sfsuphysics
Supporting Member
This is an idea I've been toying around with for a while, but never have had the chance to test it out fully, still don't in fact, but need to refresh the ol' brain and get some fresh perspectives.
The "problem" with a QT tank, is that basically you need to have a whole other tank setup, heat, water flow, a tad of lighting, etc. Now for some of us with larger tanks, it's a bit more problematic because we're used to the larger tanks as far as water conditions are and having a smaller tank where a gallon evaporated changes the salinity drastically more so than off a larger tank, so it's really just a lot more looking after you need to do... oh yeah, and having that extra equipment as well.
So I had an idea for an inline quarantine tank. I know you're probably thinking how is it a quarantine tank then if it shares the same water, which is partially true. However the purpose is to keep pests away from your main tank. So if you can find a way to make sure pests can't get into your main water supply, it seems like it'd be an ok thing to do.
Initially I thought about having UV sterilizer as a way to pull water back to the main system, however there are issues with that being as it's not really a full proof method (but what is really?), but more importantly if you're going to complain about additional equipment, then why are you putting a UV sterilizer into the equation? So I kicked myself in the butt for even considering that as an option, although it might be nice as an in-tank method to try and keep any potential pathogens at bay.
Then I thought some sort of filtering system, a mesh of some sort that is smaller than the size of any pest, and bingo-bango pests stay out of the main system. So my plan was to use coffee filters, they're quite densely packed, just about all pests are larger than the size of the filter holes, and best of all they're cheap! Basically hook it up like a filter sock to catch anything that may go into the tank. Only issues I can see with this are 1) splashing of something out into the tank, but if the water movement is rather slow this shouldn't be an issue 2) Physical movement, I'm unsure about how pests move and could they possibly just climb up the side and over into the tank, this might be like climbing Mt Everest and could be handled by having some more enclosure about what ever you use to hold the coffee filter in place to make sure they don't fall into the tank if they did manage to get to the rim. Finally there's potential breakage of the paper filter, this could be handled with one of those plastic coffee filters people keep mentioning to hold the paper filter in place.
So any thoughts? Feedback? Is the man crazy?
The "problem" with a QT tank, is that basically you need to have a whole other tank setup, heat, water flow, a tad of lighting, etc. Now for some of us with larger tanks, it's a bit more problematic because we're used to the larger tanks as far as water conditions are and having a smaller tank where a gallon evaporated changes the salinity drastically more so than off a larger tank, so it's really just a lot more looking after you need to do... oh yeah, and having that extra equipment as well.
So I had an idea for an inline quarantine tank. I know you're probably thinking how is it a quarantine tank then if it shares the same water, which is partially true. However the purpose is to keep pests away from your main tank. So if you can find a way to make sure pests can't get into your main water supply, it seems like it'd be an ok thing to do.
Initially I thought about having UV sterilizer as a way to pull water back to the main system, however there are issues with that being as it's not really a full proof method (but what is really?), but more importantly if you're going to complain about additional equipment, then why are you putting a UV sterilizer into the equation? So I kicked myself in the butt for even considering that as an option, although it might be nice as an in-tank method to try and keep any potential pathogens at bay.
Then I thought some sort of filtering system, a mesh of some sort that is smaller than the size of any pest, and bingo-bango pests stay out of the main system. So my plan was to use coffee filters, they're quite densely packed, just about all pests are larger than the size of the filter holes, and best of all they're cheap! Basically hook it up like a filter sock to catch anything that may go into the tank. Only issues I can see with this are 1) splashing of something out into the tank, but if the water movement is rather slow this shouldn't be an issue 2) Physical movement, I'm unsure about how pests move and could they possibly just climb up the side and over into the tank, this might be like climbing Mt Everest and could be handled by having some more enclosure about what ever you use to hold the coffee filter in place to make sure they don't fall into the tank if they did manage to get to the rim. Finally there's potential breakage of the paper filter, this could be handled with one of those plastic coffee filters people keep mentioning to hold the paper filter in place.
So any thoughts? Feedback? Is the man crazy?