Angel and Puffer Medicated Quarantine

[ZombieEngineer]

I will be picking up a flame angel and a blue spot puffer this weekend and I would like to do a 21+ day medicated quarantine 30+ day total QT with both of them.

I have read that angels and puffers can be sensitive to copper but much less so than something like a wrasse of mandarin.

Does anybody have any tips to improve my probability of success here and/or any modifications I should make to my proposed schedule?

-water changes as necessary. 15ml Microbacter7 for biological filter. 5ml daily for 5 days.

1. Acclimate to my 29g biocube QT system. Float 15 min, adjust salinity if necessary, drop in.

2. Observe for 2 days or when eating well, whichever comes second.

3. Add 1/3 required Copper Power daily for 3 days. If either stops eating, stopping adding until eating resumes. If multiple days without eating cuprisorb back to no copper.

4. Hold copper at 2.5ppm only for 7 days.

5. Add Prazipro and aerate with airstone for at least 24 hours. Hold copper steady for 7 more days.

6. Add second dose of Prazipro. Hold copper steady 7 more days.

7. If all well, net fish and move to display (salinity, pH, and temp matched ahead of time, so no concern for acclimating).

 

[Spare time]

Copper power is fine. So is copper safe. The issue was with older forms of copper which had some form of citric acid in them. Follow Jay Hemdal's guide on here and you will be set.

 

[threebuoys]

A couple of suggestions for you to consider.

First, you can raise Copper Safe / Copper Power to 2.50 ppm in 12 hours without a problem if you want to cut a couple of days off of the front end. Copper is not effective until it reaches the full dosage.

Second, since you intend to go three weeks, why not add one more week just to maximize the effectiveness of the QT?

Third, you should consider changing 25% of the water between prazi doses, and watch closely for a bacteria bloom that could cloud the water. The water change should help avoid the bloom. Maintain copper concentration throughout since you are piggybacking the prazi.

 

[vetteguy53081]

While coppersafe is okay, the puffer may bark at therapeutic level
For cleansing purposes, I prefer ruby rally pro which is fine for 21 days opposed to 30 for copper

 

[Jay Hemdal]

I will be picking up a flame angel and a blue spot puffer this weekend and I would like to do a 21+ day medicated quarantine 30+ day total QT with both of them.

I have read that angels and puffers can be sensitive to copper but much less so than something like a wrasse of mandarin.

Does anybody have any tips to improve my probability of success here and/or any modifications I should make to my proposed schedule?

-water changes as necessary. 15ml Microbacter7 for biological filter. 5ml daily for 5 days.

1. Acclimate to my 29g biocube QT system. Float 15 min, adjust salinity if necessary, drop in.

2. Observe for 2 days or when eating well, whichever comes second.

3. Add 1/3 required Copper Power daily for 3 days. If either stops eating, stopping adding until eating resumes. If multiple days without eating cuprisorb back to no copper.

4. Hold copper at 2.5ppm only for 7 days.

5. Add Prazipro and aerate with airstone for at least 24 hours. Hold copper steady for 7 more days.

6. Add second dose of Prazipro. Hold copper steady 7 more days.

7. If all well, net fish and move to display (salinity, pH, and temp matched ahead of time, so no concern for acclimating).

For a 15 minute acclimation, you will want to adjust the salinity of the biocube to match the water in the bag before starting.

Personally, if you already have some fish in your main tank, I would go a full 30 days of copper power, then 2 weeks of prazi followed by 2 weeks of observation. People run copper and prazi together and that's o.k., just I prefer to dose one med at a time. If you don't have fish in your DT already, you can skip the 2 week observation period.

Jay

 

[ZombieEngineer]

Second, since you intend to go three weeks, why not add one more week just to maximize the effectiveness of the QT?

I keep temp at 80 degrees. I was under the impression ich and velvet life cycles could only be 28 days at lower temperatures and the recommendation for 30 days was to be as universal as possible and include tanks that run on the low end of temperatures for colder water fish like jawfish that need temp in the 76-78 range.

 

[threebuoys]

Actually, lower temperatures prolong the life cycle as cysts take longer to hatch. The longer copper is in the water, the greater the chances that the parasites are killed during the free swimming stage.

 

[ZombieEngineer]

Actually, lower temperatures prolong the life cycle as cysts take longer to hatch. The longer copper is in the water, the greater the chances that the parasites are killed during the free swimming stage.

Your response isn't super clear. Are you saying that more than 30 days are required at 78 degrees and 30 days are required for 80?

Everything I have read thus far seems to indicate the 30 day recommendation was so the entire lifecycle of both ich and velvet could complete both drop off and tormont stages in therapeutic copper which is 28 days at 78 degrees but this lifecycle is more like 14 to 21 days at higher temps. Please correct me if what I read is wrong.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Your response isn't super clear. Are you saying that more than 30 days are required at 78 degrees and 30 days are required for 80?

Everything I have read thus far seems to indicate the 30 day recommendation was so the entire lifecycle of both ich and velvet could complete both drop off and tormont stages in therapeutic copper which is 28 days at 78 degrees but this lifecycle is more like 14 to 21 days at higher temps. Please correct me if what I read is wrong.

While under copper treatment, 30 days at a full dose, beyond the date that the last spots were seen, seems to work well. If you are talking about the life cycle of ich in a fallow tank, with no on-going treatment, it is different. Many people say 76 days for that. In this thread, I explore a 45 days option:

45 Day Fallow periods

I've been doing some research into the "76 day fallow period". I never heard of that prior to coming to Reef2Reef this past summer. I had always used 32 days as the maximum time for a tomont to remain viable under tropical conditions, and then I would round up to 45 days to help ensure that...

www.reef2reef.com

Jay