How do I do it?

[TortillaMan]

Alright you guys I’m posting today to talk about quarantine! By some miracle I am allowed to quarantine my fish now. I have almost everything. Tanks (2 20g longs from aqueon), filters, heaters, thermometers, 8 bio balls for quick cycle ( they are in my sump collecting good bacteria. 4 each tank), lights, salt (I’m going to be using instant ocean orange bucket and switching over to RS blue bucket for display tank). All I need is the meds, testers, ammonia alerts and instant ocean salt (I can do large water changes for cheap instead of 90 bucks for 160g), and some pvc tubing for habitat. All new fish and DT fish will be fed nori, selcon, garlic, spirulina, mysis, roe, and other foods. Like I have the time to do it. Better to QT then to loose all my fish to a dissease and have to fallow again. Im day 2 into my fallow period.

Questions:

1: if the fish I buy online or at lfs comes in safe do I have to medicate the water assuming it’s infected with something? Or can it just be in there for 2-3 weeks for observation

2: if the store I buy from says their distributor does a 2 week QT and 1 week observation after QT does that mean I have to QT?

3: do I still have to put new fish in observation if I buy them from a website that says they 100% QT their fish?

4: how would I QT inverts and how common is it that inverts transmit things like ich or other infections. If I treat copper for ich then I cant QT inverts in that tank at all.

5: how safe is it to have all of those chemicals around. I will be QTing in my room so I don’t really want to breath flucondazol or something in.

6: I have 2 20g longs so can I QT or observe two different batches of fish in these tanks. I heard about ich aerosolizing and need QT’s 10’ away from each other. Both 20g longs are next to eachother but if I’m treating copper in both tanks wouldn’t it kill the ick on contact with the copper water?

7: what about salinity? Wouldn’t I need an ATO of some kind or will I be doing 100% water changes so it doesn’t matter? I will do more research on treatment methods. An inverted water bottle should work right?

Thanks!!!

 

[Spare time]

1. You should always assume the fish will have flukes, and have a decent chance of catching marine ich. Observation is more or less a waste of time and is risky if the fish gets a nasty disease like velvet.

2. Depends on their QT protocol. Not sure I would trust it.


3. It is good practice but not necessary unless their is a flaw with their QT design.


4. Inverts go in a tank for 45 days minemum. I like to raise them temp to 81F if the invert can handle it. Some cooler water species would struggle. Do one big batch at a time (and make sure there is food (ex: algae) for the clean up crew!). I also wipe snail and hermit shells with hydrogen peroxide. If a molt occurs for shrimp or a crab like an emerald, they are fine to put in after the molt.


5. The only dangerous ones are those based with formalin.


6. I am not sure about ich aerosolizing but some microbes can. Ideally you would space them out but if you can't then make sure no water gets transfered between them


7. Salinity should be treated with extra care as the copper concentration will change as water evaporates.

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

All new fish and DT fish will be fed nori, selcon, garlic, spirulina, mysis, roe, and other foods. Like I have the time to do it.

A note on this before getting to the questions - those are good options, I'd suggest the following for the main foods to feed (I'd suggest using a meaty food as the main feed, and supplementing it with algae like nori, Ulva, Halymenia, Gracilaria, etc. and/or an algal food like the NLS pellets):

Personally, my suggested feeds would be as follows (I apologize, I haven't looked into frozen algae-heavy feeds enough to have one that I would suggest at this point; I'll have to remedy that):
Frozen (Meaty) - LRS Reef Frenzy, Hikari Mega Marine, then Rod's Original.

Pellets (Meaty) - Otohime, then TDO Chromaboost.
Pellets (Algal) - NLS Marine Fish Pellets (has 8 types of algae and one terrestrial plant).

Alright, now for the questions:

1: if the fish I buy online or at lfs comes in safe do I have to medicate the water assuming it’s infected with something? Or can it just be in there for 2-3 weeks for observation

2: if the store I buy from says their distributor does a 2 week QT and 1 week observation after QT does that mean I have to QT?

I would assume the fish is sick even if it seems completely healthy, and I would assume that you need to do a full, proper QT to avoid disease outbreaks if you're buying from a regular LFS.

Current Quarantine Protocol

2023 Quarantine Procedures Jay Hemdal David Scarborough Protozoans (Cryptocaryon/ich, Amyloodinium/velvet) and Metazoan trematodes/flukes are by far the most common parasites found on newly acquired fish. A carefully managed quarantine process can effectively eliminate these parasites before...

www.reef2reef.com

3: do I still have to put new fish in observation if I buy them from a website that says they 100% QT their fish?

The absolute safest option would be to do your own full QT, but a lot of the reputable pre-QT vendors do have a pretty good track record (not perfect, but pretty good) - if you're not going to do a proper QT, then ordering pre-QT'd fish is the way to go.

4: how would I QT inverts and how common is it that inverts transmit things like ich or other infections. If I treat copper for ich then I cant QT inverts in that tank at all.

To QT inverts/corals/macroalgae/anything wet that isn't a fish, you just keep them in a fishless tank for a minimum of 45 days at 81F (this works fine as long as the inverts can handle those temps; if you don't want to run temps that high, or if you just want to be extra careful, then run the QT for 60-76 days).

It's extremely uncommon that inverts and such bring in disease, but it has been known to happen occasionally to an unlucky few (example links at the bottom so they don't clog up the post too badly).

Yeah, the copper would kill the inverts, corals, etc. so they need QT'd in a separate tank from the fish.

