Are quarantine tanks worth the effort?

[Gregg @ ADP]

Bobby and his wife spent a week here in New York and we had a great time. discussed many fish ideologies. and quarantine or the lack of it.





It depends on what you mean by success.
Can it happen? I guess so. Does it happen with a lot of grief and problems? Yes it does.

I outline many times how IMO a new tank should be started and I never would say using dead rock. Live would eliminate so many problems.

Exactly.

I’ve stated on the board numerous times…i start a new reef with live rock right out of the box. No rinsing, no curing. Just sand in, rock in, water in, fish in…and I don’t really give much thought to it beyond that.

People can start their own tanks however they want. I don’t advise here. I simply talk about how I do it…not on my one tank at home, but on client tanks where I have a significant financial interest in being successful. I’ve been in business for almost 20 years. I must be doing something right.

 

[KrisReef]

You can now vaccinate your fish.....Who knew?

Review

Dev Biol Stand

. 1997;90:233-41.

Immunization against parasitic diseases of fish​

P T Woo 1
Affiliations expand

• PMID: 9270852

Abstract​

Parasitologists have not, in the past, exploited the immune system to protect fish against parasitic diseases. In the past few years, however, there has been an increased interest in adopting this strategy, and we have made steady and promising progress against a few parasites which are of economic importance. Amyloodinium ocellatum is an ectoparasitic dinoflagellate on brackish and marine fishes, which may also cause problems to aquarium fishes. Antiserum from fish inoculated intraperitoneally (i.p.) with living dinospores of the parasite immobilizes and agglutinates living dinospores; it also reduces parasite infectivity in cell culture. Cryptobia salmositica is a pathogenic haemoflagellate of salmonids on the Pacific coast of North America, causing mortality in semi-natural and intensive salmon culture facilities. A live attenuated vaccine inoculated i.p. protects susceptible juvenile and adult fish for at least 24 months. The protection involves production of complement fixing antibodies, phagocytosis, and antibody-dependent and antibody-independent T-cell cytotoxicity. A monoclonal antibody against a surface membrane glycoprotein (199-200 kDa is therapeutic in that it significantly reduces parasitaemias when inoculated into fish with acute disease. Ichthyophthirius multifiliis is an ectoparasitic ciliate of freshwater fishes with world wide distribution, usually causing disease when fish are stressed and/or when environmental conditions are favourable for parasite multiplication. Live theronts injected into the body cavity protect fish, and monoclonal antibodies with immobilizing activity upon parasites have been developed. There is some evidence of passive transfer of protective immunity from immune to naive fish, and to eggs. Diplostomum spathaceum is an intestinal parasite of gulls; the metacercaria stage of the parasite encyst and causes disease and mortality in numerous species of freshwater fish in Europe and in North America. Fish injected i.p. with sonicated/killed cercariae or metacercariae have fewer metacercariae in the eyes and survives longer. Lepeophtheirus salmonis and Caligus elongatus are parasitic copepods (sea lice), and they are important parasites of Atlantic salmon in cage cultures. A vaccine against fish lice is plausible, and the efficacy of about 20 candidate antigens in protecting fish is being tested.

Way off topic, this thread has deteriorated like a dead snail upside in a forgotten 5 gallon pail after last month’s water change.

Still love the power debate and information sharing on Reef2Reef.

I love puppies too.
Let’s drop a gif to celebrate Today

Plenty for all you all.

 

[peterhos]

All very interesting comments. My clown fish is 20 years old now. I have never had a QT tank but our LFS quarantines and/or sells healthy fish (as far as you can see!) so I trust in him.

