Quarantine 40-50 fish from existing 500 gallon reef

[Jeffdstafford]

I guess I really had this coming to me..I've been reef keeping for 10 years, and until this month and the ich outbreak, the 500 gallon reef was doing well I was starting to feel pretty confident in my abilities as a reef keeper, so I guess that's exactly when something comes along to make you feel like it's day 1 again!

Here's the tank now, and so you can see the scope of horror it's going to be attempting to get all these guys out of the tank with 1100 lbs of live rock with coral all over it. Man I'm an idiot for not quarantining...

 

[Brew12]

I guess I really had this coming to me..I've been reef keeping for 10 years, and until this month and the ich outbreak, the 500 gallon reef was doing well I was starting to feel pretty confident in my abilities as a reef keeper, so I guess that's exactly when something comes along to make you feel like it's day 1 again!

Here's the tank now, and so you can see the scope of horror it's going to be attempting to get all these guys out of the tank with 1100 lbs of live rock with coral all over it. Man I'm an idiot for not quarantining...

Wow, that is a beautiful system!

 

[Jeffdstafford]

Thanks! I'm planning to upgrade to a ~1200gallon system next year, so I really want to get the ich issue/fallow period gone before the new tank gets going..that's what is motivating me to undertake this now

 

[melypr1985]

I guess I really had this coming to me..I've been reef keeping for 10 years, and until this month and the ich outbreak, the 500 gallon reef was doing well I was starting to feel pretty confident in my abilities as a reef keeper, so I guess that's exactly when something comes along to make you feel like it's day 1 again!

Here's the tank now, and so you can see the scope of horror it's going to be attempting to get all these guys out of the tank with 1100 lbs of live rock with coral all over it. Man I'm an idiot for not quarantining...

Boy can I imagine how that's going to be. I did this with a 75 gallon over a year ago and it took me something like 5 hours total. Not including the two days I wasted trying to catch the fish without taking the rocks out. it was a huge pain, but I didn't lose any corals or fish during the ordeal. So that's something

 

[Jeffdstafford]

Boy can I imagine how that's going to be. I did this with a 75 gallon over a year ago and it took me something like 5 hours total. Not including the two days I wasted trying to catch the fish without taking the rocks out. it was a huge pain, but I didn't lose any corals or fish during the ordeal. So that's something

That's impressive if it was only 5 hours! I'm made the mistake of trying to catch fish with rocks in the tank, and won't ever bother with that again..fish are way too smart for that! I'll just drain the tank, removal all rock into containers, scoop the fish, then refill rock and water..sounds so simple right now...

 

[melypr1985]

That's impressive if it was only 5 hours! I'm made the mistake of trying to catch fish with rocks in the tank, and won't ever bother with that again..fish are way too smart for that! I'll just drain the tank, removal all rock into containers, scoop the fish, then refill rock and water..sounds so simple right now...

LOL. I had lots of help from my husband who kept our son out of my hair while I did it. That makes things like this tons easier! I had all the containers ready along with the QT already set up and running. The fish went from the tank to the QT with zero stops in between. Of course I was only dealing with ick and they didn't need any dips before-hand. The worst part was that I LOVED my aquascape and it was never the same when I tried to put it back together. You'll do great! Be sure to keep us posted on your progress.

 

[Jeffdstafford]

LOL. I had lots of help from my husband who kept our son out of my hair while I did it. That makes things like this tons easier! I had all the containers ready along with the QT already set up and running. The fish went from the tank to the QT with zero stops in between. Of course I was only dealing with ick and they didn't need any dips before-hand. The worst part was that I LOVED my aquascape and it was never the same when I tried to put it back together. You'll do great! Be sure to keep us posted on your progress.

That's pretty lucky to have a hubby running interference for you, luckily we don't have kids yet, so at least I won't have that complication. I'm leaving in the morning for vacation until next Tuesday, so I'll start the teardown when I get back, and will keep everyone posted on the progress..I'm sure another question or two will pop us once I get started.

Thanks again for the assistance!

 

[Brew12]

That's pretty lucky to have a hubby running interference for you, luckily we don't have kids yet, so at least I won't have that complication. I'm leaving in the morning for vacation until next Tuesday, so I'll start the teardown when I get back, and will keep everyone posted on the progress..I'm sure another question or two will pop us once I get started.

Thanks again for the assistance!

Enjoy your vacation!

 

[Jeffdstafford]

Enjoy your vacation!

Thanks! Will be a nice calm before the storm when I return, and give me a little more time to continue reading up on all this

 

[Humblefish]

@Jeffdstafford Before you go tearing apart your system, read this: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/ich-eradication-vs-ich-management.188775/

You might be able to wait until you setup the 1200 gallon and have to tear everything apart anyway. Assuming this is ich, and not velvet.

 

[Jeffdstafford]

Excellent writeup there Humblefish; it's definitely ich, and I've unfortunately been in the ich management stage for a long time. It actually was fine until a recent angle fish addition that got stressed, and in turn caused a fairly bad breakout.

