A Hypocrites View on Not Using Quarantine

[nereefpat]

so she was nice and plump going into it.

That would help for sure. The dragonettes at the store are always gaunt...like they need to be power-fed to recover.

 

[Cyricdark]

Would you support needing to go to a veterinarian to have your fish treated just as you do your dogs? Do you feel most other hobbyists would go and do that? After all, this is now what is required in Canada, even for copper treatments.

Why would you have to go to the vet for hypo salinity or tank transfer you have legal options for quarantining. That being said when I first started hearing about chloroquine phosphate a few years ago I couldn't find it over the counter or on eBay like it is now and I went to my local vet who I'm on very good terms with explained the situation she doesn't know a thing about treating fish so she pretty much just took my word for it and ordered in some chloroquine phosphate for me sold it to me at cost hopefully Canadians can do the same thing since I'm unfamiliar with their laws and regulations I don't really know. There's always a way if you're determined and creative living in Canada wouldn't stop me from getting a hold of any of the medications I needed for my fish I might not necessarily do it legally but I would do it lol.

 

[Cyricdark]

I was lucky, because nutrimar ova was still available when mine was in QT.

Though, she didn’t eat much during the last 14 days with the CP treatment, the rest of the fallow time in QT she ate nutrimar ova like candy... so she was nice and plump going into it.

The method that I chose to quarantine the spotted Mandarin that I got a while back is kind of situational and probably a bit extreme. But I had a coral quarantine tank that had gotten mostly overtook by bryopsis it really didn't have anything in it except a whole lot of copepods, and I mean a whole lot of copepods something to do with having all that bryopsis in the tank made their population explode you can dip your hand in the tank pull it out and copepods would be crawling all over your arm. I dropped the salinity on that tank down to borderline hyposalinity levels expecting it to kill the pods and the bryopsis but it didn't so that became my Mandarin quarantine tank I left him in there for a couple months in observing then moved him into my main display where he was promptly eaten by my snowflake eel. :(
I've had that eel for 7 years and it never seen him eat anything that I didn't hand feed him.

 

[Brew12]

Why would you have to go to the vet for hypo salinity or tank transfer you have legal options for quarantining. That being said when I first started hearing about chloroquine phosphate a few years ago I couldn't find it over the counter or on eBay like it is now and I went to my local vet who I'm on very good terms with explained the situation she doesn't know a thing about treating fish so she pretty much just took my word for it and ordered in some chloroquine phosphate for me sold it to me at cost hopefully Canadians can do the same thing since I'm unfamiliar with their laws and regulations I don't really know. There's always a way if you're determined and creative living in Canada wouldn't stop me from getting a hold of any of the medications I needed for my fish I might not necessarily do it legally but I would do it lol.

I agree that you can do TTM and hyposalinity without a vet. However, if your goal is to eradicate 99% of the things that can wipe your tank, those two methods alone won't do it. Neither method will get rid of most internal parasites, some flukes, Brooklynella or Uronema. These require medications that are already unavailable to most non-US hobbyists and they absolutely have the ability to wipe a tank. And, as @ngoodermuth pointed out earlier, many fish can't be saved once they show symptoms that a vet can identify to write a prescription for. Not everyone is lucky enough to have a vet willing to do that. Most people I know have been unable to get a script for CP without bringing a sick fish in.
I won't encourage anyone to break laws in pursuit of this hobby.

So again, this is what is motivating me... how do we help the member in Canada that has a fish with signs of Uronema in their tank? What QT advice to we give them when they can't use copper, anti-biotics, anti-fungals, or de-wormers? Too often I feel it looks like we stop trying to help them when they can't access the med's we typically use. How much longer before we can't get those meds and what will we do then?

 

[ngoodermuth]

Getting a little off-topic here... but my mandarin QT was much the same. I packed as much LR as I could, added a few bottles of pods, and was feeding ova 3-5 times a day. There was algae EVERYWHERE, the only pictures I have were after I’d “cleaned up” a bit... but it was practically a jungle. But, she was nice and fat.

