can i skip my cycle in my quarantine tank and get straight to treatment?

[dimitrinivo]

I did things backwards, i didn't quarantine my fish when i bought them, now they have flukes and ich, so i'm moving them into a 20 gallon quarantine tank that i just setup.

My question is should i add them into the uncycled tank immediately or should i let it cycle, but give the flukes another month to take hold? which would be less stressful?

My plan is to put all my fish from my display into the 20 gallon (which will be absolutely crammed) temporarily for 3 months to let the ich and flukes die out in the display tanks, at the same time they will be treated at hyposalinity in the QT.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

That is a tough situation to be in - if you wait while your tank cycles, the fish will likely die from ich long before it gets cycled.

What you will be faced with is moving the fish over to a fresh tank and then relying on "bacteria in a bottle" products to try and keep the ammonia level down below 0.25 ppm

Are you 100% confident your fish have both issues? I would not try hyposalinity in a crowded tank for both of those issues, not all flukes respond to hypo. Copper followed by praziquantel would be the safer choice.

If you post some pictures and give me some ideas as to why you think your fish have flukes, I might be able to give you more complete advice....

Jay

 

[dimitrinivo]

I live in Canada and even work at my LFS and still cant get my hands on medications here, there was a huge ban on meds in canada so hypo is my best option, ideally i could use copper and prazi but its just not available to me

 

[dimitrinivo]

I added some microbacter7 and I'm prepared to do frequent water changes if needed. I definitely should have quarantined before adding my fish to the display because now i gotta cram 10 fish into a 20 gallon, which is gonna be stressful on both the fish and myself. I won't make this mistake again haha, ALWAYS QT

 

[Jay Hemdal]

I added some microbacter7 and I'm prepared to do frequent water changes if needed. I definitely should have quarantined before adding my fish to the display because now i gotta cram 10 fish into a 20 gallon, which is gonna be stressful on both the fish and myself. I won't make this mistake again haha, ALWAYS QT

Good luck - yes, in Canada, hypo is your best option.

Jay

 

[dimitrinivo]

Good luck - yes, in Canada, hypo is your best option.

Jay

Thanks Jay, your help is always appreciated

 

[346700984]

It can be done. We put our fish requiring treatment into a newly started (day 1) quarantine tank with a bottle of Fritz bacteria and never had a problem. Bought the tank, mixed water, made sure temperature and ph were good, added the bottle bacteria for the amount of gallons. Then we got the fish out, freshwater dipped the fish, drip acclimated and put them into the new quarantine tank. We never had an issue with ammonia spiking. Bottled bacteria is great. Fish have been doing great.

 

[Chrisv.]

It can be done. We put our fish requiring treatment into a newly started (day 1) quarantine tank with a bottle of Fritz bacteria and never had a problem. Bought the tank, mixed water, made sure temperature and ph were good, added the bottle bacteria for the amount of gallons. Then we got the fish out, freshwater dipped the fish, drip acclimated and put them into the new quarantine tank. We never had an issue with ammonia spiking. Bottled bacteria is great. Fish have been doing great.

I did something similar. I set up a qt 48 hours before adding a fish using biospira. I added a little extra just before adding him. I was stunned to see that there was no ammonia spike. I keep a seachem badge in there to be safe, but I was really impressed by the bacteria in a bottle. The product has come a long way since it was basically snake oil.

Even though cobbling a qt together in a short timeframe was stressful, I'm so glad I did it.

 

[dimitrinivo]

I've decided i am going to wait for my QT tank to fully cycle, I understand this may cost the lives of a few of my fish, but I already added flake food to the empty QT tank, which guarantees there will be an ammonia spike and that it wont be fish safe. I should've quarantined in the first place so I'm kind of just accepting the consequences now. I think my fish might be able to fight off ich and flukes for a month, the symptoms are very minor, but i dont think they'd survive being crammed into an uncycled quarantine tank.

 

[dimitrinivo]

moral of the story; i put myself in a bad situation that could've been avoided had i quarantined in the first place

 

[Chrisv.]

moral of the story; i put myself in a bad situation that could've been avoided had i quarantined in the first place

We have all done it. Good luck with your fish!

