Quarantine 40-50 fish from existing 500 gallon reef

[Jeffdstafford]

So over the weekend I broke down and spent the time to properly cut out the egg crate to fit around everything, and zip tied the screen to the crate, which worked out perfectly. Now it is much easier to lift the lid off vs having 6 different lids covering it.

Myka:
I do have all the fish in 1 tub, and like your idea of separating out the fish and equipment into different tubs. If I had to do it over again and new upfront I'd have 2 containers that would definitely be the way to go, however due to evaporation and gravity with the drains, the ATO and pump intake have to stay where they are, and I don't want to stress the fish out by having to catch and relocate them to the other tub, so I will stick with the overly difficult lid I made this weekend, and know better for next time!

I'll keep the bioballs in mind as well..My main concern with the sponges is going to be nitrate buildup, so I will keep an eye on that and make changes if necessary.

Thanks for the input!

 

[Jeffdstafford]

Also, I was dealing with rising ammonia, which I thought I was past so did a big water change but no help, so I finally pulled all the lids and took a good look under the bucket hiding spots, and just as I suspected, had a dead fish polluting up the water. It was pretty much skeleton, but I think it was a melanurus wrasse that was a new addition prior to the teardown and looked iffy from shipping anyway, so I'm not surprised it didn't do well with the copper introduction. Got the remains out and did another small water change and ammonia is definitely on the decline, so pretty stoked about that.

I'll definitely do daily inspections now to make sure no other casualties stay in the water, but everyone is still eating like pigs and doing well, and the first full day of copper is finished!

 

[wowkingjames]

Thanks for the info.

 

[Daniel@R2R]

Wow! This is a huge undertaking! I can't imagine quarantining 40-50 fish!!

 

[Jeffdstafford]

A huge, painful, terrible, awful undertaking is a very accurate portrayal of what this has been! It has been perfect for me though..it usually takes something as awful as this to drill into my head to do something. And now, I simply can't imagine ever putting a non-quarantined fish/coral/snail/anything into my display again, so overall I consider it a win, but man I wish I would have done this from the start!

The only good thing I can think of was my non-planned timing. In Texas the late spring and summers get so hot, that I'd have to keep a fan constantly running on the setup to keep the temp down resulting in unspeakable evaporation and humidity that would rust all my tools and anything else metal in the garage, so at least this all went down during the winter.

 

[Trizzino]

I've been putting off doing this in my 125 do to the work involved. You make me look lazy now.

 

[Brew12]

I've been putting off doing this in my 125 do to the work involved. You make me look lazy now.

Lazy is doing all the QT on the front end!

 

[Jeffdstafford]

I've been putting off doing this in my 125 do to the work involved. You make me look lazy now.

Oh don't be fooled, I've been lazy for a year thinking about doing this.. Hopefully my story will inspire others to take the plunge, as there's no way it could be anywhere close to how miserable my experience is currently!

Lazy is doing all the QT on the front end!

Ha, seriously.. Being an irresponsible lazy procrastinator is the ONLY proper way to do this hobby! If you're a glutton for punishment.

 

[tj w]

Update Jeff? Hope all is well

 

[Jeffdstafford]

Hey TJ, I've been away for a few days, but back in the saddle again! I've had some ups and downs the past week.. Now that I'm up to full copper strength I've lost several wrasses.. I knew they can be sensitive to copper but mine were all fat and healthy so I thought I was in the clear,but I've lost 4 of them so far. I still have another 4 or 5 remaining and they are all still very active and eating, so I'm really hoping they will pull through. All the other fish seem to not be phased by the copper in the slightest and are still whoofing down their meals, so overall seems to be going well!

I've had some debate with my wife on the API test results...I really do hate that test..pretty hard to get a good reading on it. I thought I was good to go at or just below the 2.0 color, when she takes one look and says that it's definitely 1.0, so who knows. on Jan 1st I had it raised to what I initially thought was close-ish to 2.0 by following the bottle directions of 1 cup per 90 gallons I think it says, but I don't think it was as dark orange as I thought. So, been adding more, and I'm close enough now that I'm at least at 1.5, so I'll maintain where I'm at.

I'm dealing with high nitrates, so I sacrificed my large ChemiPure block from the display tank and am using that in the QT now and slowly removing the sponge pads I had in there 1 at a time (I probably had 5 or 6 in that filter bucket). No ammonia spikes so will slowly phase them out, and that should drastically help with the nitrate buildup. I did a large 50% 100 gallon water change this weekend, which really sucked as it was at or below 25 degrees outside, so I had to run 5 heaters in my mixing bin all day to get the temperature up while only tripping a couple breakers a few times with 3000 watts of heaters going, but finally got that done.