After the fallow period was up, I pulled out all of the rock and did a big water change... but left the sponge in my HOB filter for bio-filter. Then dosed the CP, waited 14 days... and then transferred her to my tank.

Technically, there should have been some sort of observation period after treatment... but I’d never seen signs of parasites on her to begin with so nothing to observe for really. And with her not eating in the CP, I wanted to get her back into a tank with plenty of hunting opportunity ASAP. So, it was a risk I accepted and took and it worked out in my case.

If I’d ever purchase another, I’d probably try to do something similar again... maybe using ROE as a substitute for the ova. And lots of bottled pods until it is fat and healthy enough to withstand CP treatment.

Now, back to your regularly scheduled QT debate ;)

 

[Brew12]

I left him in there for a couple months in observing then moved him into my main display where he was promptly eaten by my snowflake eel. :(

:eek::eek::eek::eek:
That stinks... after so much work. :(

 

[Cyricdark]

I agree that you can do TTM and hyposalinity without a vet. However, if your goal is to eradicate 99% of the things that can wipe your tank, those two methods alone won't do it. Neither method will get rid of most internal parasites, some flukes, Brooklynella or Uronema. These require medications that are already unavailable to most non-US hobbyists and they absolutely have the ability to wipe a tank. And, as @ngoodermuth pointed out earlier, many fish can't be saved once they show symptoms that a vet can identify to write a prescription for. Not everyone is lucky enough to have a vet willing to do that. Most people I know have been unable to get a script for CP without bringing a sick fish in.
I won't encourage anyone to break laws in pursuit of this hobby.

So again, this is what is motivating me... how do we help the member in Canada that has a fish with signs of Uronema in their tank? What QT advice to we give them when they can't use copper, anti-biotics, anti-fungals, or de-wormers? Too often I feel it looks like we stop trying to help them when they can't access the med's we typically use. How much longer before we can't get those meds and what will we do then?

Well first off copper sulfate is readily available for other purposes over the counter unless you're telling me Canada has also banned stump remover and pool algaecides so I guess our job would be to help them figure out how to use that in the proper dosages. For that matter you can throw a penny in there and just test your copper levels every day until it reaches therapeutic levels and then pull it out. Unless there's some chemistry reason that I don't understand as to why that wouldn't work or if that's a different kind of copper that won't work. But I know without question that having a penny in the tank will cause copper levels to rise because a local pet store that didn't sell saltwater but did have a saltwater display tank up and running for over Seventeen years lost that mean this way because somehow a penny found its way into the tank when I helped her break it down we found it stuck in the sand bed behind a rock no idea how it got in there but her copper levels were up to 7 PPM I think if I'm remembering correctly.

 

[Cyricdark]

:eek::eek::eek::eek:
That stinks... after so much work. :(

Yeah I just stood there staring for probably 10 minutes with my jaw on the floor

 

[Brew12]

Well first off copper sulfate is readily available for other purposes over the counter unless you're telling me Canada has also banned stump remover and pool algaecides so I guess our job would be to help them figure out how to use that in the proper dosages. For that matter you can throw a penny in there and just test your copper levels every day until it reaches therapeutic levels and then pull it out. Unless there's some chemistry reason that I don't understand as to why that wouldn't work or if that's a different kind of copper that won't work. But I know without question that having a penny in the tank will cause copper levels to rise because a local pet store that didn't sell saltwater but did have a saltwater display tank up and running for over Seventeen years lost that mean this way because somehow a penny found its way into the tank when I helped her break it down we found it stuck in the sand bed behind a rock no idea how it got in there but her copper levels were up to 7 PPM I think if I'm remembering correctly.

I suspect copper sulfate is available but that still only treats the same issues that can be treated through TTM and Hypo. It still doesn't address internal parasites, hypo resistant flukes, uronema or brook. Not to mention some fairly nasty bacterial strains that have caused issues recently.

