First time quarantine advice for 3 species..

tomb18

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Hi
I have recently set up a 55 gallon tank with two clownfish and they are doing great. The tank has sg of 1.024, and 5ppm Nitrate. It has a protein skimmer and a refugium.
I now want to add a bicolor angel, a goby, and 2 firefish to a quarantine tank.
The tank has been cycled with Seachem stability, and filter material from by DT. It had 20ppm Nitrate but I plan a water change first. It has a sg of 1.022.
I have Copper power available, and a Hanna tester. I also have API general cure and PraxiPro.
Now I understand that angels are copper sensitive, and could do the hyposalinity method but will the other fish tolerate this?
The fish I would like to get have been followed for two weeks almost everyday at the LFS. They all seem healthy but there are some fish in their whole 40 tank collection that are sick. For example there is another bicolor angel, that has signs of ich, there is a lemon peel angel that has one cloudy eye and a few other fish like a blue tang that is scratching itself in rocks.
So, my question is what should be my strategy here? Skipping these fish may not be an option since other LFS are worse in terms of overall fish health.
Thanks for any insight.
Tom
 

pcon

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I would do chloroquine or tank transfer long before hyposalinity. There are ich strains which can survive lower salinities than the fish can and if evaporation brings up the salinity at all you have to restart the process.
 
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tomb18

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How much for a 20 gallon with potential water changes along the way?
Thanks
 

pcon

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The information needed to calculate that can be found pretty easily. Here is a humble fish article on the use of chloroquine:
 

DrMMI

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I've got a purple firefish in a 55g quarantine with a bullet goby and a royal gramma and I've had no issues. I used copper power and the levels have been anywhere from 2-2.4 without any issues. I've dosed general cure in that time too for flukes and had no issues. I heavily oxygenated the water and did 50% water changes every couple of days. I've got another hospital tank going for all my other fish because of velvet in my display. I dosed copper power to 2.0 for 30 days and my tangs, gobies, clowns, chromis, dwarf angels, and wrasses showed no ill effects.
 
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tomb18

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Ok I have decided to forego the firefish. It's just going to be the bicolor angel and the bicolor goby. They both look fabulous and are eating well. So I will initially put them in to the quarantine tank and observe them for 2 weeks and treat with API general cure.
My question is, if there are no signs of ich or velvet am I good to go?
 

DrMMI

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I added the first fish to my tank in Feb 2019. Never quarantined any fish, coral, or inverts. I watched the fish for 2 weeks and if they were eating and healthy, I threw them right into the display. In June 2020, I noticed my unicorn tank swimming into the powerhead stream. I turned the lights back on and saw he & almost all my other fish were covered in velvet. So just because a fish doesn't show symptoms within the first 2 weeks doesn't mean they're healthy. I learned my lesson and from now on anything wet going into my tank is getting quarantined.
 

AcanthurusRex

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I have QT’d every fish. When I cross contaminated the DT it took about three weeks for velvet to show up.
The fish that brought velvet into the house never had any sign of disease, went straight into QT.
 
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tomb18

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Ok, thanks for all the replies.
Will these two fish tolerate Copper power at 2ppm? I have a Hanna tester.
 
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tomb18

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Hi,
Thought I would give an update on my Bicolor Blenny and my Bicolor Angel.
I have now had them in my quarantine tank for 2 weeks. The first day they ate with no issues just nervousness. Mysis shrimp. They are very active, eat like crazy and show no signs of any parasites or disease. The LFS that they came from has several fish from the same batch that have been there for 4+ weeks and they are still all disease free as far as I can tell. I do a partial water change (25%) every 3 days.
I have on hand, Copper Power, a Hanna test kit, PraziPro, General Cure, Focus, and some chloroquine phosphate. I have not used any.
Given that these two fish seem really healthy I am continuing in this direction. I do not plan on any meds unless something seems to break out. So at the moment it looks like I will keep this up for 5 weeks. Will this be enough?
BTW, I live in Canada. There was no issue purchasing all these items from Amazon and EBay. The Chloroquine came from a chemical supply house since I used to work in a pharma company and have many chemist friends.
Thanks, Tom
 
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tomb18

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Well, looks like all of a sudden the Blenny has flukes. He is going into the PVC pipe and trying to rub something off of himself quite vigorously. So yesterday, I did the first dose of APi GC. Today, he seems to not rub so often but he is also quite lethargic comparted to other days. He did eat, but it seems that it took longer than usual for him to start.
So if this is flukes, how long until GC has an effect? It's been 24 hours.
Thanks.
 
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