal tank and stand only set me back $250, of course its used and from a good source. What do I need to do to prepair it for water. I notice a lot of Coralline algea attached to the sides and back. I know I should take care of this cause it is good. Although how do I know that there are no lurking diseases? What is the best thing to do with a used tank?
Personally I’d sterilize the tank. Coraline will re-grow and starting with a clean looking tank is much better than one covered in dead coraline as the coraline will die very quickly once you drain the tank to move it.
Tip #100 better be a good one! 😛
Whats the best way to bring your QT water up to match your main tank, I suspect dumping a little salt in it every day is NOT the way to do it. I was thinking replacing the evaporation with the correct level of salt water? slowly!
Thanks for the great tip, and by the way what kind of clowns are those? They kind of look like picasso perculas. Also, have they began hosting the RBTA?
Thanks! My uncle is a marine biologist and said that many retailer stores do this,thanks for answering my question!
He mark, did you know that if you want to get an anemone off a rock you can blow a powerhead at the base of it . It should detach itself after half an hour.
Hope this can be a Friday morning quick tip.
Thanks, bye Mark