 

[Cyricdark]

I suspect copper sulfate is available but that still only treats the same issues that can be treated through TTM and Hypo. It still doesn't address internal parasites, hypo resistant flukes, uronema or brook. Not to mention some fairly nasty bacterial strains that have caused issues recently.

Well flukes can be handled with a freshwater dip, and brooklynella is so fast acting that most likely the fish survives 30 days in Copper quarantine it probably doesn't have brook or it would be dead. But I still think that regardless they should quarantine and treat for whatever they can at the very least not as many bad things will make it into the tank which is better than all the bad things making it into the tank. maybe this will lead to some kind of innovation which will lead to a better way of treating brooklynella and uronema by those Canadians that can no longer use the go to medications. But saying just throw it in the tank and hope for the best is very irresponsible advice in my opinion that's going to lead to a whole lot of fish deaths tank wipes and a lot of new people getting out of the hobby because of it. with this being a featured article on reef2reef 4 years into the future new people getting into the hobby are going to find this in a Google search and since it's much easier to not quarantine then to quarantine they're going to like your answer much better then all of our quarantine everything answers and add new fish to their super stable mature 6 month old tank and wonder why it ended in tragedy and then get out of the hobby.

 

[ngoodermuth]

I agree that you can do TTM and hyposalinity without a vet. However, if your goal is to eradicate 99% of the things that can wipe your tank, those two methods alone won't do it. Neither method will get rid of most internal parasites, some flukes, Brooklynella or Uronema. These require medications that are already unavailable to most non-US hobbyists and they absolutely have the ability to wipe a tank. And, as @ngoodermuth pointed out earlier, many fish can't be saved once they show symptoms that a vet can identify to write a prescription for. Not everyone is lucky enough to have a vet willing to do that. Most people I know have been unable to get a script for CP without bringing a sick fish in.
I won't encourage anyone to break laws in pursuit of this hobby.

So again, this is what is motivating me... how do we help the member in Canada that has a fish with signs of Uronema in their tank? What QT advice to we give them when they can't use copper, anti-biotics, anti-fungals, or de-wormers? Too often I feel it looks like we stop trying to help them when they can't access the med's we typically use. How much longer before we can't get those meds and what will we do then?

I agree, it is definitely important to not get “complacent” with the meds we have and keep trying to develop new methods for success.

I’m just not willing to experiment with my own display tank... I’m just a hobbyist after all ;) For now, I have the tools available to me... and I will continue to do the best I can to help those who need it.

 

[Paul Sands]

As the writer of this article, I do have an agenda. And yes, this is exactly what it is. I do believe people should leave fish infected with just about everything in their tanks to build up an immunity to it. If we don't get to that point, and in the near future imo, this hobby will not exist. It's hard to argue if something is humane or inhumane so I'll respect your opinion in this manner. I also respect the opinion of those who feel it is inhumane to treat fish with copper, which can damage internal organs of the fish, without confirmation of carrying a parasite. Of course, many people feel that taking a fish from the ocean to keep in a glass box isn't humane, and they are allowed to feel that way also.

How do we help someone in this hobby in Canada that has a fish with a disease now that they can no longer get medications? Most of Europe has been unable to get the basic medications we enjoy in the US for many years, and yet they have found a way to keep healthy fish. In my opinion it isn't possible to ensure a fish is pathogen free when it comes from the ocean. Without medications we cannot remove many of those pathogens from the fish before putting them in our systems. Once the pathogens become resistant to the medications, or the medications are banned (one or the other is inevitable imo) I see no options other than no longer collecting fish or learning how to let the fishes immune system handle the pathogens naturally.

So something similar to don’t vaccinate your children and have “chicken pox parties” instead. Except we are dealing with things like velvet that can literally kill all the fish in your tank overnight.

I spent 10 years living in Europe with a reef tank part of the time. It’s not difficult to get medication for fish. You can get most things you would need from the pharmacist, which is basically located on every other street corner. I was able to get CP and antibiotics for quarantining with a 5 minute conversation in a semi-foreign language. It was also like $5 for everything and she explained exactly what was in the formulations and how to use them. I’d say it’s actually easier to get better medication in Europe than here.

