quarantine, crabs and gravel siphons

[jl-sullivan]

I have three questions-I hope that's not too many to put on one thread:

1.Does anybody have emerald crabs and will they be okay with my clown, clown goby and royal gramma?

2.I didn't previously set up a quarantine tank but decided I better--how do I cycle this so that when I need to use it my fish don't croak?

3.Are there special siphons that won't suck all of the sand out of my aquarium when I "vacuum"?

Thanks in advance for your responses!

[salty420]

1. mine are fine with my royal gramma and clowns. the crabs just wave thier claws at the fish if they get too close. "I pinch!"
2. i don't have one but assume you'd cycle it as if you were going to be using it as a main tank.
3. from what i've been told you should not vacuum the sand, i don't. i like nass snails to help sift my sand. best to have sand sifters to help keep it clean.
hope that helps!

[SigPiPup]

2.) Check out these articles: http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-10/sp/feature/index.php
http://www.wetwebmedia.com/quaranti.htm
http://www.wetwebmedia.com/ca/volume_3/cav3i4/quarantine/Quarantine.htm
http://www.wetwebmedia.com/QuarMarFishes.htm

Along with these articles and the numerous threads on this board you should be able to set-up some form of quarantine. In short, from what I've gathered, you use water from your main tank to fill the QT. To avoid a cycle in the QT you have some sort of filtration running in your main tank that you can put into your QT. For Example, I have a sponge filter running in my sump that I will transfer to my QT when the time arrives. I believe that was suggested in the first article.

3.) I agree with 420. Sand sifting inverts.

Hope that helps. :)

[clown-lover]

3.) I agree with 420. Sand sifting inverts.

Hope that helps. :)

I just got a Gold Head Sleeper Goby.. He has sifted up more sand in a day than those darn Narrsiss(sp) and Cerith snails have in week.. LOL.. But I agree with you.. A nice balanced eco-system is working the best for me by far..

[jl-sullivan]

Cool, I got 2 emerald crabs today. I'll check out something to do my sand sifting for me and will switch my sponge filter thingy out of my new tank and put it in the QT. I have bioballs, live rock and live sand so that shouldn't mess up my filtration in my main tank, right?