Otherwise, things are going as well as I could hope for, my automation has worked surprisingly well maintaining temp and keeping up with evaporation. I'm using my Apex Jr that runs the saltwater mixing station to run the QT setup, and it already saved me last week. I threw an ALD module and a couple leak sensors on the ground just in case, and one of the bulkheads sprung a leak that I had missed until I got the alarm, so I'm glad I went full nerd-geek on this setup. The upper section of those rubbermaid containers are rounded so it's an awful place to try to put a bulkhead, but I have it fixed good enough where it will hold as long as I'm going to need it to.

I think that's about it for now; next project will be re-doing all the rockwork and corals in the display..it's a wreck at moment but a project for another day.

 

[Humblefish]

@Jeffdstafford No need to test for nitrates/nitrites in QT. Ammonia is all you need worry about and being you are using chelated copper, you must rely upon a Seachem ammonia alert badge for that.

You might also want to consider investing in a "professional grade" copper test kit if API is causing headaches: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/copper-test-kits.257924/

 

[Jeffdstafford]

Thanks Humble, so tell me more on that. I've always been under the impression that high nitrates can stress fish, which is definitely not wanted with the stress of copper already present..is that not the case?

I've never ran fish only, so I've always had to worry about nitrates, but maybe I've been under the wrong impression?

 

[melypr1985]

Thanks Humble, so tell me more on that. I've always been under the impression that high nitrates can stress fish, which is definitely not wanted with the stress of copper already present..is that not the case?

I've never ran fish only, so I've always had to worry about nitrates, but maybe I've been under the wrong impression?

Nitrates won't bother your fish until it reaches very large readings.... like 200ppm. Nitrates are bad for algae and coral health, but fish aren't usually bothered by them at the lower levels we usually deal with.

 

[Jeffdstafford]

Ahh, ok. I was reading between 40-60 and freaking out, it's just ingrained in me that red on the nitrate test=end of the world in a reef tank. That is great to know, and makes my life a heck of a lot easier now!

 

[Humblefish]

Nitrates won't bother your fish until it reaches very large readings.... like 200ppm. Nitrates are bad for algae and coral health, but fish aren't usually bothered by them at the lower levels we usually deal with.

+1 Also, the presence of copper will throw off your nitrate reading anyway.

 

[Jeffdstafford]

Interesting..had no idea. Once again, you all are making my life so much easier and preventing me from doing dumb things; much appreciated!

 

[Jeffdstafford]

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/copper-test-kits.257924/[/URL]

Humble have you used Chemetrics or the Hach kits? I think I will invest the money and get one of them since I will most definitely be quarantining a lot in my future!


And concerning wrasses in QT, what does everyone do for them? Just putting them in observation scares me, because they could still have ich parasites in the gills even without any outer visible symptoms, correct? So I'd assume either rolling the dice with them in Coppersafe or doing TTM? TTM seems like there is room for error, and I will not be taking any chances after going through all this, so I'm hesitant on that. My thought right now is to prophylactically treat every fish coming in with copper and prazi, no exceptions; is that faulty thinking?

 

[Jeffdstafford]

Went ahead and bought the CHEMets kit, looks like it would be the easiest to read. That will give me peace of mind on having the proper level, thanks for the suggestion @Humblefish!

 

[Humblefish]

And concerning wrasses in QT, what does everyone do for them? Just putting them in observation scares me, because they could still have ich parasites in the gills even without any outer visible symptoms, correct? So I'd assume either rolling the dice with them in Coppersafe or doing TTM? TTM seems like there is room for error, and I will not be taking any chances after going through all this, so I'm hesitant on that. My thought right now is to prophylactically treat every fish coming in with copper and prazi, no exceptions; is that faulty thinking?

TTM is the most reliable method for treating ich (but not velvet); however if your other wrasses are now eating in copper then they should be OK for the duration.

Went ahead and bought the CHEMets kit, looks like it would be the easiest to read. That will give me peace of mind on having the proper level, thanks for the suggestion @Humblefish!

I'm an API copper test kit guy. I guess over the years I've become so used to (and comfortable) with their test kit.

However, I know several people who use the Chemetrics test kit and love it. I believe @Reefahholic uses it so maybe he can chime in with some advice.

 

[Jeffdstafford]

Good deal, I sent him a PM about his experience as well.

And honestly I'm probably over analyzing my API results, it will be good to verify with another kit to see if I'm reading it correctly