 

[brandon429]

Peter I honestly believe a certain lucky mix of aged home tank + LFS that sources and cares = skip preps

you just can't advise anyone else to use that method, they don't live in your surroundings. You have to match your teachings to what students will encounter


Readers about reef tanks and cycling do NOT need to fear ammonia at all like we've been trained to ( so we click buy bottle bac and prop up the sellers )

ALL new readers especially cycling tank readers need to read up on fish disease prevention steps, qt choices, before they read about ammonia fear. prepare your new reef tank for building with 99% reading and days long contemplation on disease protocols, and then spend fifteen minutes looking up seneye owner's posted information to learn about ammonia control dates. Reading six seneye posts will end the concern about ammonia, it'll be a non issue and nobody will test for it again once seneye becomes the basis by which we evaluation what bacteria do for filtration

when a new tank owner is ready to read about ammonia, after they're well-versed on fallow and QT procedure, they'd eschew any current fear training (dont read any prior reef tank cycling articles they're bunk) and read the article taricha is about to post as he investigates broken cycle tendency/ability if at all/ in a real display reef tank.


All efforts in reef tank cycling will slowly drift away from ammonia control fear, and fully into disease preps. ammonia control is a given where there is water, rocks, and ten days wait. it's in the charts for eighty years for a reason.

 

[Paul B]

Just find someone with an OLD ish healthy looking tank, maybe 10 or 20 years old who does not spend time on disease forums for his or her own tank and learn what they do.

 

[Subsea]

Way off topic, this thread has deteriorated like a dead snail upside in a forgotten 5 gallon pail after last month’s water change.

Still love the power debate and information sharing on Reef2Reef.

I love puppies too.
Let’s drop a gif to celebrate Today

Plenty for all you all.

I decided to take this to heart. I am making Texas Caviar today for Thanksgiving lunch at my sisters and I got a little carried away while shopping this morning: a pint of raw oysters, 2 lbs of shrimp, 2 lbs of live mussels will be enjoyed this evening for Friendsgiving along with a quart of Irish whiskey. I like Jameson Black Barrel.

 

[KrisReef]

I decided to take this to heart. I am making Texas Caviar today for Thanksgiving lunch at my sisters and I got a little carried away while shopping this morning: a pint of raw oysters, 2 lbs of shrimp, 2 lbs of live mussels will be enjoyed this evening for Friendsgiving along with a quart of Irish whiskey. I like Jameson Black Barrel.

Very good to know. The holidays are stressful and not necessarily a happy time of year. Just wanted to add in an appeal for your tank inhabitants as they may appreciate a few scraps from your feast!

 

[areefer01]

I decided to take this to heart. I am making Texas Caviar today for Thanksgiving lunch at my sisters and I got a little carried away while shopping this morning: a pint of raw oysters, 2 lbs of shrimp, 2 lbs of live mussels will be enjoyed this evening for Friendsgiving along with a quart of Irish whiskey. I like Jameson Black Barrel.

I usually have a pour of Green Spot Chateau Leovill Barton. If I'm running low then I'll pull out the Yellow Spot. Either will work but I find the Chateau to be a bit more smooth for my tastes.

We did have a bottle of the Jameson Black that was bottled after we took the tour a few years back right out of the barrel.

 

[Subsea]

Very good to know. The holidays are stressful and not necessarily a happy time of year. Just wanted to add in an appeal for your tank inhabitants as they may appreciate a few scraps from your feast!

The live mussels are for the tank inhabitants: Hippo is a pig, Sea Apple feeds heavy on mussel juice and bits of flesh.

This is feeding live gut cavity bacteria to the system.

Red tree sponge new growth shows white when algae Blennie & Hippo let it grow.

 

[Squidward]

I don’t worry about it either AND I can guarante, I didn’t work as hard as you did to accomplish your “worry free state of mind”..

Welp I doubt you keep 12 tangs like I do. So all the hard work in 12 days per qurantine was pretty quick and worked superb.

 

[chipz]

I've had good luck getting fish from other hobbyists and not ending up with diseases from that calculated risk. I don't usually QT those, but I do QT from my LFS. I've lost more fish in QT, but I would rather that than lose the fish that I am emotionally invested in as pets.

 

[Paul B]

With all respect to the author, I just want to add this artice next to your linked thread from the same author only from 7 years ago:

Reef1 You didn't link the entire quote which is this:

" I believe fish in breeding condition will hardly be afflicted with it. But it is extremely easy to cure, and I do not know why so much ink is wasted on teaching us how to cure it."