There actually is a middle ground between doing everything when it’s not necessary and doing nothing. That seems like a better agenda.

 

[Brew12]

Well flukes can be handled with a freshwater dip

I know the numbers can be reduced this way, but I haven't seen a methodology yet that would completely clear a fish of flukes. But, this is the kind of discussion I hope we can have. Can we make it work without meds? I'm not sure. Would 3 FW dips 2 day apart work? No idea. Would Peppermint shrimp (shown to eat some parasitic worm eggs) help keep fluke numbers down? Not sure, but it's something I feel we should be talking about.

brooklynella is so fast acting that most likely the fish survives 30 days in Copper quarantine it probably doesn't have brook or it would be dead.

I think there are plenty of instances where a fish has survived for years hosting Brook without showing symptoms and infected other fish. Would a 30 day copper treatment weaken the fish enough that the brook would kill it where it would otherwise live? Possibly. I'm not sure I like that solution.

But saying just throw it in the tank and hope for the best is very irresponsible advice in my opinion that's going to lead to a whole lot of fish deaths tank wipes and a lot of new people getting out of the hobby because of it. with this being a featured article on reef2reef 4 years into the future new people getting into the hobby are going to find this in a Google search and since it's much easier to not quarantine then to quarantine they're going to like your answer much better then all of our quarantine everything answers and add new fish to their super stable mature 6 month old tank and wonder why it ended in tragedy and then get out of the hobby.

I understand your concern and I hope I didn't come across as saying "just throw it in". I tried to lay out some recommendations on how the risk of damaging impacts from pathogens can be reduced.

 

[Brew12]

I agree, it is definitely important to not get “complacent” with the meds we have and keep trying to develop new methods for success.

This is where I feel we have room to improve at R2R. My impression is that we tend to disregard (at best) or condemn (at worst) those who are working to develop those new methods. How many stickies in the fish disease section discuss, in a positive manner, methods of keeping fish healthy without reliance on medications? Less than half? Less than one quarter? Or is it less than one?

I’m just not willing to experiment with my own display tank... I’m just a hobbyist after all ;) For now, I have the tools available to me... and I will continue to do the best I can to help those who need it.

I completely agree with this. No fish has gone into my system without treatment and I don't see it happening in the near future, hence my being a hypocrite. I still appreciate all of the work that is being done to continue to advance the hobby through the use of medications and I still try to help people use them. And yet, I look at how much harder it has gotten to get many fish through QT successfully lately and I can't help but worry for the future. What worked 2 years ago is almost completely ineffective now and that is not a good sign.

 

[Brew12]

So something similar to don’t vaccinate your children and have “chicken pox parties” instead. Except we are dealing with things like velvet that can literally kill all the fish in your tank overnight.

A vaccination isn't a good representation of what we are doing in fish treatment, it is exposing the person to the pathogen to trigger an immune response. I would have no issue at all doing this with fish. It would meet the end goal of establishing an immunity.
Would you treat your child using chemotherapy without a diagnosis of cancer? This is much closer to what we are doing by treating fish with copper. We know it harms the person/fish but the goal is to destroy the cancer/parasite while hoping the person/fish survives. Do you give your child a heavy round of antibiotics before letting them play in public for the first time if they aren't showing any symptoms of illness? If we did this we would have an even larger problem with resistant strains of bacteria evolving. I feel these examples are more applicable to how some hobbyists, including myself, treat fish.

I spent 10 years living in Europe with a reef tank part of the time. It’s not difficult to get medication for fish. You can get most things you would need from the pharmacist, which is basically located on every other street corner. I was able to get CP and antibiotics for quarantining with a 5 minute conversation in a semi-foreign language. It was also like $5 for everything and she explained exactly what was in the formulations and how to use them. I’d say it’s actually easier to get better medication in Europe than here.

Not all of Europe is the same but I am curious where you were at that you could get them without a prescription. My understanding is that this isn't the norm for most of Europe.

There actually is a middle ground between doing everything when it’s not necessary and doing nothing. That seems like a better agenda.