 

[dimitrinivo]

We have all done it. Good luck with your fish!

Just lost my green clown goby from ich and flukes as we speak; luckily this is in my 10 gallon not my 40, bad news is the 10 appears to me crashing

 

[acan-man]

Look into hybrid tank transfer method. Moving fish every 72 hours to outrun the ich. Dosing hydrogen peroxide at the 1st and 3rd transfer. I do this for my qt and haven't had any ich, fluke, or other fish disease get into my display. You don't have to have a cycled qt, and any food safe plastic tote will work. Aim a power head at the surface. If you split between two tanks, the bio load shouldn't outrun the transfer speed.

 

[dimitrinivo]

Look into hybrid tank transfer method. Moving fish every 72 hours to outrun the ich. Dosing hydrogen peroxide at the 1st and 3rd transfer. I do this for my qt and haven't had any ich, fluke, or other fish disease get into my display. You don't have to have a cycled qt, and any food safe plastic tote will work. Aim a power head at the surface. If you split between two tanks, the bio load shouldn't outrun the transfer speed.

I'll look into it but I might be too late, the 10 gallon is crashing and I don't know if I have the time in my schedule to catch and transfer fish every 72 hours. I might just have to start from scratch

 

[acan-man]

If your 10 gallon is crashing, do a water change. Distilled water from the store or Declorinated tap water shouldn't kill your fish if you don't have rodi.

You can get 4 10 gallon totes at Walmart, two heaters and two small powerheads for less than 50 dollars. Get a colander to catch the fish. Much easier and less stressful than the net. Set them all up at the same time. At the around 72 hours, it can be earlier, just not later. catch the fish and place in the awaiting tank. It takes 5 mins to transfer and put some bleach in the used tote to run for 24 hours. After that just rinse the tote and let air dry for 24 hours. It's insanely easy, and only takes a few mins every few days. 4 transfers and your fish should be clean. During that time, a more established qt can be set up while your main display goes fallow for 76 days.

Soap box time: if your not willing to put in the time to save the fish you already have, you shouldn't get new fish. You made the choice to take them home from the store and to care for them. It is your responsibility to care for them to the best of your ability. I've had fish die and it sucks and I hate it and I feel terrible. But I have done everything to keep them from dying before they got to that. I have a thread on here where my kole tang got a bacterial infection from flukes. It barely moved for a week while I treated with multiple methods. It survived and has been with me over a year now. You owe it to the living creature to at least try.

 

[dimitrinivo]

Your right, I'll move my remaining fish into QT tomorrow and try to save them. It's late where I live so I'll do it tomorrow morning before work

 

[346700984]

I did something similar. I set up a qt 48 hours before adding a fish using biospira. I added a little extra just before adding him. I was stunned to see that there was no ammonia spike. I keep a seachem badge in there to be safe, but I was really impressed by the bacteria in a bottle. The product has come a long way since it was basically snake oil.

Even though cobbling a qt together in a short timeframe was stressful, I'm so glad I did it.

We use the Seachem badge as well in all of our tanks. We transferred 8 fish all at once that day immediately after the quarantine tank was set up. Fritz bottle bac is magic in a bottle. I had AmQuel detoxifier on hand in case of any spikes but never needed it.

 

[dimitrinivo]

Unfortunately I couldn't save the 10 gallons fish, I lost the wheelers goby yesterday morning before I had a chance to setup the bins for tank transfer. Lesson learned, always quarantine

 

[Chrisv.]

Unfortunately I couldn't save the 10 gallons fish, I lost the wheelers goby yesterday morning before I had a chance to setup the bins for tank transfer. Lesson learned, always quarantine

Bummer. It seems like there is a real opportunity for LFSs to provide a premium quarantine service. There was a store in the dc area that did this but idk if it really caught on. I'd happily pay 25% more for a fish that was clean. Like... without a second thought.

 

[dimitrinivo]

Now that I've setup a quarantine tank, I'm going to do a quarantine service for my friends haha