Buying New fish. Trying to prevent another velvet outbreak.

Noob_Sam

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Hello,
So 4 months ago I had a bad marine velvet outbreak which I lost 70% of my fish. The remaining that survived I treated them witch copper for 30 days and left my DT fishless for 80 days. So now I am buying new fish every two weeks. I already bought a coral beauty, pair of clowns and some damsels. I QT them all for 3 weeks. They are in my DT now (its been 2 weeks) and non of them have any signs of ich or velvet or fungus. So what I have being doing is, I have a 30 gallon QT with copper at 2.0. I just put the fish in there for 2-3 weeks. Then if its good i put it in my DT. I then have my QT fishless for two weeks do a 5 gallon water change on the QT and then add a new fish to it and quarantine is for 2-3 weeks.. and the cycle repeats. Is it ok that I am not removing all the water for the QT? because my thought is that the copper kills the ich and velvet etc in the water so there is no reason for me to remove it and put brand new water in. Of course I do a water change when nutrient levels are high. I am getting a blue tang on Sunday so I want to make sure that my QT process is ok.

Thanks :)
 

Jay Hemdal

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If I understand correctly - no, you don't need to clean out the QT between batches of fish. The fish from the last batch went into your DT, so if anything survived, it's already there. The only time I tear down a QT is if things get out of control and none of the fish make it to a DT...THEN I consider nuking it.

About your quarantine plan - it is a bit faster than I like to do, and its missing the praziquantel component to deal with flukes. In a nutshell, I hold new fish in full copper for 30 days, then run two weeks of prazi (3 doses) and then I watch the fish for 2 more weeks before moving them to a DT. Think of it this way - you can still enjoy the fish in your QT so why rush?

Jay
 
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Noob_Sam

Noob_Sam

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If I understand correctly - no, you don't need to clean out the QT between batches of fish. The fish from the last batch went into your DT, so if anything survived, it's already there. The only time I tear down a QT is if things get out of control and none of the fish make it to a DT...THEN I consider nuking it.

About your quarantine plan - it is a bit faster than I like to do, and its missing the praziquantel component to deal with flukes. In a nutshell, I hold new fish in full copper for 30 days, then run two weeks of prazi (3 doses) and then I watch the fish for 2 more weeks before moving them to a DT. Think of it this way - you can still enjoy the fish in your QT so why rush?

Jay
Yeah I totally forgot about flukes ooops. I am not sure but i think that flukes does not effect any of the fish that I recently bought right? I mentioned them above. But yeah when I get my blue tang on Sunday i will treat it with copper and then with prazi. So after the 30 days of copper, can I just add prazi or should i remove the copper from the tank first? If so, how should I?
Thanks
 

Jay Hemdal

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Coral beauties are prone to flukes.
I generally do a water change to drop the copper to about half, then dose with prazi.
Jay
 
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Noob_Sam

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Coral beauties are prone to flukes.
I generally do a water change to drop the copper to about half, then dose with prazi.
Jay
Hey again,
So I just got my blue tang this morning and put it in my QT: Copper power @ 2.0 , Salinity 1.026, and Temp 82F, I added a lot of air stones and a strong filter to oxygen the tank since I have it at high temp. He is around 4-5 inches. So I will leave him in there for 3 weeks and then 2 weeks of Prazi. Is there anything I need to look out for or anything else i should do/change?
Thanks :)
 

Jay Hemdal

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Just checking - what was the salinity that the tang was in before you got it? Why are you running at 82? I use 79 degrees almost exclusively. Be sure to monitor the ammonia during this.

Jay
 
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Noob_Sam

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Just checking - what was the salinity that the tang was in before you got it? Why are you running at 82? I use 79 degrees almost exclusively. Be sure to monitor the ammonia during this.

Jay
Did I have to check for salinity? Just some background info I buy my marine fish when my lfs does a 35% off. So he gets his marine fish on Sundays and puts all the bags of fish in the fish tanks and you can get them for a "whole sale" price and 20-35% off. But you cant see if its swimming or eating so there is a risk. So I dont know what was the salinity before. I did drip acclimate for 35 min. My lfs told me to run the tank at 82F. He said that the blue tang most prob has ich or velvet so he told me to rise the temp.
 
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Noob_Sam

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Did I have to check for salinity? Just some background info I buy my marine fish when my lfs does a 35% off. So he gets his marine fish on Sundays and puts all the bags of fish in the fish tanks and you can get them for a "whole sale" price and 20-35% off. But you cant see if its swimming or eating so there is a risk. So I dont know what was the salinity before. I did drip acclimate for 35 min. My lfs told me to run the tank at 82F. He said that the blue tang most prob has ich or velvet so he told me to rise the temp.
Also for Ammonia levels i am using this:
 
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Noob_Sam

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Just checking - what was the salinity that the tang was in before you got it? Why are you running at 82? I use 79 degrees almost exclusively. Be sure to monitor the ammonia during this.

Jay
Ok so my blue tang as expected he has white spots. I am in school right now I will get some pics later today. So there are white spots on his body (around 10) and he has white spots on his fins, but they are not like grains they are more like fungus(the ones on his fins). Also it got multiplied from yesterday night so i am thinking it might be flukes? Can I use Prazi and Copper Power at the same time?
Thanks again.
 