My thinking here is to go ahead and get the fallow period over with now since I'll be reusing all my rock and coral, vs having to wait it out with the new tank staying empty. Also, one thing I didn't mention that's a big factor is that we'll be moving to a new home where the new tank will go, so I'm sure my future Honey-Do list at the new place won't allow me the time to properly monitor the quarantine phase as close as I'm going to want to

 

[Jeffdstafford]

Trying to work up the motivation to tear the tank down this weekend and transfer all the fish over to the quarantine setup..everyone wish me luck! I have decided to go with Coppersafe, and plan to wait until later next week before starting it to let everyone settle in. I've attached a picture of my QT setup, please excuse the mess surrounding it. I have a skimmer, ATO, heater and fan controlled off an Apex, as well as a cheap Jebao powerhead and airpump...hopefully all this will be sufficient to keep everyone alive and healthy for the next few months of the treatment and fallow period. I moved a lot of live rock from my sump into the QT to get some bacteria established, but I'll definitely remove all that before adding copper, and put in some PVC fittings for some fish shelter.

I'm also going to hold off on the auto water changes while medicating based on a previous suggestion in this thread; I'll get that setup once I'm done medicating and just in the observation period.

I'll keep you all posted!

 

[melypr1985]

Trying to work up the motivation to tear the tank down this weekend and transfer all the fish over to the quarantine setup..everyone wish me luck! I have decided to go with Coppersafe, and plan to wait until later next week before starting it to let everyone settle in. I've attached a picture of my QT setup, please excuse the mess surrounding it. I have a skimmer, ATO, heater and fan controlled off an Apex, as well as a cheap Jebao powerhead and airpump...hopefully all this will be sufficient to keep everyone alive and healthy for the next few months of the treatment and fallow period. I moved a lot of live rock from my sump into the QT to get some bacteria established, but I'll definitely remove all that before adding copper, and put in some PVC fittings for some fish shelter.

I'm also going to hold off on the auto water changes while medicating based on a previous suggestion in this thread; I'll get that setup once I'm done medicating and just in the observation period.

I'll keep you all posted!

Looks good. Just be sure you add some seeded sponge in a high flow area to replace the biological element that the live rock is currently taking care of. Once you remove the rock, you need some bacteria in there to help break down the ammonia.

 

[Jeffdstafford]

Looks good. Just be sure you add some seeded sponge in a high flow area to replace the biological element that the live rock is currently taking care of. Once you remove the rock, you need some bacteria in there to help break down the ammonia.

Great suggestion; Currently I have 2 sponges from my tank in there along with the rock, and have some more soaking in the sump now to add as well, and there is a wrasse in the QT to provide some waste for the bacteria. I also bought some bacteria in a bottle just to be safe that I'll add with the fish..might be overboard, but I'm dealing with way too many fish to take any chances with.

 

[Jeffdstafford]

Oh, one other question I thought about regarding evaporation loss; is copper like salinity, where replenishing evaporation loss with my ATO won't affect the copper level? I would assume so, but never like to assume..

 

[Brew12]

Oh, one other question I thought about regarding evaporation loss; is copper like salinity, where replenishing evaporation loss with my ATO won't affect the copper level? I would assume so, but never like to assume..

Yes, that is correct.

 

[Jeffdstafford]

Yes, that is correct.

Good deal, thanks

 

[Jeffdstafford]

So the whole catch the fish and transfer to quarantine thing didn't happen over the weekend due to the wife and I getting hospitalized for food poisoning (last time we'll eat potato salad for a long, long time), but we're back in action now. However I did do some thinking in my down time, and I'm thinking I need to spread out the transfer somewhat to allow the biological load to adjust to the higher demand. I don't know exactly how many fish I have, but suffice it to say it's a crap-ton, 1/3 being tangs, and my quarantine tank is only 110 gallons..down from the current 500 gallon display.

It has been curing with live rock and an 8x8x4 Marinepure block for 2 weeks now, and I plan on adding Bio Spira bacteria in a bottle. I've added my monster Naso and Sailfin along with a few others Sunday night, and there has been 1 fish in there the whole time, and I haven't registered ammonia yet, but I know there hasn't been much of a source yet either.

Do you all agree slow transition over vs an all at once transfer? Not sure how magical the bacteria in a bottle really is, never used it before.

 

[melypr1985]

Do you all agree slow transition over vs an all at once transfer? Not sure how magical the bacteria in a bottle really is, never used it before.

With that many fish, it may be best to do it in batches... but your time clock doesn't start until the last one goes in on the fallow period and until the copper (if I'm remembering correctly abotu what's going on here lol) is at therapeutic levels on the QT. The bacteria bottles are full of bacteria in a dormant state... it can take some time ( a week or so) for them to become active again. So just keep that in mind.

 

[Humblefish]

Do you all agree slow transition over vs an all at once transfer? Not sure how magical the bacteria in a bottle really is, never used it before.

If you are just dealing with ich (and not velvet) then slowly transferring all the fish over is fine.

Sorry to hear about the food poisoning.