Coral quarantine

Not necessary.

Ich is already in your tank, but hopefully the tank environment is healthy and your fish are healthy enough to avoid an outbreak!

Some coral eat the Ich protozoan in it's floating stage.
Another reason to enjoy the coral animals!

As Mark said, you will definately have ich in your reef tank.  That really isn't a problem.  It is providing conditions so it doesn't take over that is the problem.  But there is no way to avoid ich with a reef tank.  Sorry.

Adam

If you quarantine all the new corals you get then you will have to aclimate them twice. Once to the qt tank and once to the main tank. I belive that this would cause extra stress on the corals and you would have a reduced rate of success.

ffc3,   Please listen to pistonfister. He knows what he is talking about. The same goes for fish. You are stressing them twice by using a quarantine tank. If anyone here uses a quarantine tank successfully, please speak up and give us some details.

Adam said it well. provide a healthy environment for fish and coral to be introduced into the best possible conditions to fend off the protazoan parasites and other stress induced illnesses.
After years of experience, we don't bother with quarantine tanks.

Please don't get the idea that this will keep fish from stressing and getting infested with ich, but what I am saying is that comparing the two methods, I've experienced personally and have heard from other experienced hobbyists, a better success rate by eliminating the quarantine tank. Spend the effort you would on a quarantine tank on determining how to give the organisms a healthy environment.
Then if your new fish gets ich, which happens often anyway, even when coming from a quarantine tank, it can recover!

Kam,   Experienced hobbyists don't use UV. It kills everything and that is not good. A healthy tank supports tons of symbiotic life. Don't disturb the balance by killing it. UV is used by some maintenance companies for large tanks. But those are usually not true reef tanks but rather FWLR tanks. The absence of coral means nothing is comsuming the bad microbes!

If this advice goes against things you've read and heard, I'm not surprised. There is a lot of misinformation and antiquated information out there.

ffc3 wrote: What's the point of  hospital tanks and quarantine tanks if ich is still going to be in the reef tank?  The other forums said that if the reef tank remains fishless all the ich and any other parasites would die because they would not have a host and medication would kill the parasites in the quarantine or hospital tank.  I had to take out all my corals and rocks to catch all my fish so I'm just frustrated that I might have wasted my time.

The parasites would not die.  That is simply not true.  Now a UV sterilizer helps, and it does kill everything that goes through it, but you can't force all your water through it.  And there really isn't a way to quarantine corals, because in adding something to the water to kill the parasite, you will kill the coral.  You can reduce the ich (Cryptocaryon irritans) or whatever else by the methods mentioned here, but you can not get rid of it.  This frustration may be exactly why many people don't set up hospital tanks, for the reason that they don't see them working.  However they do work to some degree.  You can quarantine your fish and remove all the parasites currently on them, get them healthy, then put them in your reef tank and hope they are able to defend themselves from whatever is in your tank.

Adam

Wow, while I was typing that last response Mark made two more posts, and I didn't even notice them.  I think he answered things well, I guess I didn't need to post anything.  Sorry if our quick responses looked like know-it-all-flaming-answers.  Just trying to help.

Adam

I'm not trying to offend anyone here, especially since I have only a couple of months experience, but do you guys consider the people at reefkeeping magazine and other seemingly professional sources online "inexperienced" because they feel very strongly about the pros of quarantine.

ffc3, I am sure the magazine you are reading has very good info. One thing that you will find in this hobbie is differant opions and veiws. Millions of them .
in fact what works for one may not work for another. There is a lot to be said from getting advise from experanced hobbiests however no advise from anyone is 100%. If you feel strongly one way than go ahead and try it. you may be right. Just remember you are dealing with life and it should be treated with respect. The advise I give is just based on my own personal experance. So I guess my point is just becuase a magazine says somthing doesnt make it 100%. The only way to find out is to gather as much info as you can and try it. Hope that helps somewhat. Oh BTW what does ffc3 stand for?

Maybe I don't understand the biology of ich, but I don't know why you couldn't have a tank with no ich...  Doesn't ich require a fish host to complete it's lifecycle?  If that host is not found, the parasite dies doesn't it?  So if you set up a tank, cycle the rock without any fish for a month or two, then quarantine each and every fish for a month or two before adding to the tank, wouldn't that ensure a tank with no ich?  I realize that ich is only one of many ailaments that can infect a fish and this may do nothing to reduce those, but...  If that is in fact the lifecycle of ich, I think ffc3's question regarding quarantining coral is very interesting...

Jfinch, I'm not a biologist either but from what I've read, the parasite breaks out of the encysts in the sand and rock and finds a fish to form a cyst on.  I'm thinking the only way ich can be always present in aquariums is that when the parasites come out of the sand and rock to find a host to grow and doesn't find one it can turn back into an encyst.  That seems unlikely to me but possible.  Even if it is possible.  How often can it do that without dieing because it needs nutrients from the fish to survive?