 

[atoll]

Reef1 You didn't link the entire quote which is this:

" I believe fish in breeding condition will hardly be afflicted with it. But it is extremely easy to cure, and I do not know why so much ink is wasted on teaching us how to cure it."

This is the point "if not afflicted with it" it's in my tank I am sure, I can't see it but it's there lurking waiting an opportunity and opportunity I have no intention of giving it or a chance to cause concern. Call it itch management if you will, call it fish immunity or whatever but if it's not bothering, weakening or affecting your fish then we have no problem with it.
I can't prove anthing scientifically, am no chemist, biologist or fish disease expert and have no claims or intentions of being an amateur one of any of them. All I know is that after 30 plus years of no serious outbreak of any disease in any if my tanks without employing QT my fish appear all the better for it and what I do. It is what it is.

Spawning of fish is a natural occurring regularity in my tank which goes someway towards proving they are fit and healthy. They aren't bothered by any diseases that may be there looking for a weakness in them. I guess like Paul and some others we are doing something right by not QTing.

 

[Subsea]

Kudoes to Paul & Atoll for their successes in breeding fish in their reef aquariums. After 51 years of Reefing I have not attempted breeding marine ornamental fish.

I strive for multiple food webs that recycle inorganic & organic nutrients up the food web using the “microbial loop” to feed diverse invertebrate in mixed garden Caribbean lagoon. Considering I encourage diverse microbes, I consider quarantine counter-productive for my purposes to sustain; flame scallops, sea apples and deep water NPS gorgonions.

 

[Piscans]

what about some kind of system that has large quantities of fish bacteria, mabye even with some disease resistant fish like mandarins that you could place your fish in to observe and kinda detoxify the fish, acclimating it to your tank's microbiome.

 

[atoll]

Kudoes to Paul & Atoll for their successes in breeding fish in their reef aquariums. After 51 years of Reefing I have not attempted breeding marine ornamental fish.

I can't speak for Paul but I think he may well agree with me in that we don't breed our fish really. I never set out to breed fish they just do what they want to do and is natural for them.

What we do is create an environment, feed them the foods they need and create the conditions for them to do what comes natural. Most fish will breed if you do that and there is no secret or special skill required.

Most of my fish are in pairs or small groups as found in nature on the reef. We just let nature take its course and our healthy fish spawn as they should.

 

[vlangel]

For me quarantining fish has not been worth the trouble. I have found when I tried it some years ago that those tanks were always too new and sparce and that added risk to new fish who were feeling stressed anyway.

Instead I put them in my refugium/sump which has rock (for hiding places) the same water they are going to live in but not the pressure of a lot of new roommates to get along with. Also I can observe them to see if they are eating. Usually I introduce 2 or 3 new fish to the display at one time to spread out bullying when they are ready to leave the fuge.

 

[Daniel@R2R]

I didn't QT at all for a while. It worked well for me...for a while. Several years ago I had a 180g almost completely stocked. I bought what I thought would be my final fish (3 flasher wrasses). Unfortunately, they came in with velvet, and I watched as over the course of 10 days, my fully stocked 180 dwindled to 2 fish that survived. Lesson learned. I hate quarantine, but I'll do it to avoid going through that ever again.

 

[threebuoys]

I think it is a stretch to suggest or imply that successfully breeding saltwater fish is dependent on not quarantining or not trying to eradicate parasites from the tank. I think we all want our tanks to be healthy for our fish for the duration regardless of whether we are pro- or anti- quarantine. Perhaps we have different ideas of exactly what a healthy tank is, but our objectives are the same.

For me, I do practice the QT protocols recommended by Jay, and I also have at least two pair that breed regularly. One is a pair of clownfish and the other is a pair of Bangai Cardinals. I also have a pair of Domino damsels that perform the mating ritual regularly. I can't say if they have bred because I've never seen their eggs, but they tend to often hide in the rocks also, so. I don't have any other paired fish but a number of one of a species. So I feel pretty lucky to have 3 out of 3 sexually active.

 

[atoll]

I think it is a stretch to suggest or imply that successfully breeding saltwater fish is dependent on not quarantining or not trying to eradicate parasites from the tank.

I don't think anybody is suggesting or implying it is.