I have never advocated doing nothing. In my article I laid out multiple examples of things that could and should be done to help maintain healthy fish without the over reliance on medications. I have no issue at all if medications are used on a fish showing symptoms of a pathogen but if we want to keep those medications effective we can't be using them at the high rate we currently are imo.

 

[bluprntguy]

We can conclude that it is two major pathways her - to prophylactic treat every things comming into the system and eradicate everything that can become pathogenic from the system or not do that and try to reach a balance in the system. If you chose the first pathway - every newcommer have to be treaten and nothing from the outside can come into the system without a proper treatment. The system will be very labile and you can´t use frozen, fresh food or not gamma radiated dry food.

If you chose the second patway - work with the nature instead of working against it - your options will be more and you can use treatment when its needed. Only my 5 cents

Sincerely Lasse

No, we can't conclude this. I guess you could make that statement seeing the comments in this thread, but there actually is a middle ground, or more accurately, millions of middle grounds as options. That would be things like:

1. Observe all incoming fish for 30 days and treat what you see.
2. Treat what you reasonably can with simple non-drug options like TTM and observe for other issues
3. Treat for the worst issues that we are most likely to see (ich/velvet/flukes would be my top suspects) using the safest medications.

Any of these options can drastically reduce the chances of infecting a tank and improve the health of the fish.

As for food, I trust a previous post on R2R from @Humblefish that freezing kills ich and velvet. The same thread has a post from LRS explaining how they flash freeze their foods to -24F to eliminate the chances of it having parasites. Most people feed their tanks processed or frozen foods or a combination. Foods could introduce bacteria, but I don't see anyone here arguing about trying to prevent bacteria in our tanks. The main things that people are concerned about are the three I listed above and commercially available food isn't a likely source for any of those.

 

[MnFish1]

Well first off copper sulfate is readily available for other purposes over the counter unless you're telling me Canada has also banned stump remover and pool algaecides so I guess our job would be to help them figure out how to use that in the proper dosages. For that matter you can throw a penny in there and just test your copper levels every day until it reaches therapeutic levels and then pull it out. Unless there's some chemistry reason that I don't understand as to why that wouldn't work or if that's a different kind of copper that won't work. But I know without question that having a penny in the tank will cause copper levels to rise because a local pet store that didn't sell saltwater but did have a saltwater display tank up and running for over Seventeen years lost that mean this way because somehow a penny found its way into the tank when I helped her break it down we found it stuck in the sand bed behind a rock no idea how it got in there but her copper levels were up to 7 PPM I think if I'm remembering correctly.

A modern (Post 1982 penny) contains only 5 percent copper - and 95% zinc. A pre 1982 penny if completely dissolved (which would take a while) in 100 gallons would produce a copper level of 7 ppm or so. Just FYI...:)

No, we can't conclude this. I guess you could make that statement seeing the comments in this thread, but there actually is a middle ground, or more accurately, millions of middle grounds as options. That would be things like:

1. Observe all incoming fish for 30 days and treat what you see.
2. Treat what you reasonably can with simple non-drug options like TTM and observe for other issues
3. Treat for the worst issues that we are most likely to see (ich/velvet/flukes would be my top suspects) using the safest medications.

Any of these options can drastically reduce the chances of infecting a tank and improve the health of the fish.

As for food, I trust a previous post on R2R from @Humblefish that freezing kills ich and velvet. The same thread has a post from LRS explaining how they flash freeze their foods to -24F to eliminate the chances of it having parasites. Most people feed their tanks processed or frozen foods or a combination. Foods could introduce bacteria, but I don't see anyone here arguing about trying to prevent bacteria in our tanks. The main things that people are concerned about are the three I listed above and commercially available food isn't a likely source for any of those.