Anytime you add a new invert/coral/whatever to the QT, the QT countdown would start over to be safe, so I'd suggest doing QT batches (i.e. doing a QT of multiple inverts at once).

5: how safe is it to have all of those chemicals around. I will be QTing in my room so I don’t really want to breath flucondazol or something in.

I'm not sure about Praziquantel and Fluconazole (that's a good question for Randy Holmes-Farley or Jay Hemdal), but I'd imagine that as long as you're not doing something ridiculously unsafe like drinking the meds or taking a deep whiff over the top of the open bottle (for examples), you should be fine.

6: I have 2 20g longs so can I QT or observe two different batches of fish in these tanks. I heard about ich aerosolizing and need QT’s 10’ away from each other. Both 20g longs are next to eachother but if I’m treating copper in both tanks wouldn’t it kill the ick on contact with the copper water?

If you start both QT's at the same time, it shouldn't be an issue. If you start one after the other, that could be a problem. Spare time above said it well - if you can't separate them and you need to run them at different times (or one with fish and one with inverts), then do everything possible to keep them from having water droplets switching from one tank to the other (something as simple as putting a cardboard divider between the two tanks/covering their tops could be useful here).

7: what about salinity? Wouldn’t I need an ATO of some kind or will I be doing 100% water changes so it doesn’t matter? I will do more research on treatment methods. An inverted water bottle should work right?

You can add water manually (a lot of people mark the tanks at a specific height so they know how much water they need to add), you can use an ATO, etc. - as long as you can keep the salinity and med levels stable, pretty much any method should work.

Ich or velvet from a coral frag.

I have been running my tank for almots 3 years 220 gallon dispaly . recently I added few coral frags to my system. Normally I QT all new fishes . I overlooked coral frags . I just rinsed it in tank water and put them in . Now couple of weeks later I see suspicious white sp eating and no othre...

www.reef2reef.com

I have a question about velvet

Hello friends I need an advice. I’m new in all of this reefing stuff so: On Friday, I added a new coral to the tank. On Sunday, I noticed the first signs of velvet on clown fish and I didn’t lnow what it was. by Tuesday morning clown was already dead. Subsequently, I found velvet on other...

www.reef2reef.com

Keeping CuC Alive in Quarantine.

So it’s coming time for me to restock the crew. While the exact composition and numbers are TBA, thinking it will be around 15 blue leg hermits, 5 nassarius, 1 mexican turbo and a skunk shrimp. Ultimately they’re going in my 260gal, which currently has a tuxedo urchin, 1 hermit crab, 1...

www.reef2reef.com

Worth it to QT inverts?

I have a FOWLR tank and was thinking to boost the clean up crew. Does it make sense to QT inverts? Or is that unnecessary? Ditto does it make sense to QT live rock?

www.reef2reef.com

 

[TortillaMan]

1. You should always assume the fish will have flukes, and have a decent chance of catching marine ich. Observation is more or less a waste of time and is risky if the fish gets a nasty disease like velvet.

2. Depends on their QT protocol. Not sure I would trust it.


3. It is good practice but not necessary unless their is a flaw with their QT design.


4. Inverts go in a tank for 45 days minemum. I like to raise them temp to 81F if the invert can handle it. Some cooler water species would struggle. Do one big batch at a time (and make sure there is food (ex: algae) for the clean up crew!). I also wipe snail and hermit shells with hydrogen peroxide. If a molt occurs for shrimp or a crab like an emerald, they are fine to put in after the molt.


5. The only dangerous ones are those based with formalin.


6. I am not sure about ich aerosolizing but some microbes can. Ideally you would space them out but if you can't then make sure no water gets transfered between them


7. Salinity should be treated with extra care as the copper concentration will change as water evaporates.

1: alright so a quick FW dip to stun any flukes should be a good idea right?
2: I was thinking TSM aquatics or marine collectors. I’ve heard of DR.Reef but idk if I trust them or the lfs whole saler. I will What everything else but I will pay someone to QT tangs and finicky fish I may want.
3:I think I’ll just closely observe and then put into the DT 1 week later. May need to fatten them up.
4: I need more hermits, various snails, crabs and some others. Next LFS run I’ll pick some up. I’m going fallow right now so now is the time
5: wolnt be huffing anything at all. Although I subconsciously smell everything lll
6: cannot space then out so I will out of a divider
7: I’ll figure out a way

 

[Spare time]

1: alright so a quick FW dip to stun any flukes should be a good idea right?
2: I was thinking TSM aquatics or marine collectors. I’ve heard of DR.Reef but idk if I trust them or the lfs whole saler. I will What everything else but I will pay someone to QT tangs and finicky fish I may want.
3:I think I’ll just closely observe and then put into the DT 1 week later. May need to fatten them up.
4: I need more hermits, various snails, crabs and some others. Next LFS run I’ll pick some up. I’m going fallow right now so now is the time
5: wolnt be huffing anything at all. Although I subconsciously smell everything lll
6: cannot space then out so I will out of a divider
7: I’ll figure out a way

FW dip will not kill any eggs so prazipro (or any praziquantel med) should be used imo.

2. I haven't used any of those but I do have issue with the copper level used for Dr. Reef's design.


3. Sounds like a fine plan if you are buying them pre-quarantined

4. Again, sounds good to me. Keep in mind that when you add them, you are restarting the QT/Fallow clock.

5. Lol

6. Ok.

7. Sounds good