Jay Hemdal

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Did I have to check for salinity? Just some background info I buy my marine fish when my lfs does a 35% off. So he gets his marine fish on Sundays and puts all the bags of fish in the fish tanks and you can get them for a "whole sale" price and 20-35% off. But you cant see if its swimming or eating so there is a risk. So I dont know what was the salinity before. I did drip acclimate for 35 min. My lfs told me to run the tank at 82F. He said that the blue tang most prob has ich or velvet so he told me to rise the temp.

So - raising the temperature only speeds up the progression of the disease, it is an old thing that used to be done for freshwater ich back in the day, but don't do that for marine fish.

The reason I was trying to drill down about the salinity is that too many dealers keep their fish at a specific gravity of 1.020 or so. Now days, many home aquarists run things at full salinity 35 ppt (1.026 SG). Acclimating a fish from low to high like that needs to be done in stages, over a couple of days. If the fish were at 1.024 or higher, no worries.

I used to buy fish that way myself, but we used to get a 50% discount (grin). I stopped doing that though, the losses were too high. I've done two studies of post-importation marine fish and the 40 day mortality rate ran 40 to 60%. Better to let the dealer eat some of those losses!

Can you post a pic of the blue tang with spots? Flukes are generally invisible, or you see a diffuse white cloudiness (especially over the eyes). If you are seeing distinct white spots, that is something else.

Jay
 
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Noob_Sam

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So - raising the temperature only speeds up the progression of the disease, it is an old thing that used to be done for freshwater ich back in the day, but don't do that for marine fish.

The reason I was trying to drill down about the salinity is that too many dealers keep their fish at a specific gravity of 1.020 or so. Now days, many home aquarists run things at full salinity 35 ppt (1.026 SG). Acclimating a fish from low to high like that needs to be done in stages, over a couple of days. If the fish were at 1.024 or higher, no worries.

I used to buy fish that way myself, but we used to get a 50% discount (grin). I stopped doing that though, the losses were too high. I've done two studies of post-importation marine fish and the 40 day mortality rate ran 40 to 60%. Better to let the dealer eat some of those losses!

Can you post a pic of the blue tang with spots? Flukes are generally invisible, or you see a diffuse white cloudiness (especially over the eyes). If you are seeing distinct white spots, that is something else.

Jay
Oh I see. Well i just feed him and he ate like pig :) i use Frozen ocean nutrition formula two. I soaked his food in garlic guard. Also he ate a full nori sheet. So that's good. This morning I did a FW dip and I did not see any white grains in the water. So I don't think its flukes. I will post a pic in like an hour because I am not home right now. I think its velvet. He has a lot of small white spots around his body, tail and fin. Again Pic soon.
 
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Noob_Sam

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Noob_Sam

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@Jay Hemdal Also I don't know if you remember but I told you that I got a coral beauty 4 weeks ago. So I QT him for 2 weeks with copper and then he had no signs of ich or fungus for 3 days straight so I put him in my DT. Well now he is been in the tank for 2 weeks and since yesterday he has this tiny small white dot on his face... I am not sure if its a scratch ( I am hoping) Or ick. Here is a pic
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pseudorand

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The reason I was trying to drill down about the salinity is that too many dealers keep their fish at a specific gravity of 1.020 or so. Now days, many home aquarists run things at full salinity 35 ppt (1.026 SG). Acclimating a fish from low to high like that needs to be done in stages, over a couple of days. If the fish were at 1.024 or higher, no worries.

Why is this? I've seen mail order outlets say they ship at 1.020 or below, but recommend temp acclimation and then dumping them in. I always figured an hour of drip was pretty good. Is it just the amount (.005 change), or does direction (lower to higher) matter?
 

Jay Hemdal

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Why is this? I've seen mail order outlets say they ship at 1.020 or below, but recommend temp acclimation and then dumping them in. I always figured an hour of drip was pretty good. Is it just the amount (.005 change), or does direction (lower to higher) matter?

For marine fish, you can always drop the SG rapidly, but raising it back up must be done slowly else the fish will dehydrate. Back in the day, this was never an issue because fish only tanks were always held around 1.021 SG. Dealers like to keep their fish at low SG "to reduce disease" but the big benefit is they save a lot on salt costs (think of all that water they ship out). If a dealer recommends temp acclimation only from 1.020 to 1.026 find a new dealer (grin). .003 SG unit rise per day or less is best.

Jay
 

Jay Hemdal

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@Jay Hemdal Also I don't know if you remember but I told you that I got a coral beauty 4 weeks ago. So I QT him for 2 weeks with copper and then he had no signs of ich or fungus for 3 days straight so I put him in my DT. Well now he is been in the tank for 2 weeks and since yesterday he has this tiny small white dot on his face... I am not sure if its a scratch ( I am hoping) Or ick. Here is a pic
IMG_5173.JPEG
IMG_5174.JPEG
Watch the spot closely, if it is still there after 36 hours, it probably isn't ich. If it goes away, but new spots pop up, then ich is more likely.

Jay
 

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