I have no axe to grind about TTM - but there is a very very long thread posted about the dangers of TTM - with regards to stress/decreased immune function etc. I agree with you that if there are no medications available - it would be a 'way to go' - but TTM doesnt affect everything does it (i.e. Uronema/brook and who knows what else). FYI - other than the TTM part - your items 1 and 3 are what @Lasse recommends. I also agree with your methods 1, 2, 3 above there is a cohort though that would say TTM kills more fish than the parasite itself (I'm not one of them).

I posted (a while ago) data that shows that to kill certain tapeworm eggs and larvae fish have to be frozen for 24 hours at -35. So -im not sure where LRS is getting their information - but I trust it. Either way - I know my freezer doesnt freeze to lower than -20. Freezing alone will not kill most bacteria.

 

[bluprntguy]

I have never advocated doing nothing. In my article I laid out multiple examples of things that could and should be done to help maintain healthy fish without the over reliance on medications. I have no issue at all if medications are used on a fish showing symptoms of a pathogen but if we want to keep those medications effective we can't be using them at the high rate we currently are imo.

I understand your concern and I hope I didn't come across as saying "just throw it in". I tried to lay out some recommendations on how the risk of damaging impacts from pathogens can be reduced.

I think one of your responses here was a defense of the "throw new fish into your tank and what doesn't kill the tank makes them all stronger" approach from another member. I don't have time to re-read your comment and that may be oversimplifying the discussion, but I can say I got the same impression as other people that you felt that was a good approach. So, if you aren't advocating for that approach, you might want to be a little more clear about what you are advocating for and what you think is good husbandry.

Also, some of it may be your opinion of what "doing something" actually is. If your response after introducing ich to a tank is to just feed all the fish a high quality food to boost their immune system, I think that most people would probably put that in the "doing nothing" category because it's probably something that they do already on a regular basis.

 

[Brew12]

throw new fish into your tank and what doesn't kill the tank makes them all stronger

I do agree with the 2nd part of that statement, just not the first part. Taking any sick fish and just tossing it into a tank is not a good idea imo. However, any pathogen you add to the tank will make the survivors stronger by boosting their adaptive immunity. I address this in my article when it comes to acclimation. We don't want to take a fish weakened from shipping and just unleash it in the tank.

Also, some of it may be your opinion of what "doing something" actually is.

This could be part of it. For instance, I advocate either using large amounts of larger polyped coral, UV and/or Ozone to limit parasite numbers. I supported not just "high quality food" but foods containing probiotics to boost fish health. Stocking selection is more passive but I address it, too. I doubt there is much you can do to successfully keep 10 tangs in a 180g tank without full and comprehensive QT measures. There is a reason you don't see many tanks like that in Europe and I suspect the number we see in Canada will be dropping sharply with the new laws passed there.

 

[Cyricdark]

A modern (Post 1982 penny) contains only 5 percent copper - and 95% zinc. A pre 1982 penny if completely dissolved (which would take a while) in 100 gallons would produce a copper level of 7 ppm or so. Just FYI...:)


I have no axe to grind about TTM - but there is a very very long thread posted about the dangers of TTM - with regards to stress/decreased immune function etc. I agree with you that if there are no medications available - it would be a 'way to go' - but TTM doesnt affect everything does it (i.e. Uronema/brook and who knows what else). FYI - other than the TTM part - your items 1 and 3 are what @Lasse recommends. I also agree with your methods 1, 2, 3 above there is a cohort though that would say TTM kills more fish than the parasite itself (I'm not one of them).

I posted (a while ago) data that shows that to kill certain tapeworm eggs and larvae fish have to be frozen for 24 hours at -35. So -im not sure where LRS is getting their information - but I trust it. Either way - I know my freezer doesnt freeze to lower than -20. Freezing alone will not kill most bacteria.

I don't know it was a 2013 penny I had it laying on my bathroom counter for a long time as the penny that killed a reef tank lol I guess it's possible that there was more than one penny in there and that's just the one that we found maybe the other ones had already degraded to nothing it was a hundred and twenty five gallon tank setup the way people did it years ago by pretty much filling it rim to rim with live rock there probably wasn't actually 50 gallons of actual water in the tank there was so much Rock , no sump weekly 20% water changes was her routine.