Need to QT Biota Captive-Bred Blue Mandarin?

[bluprntguy]

Mandarins, like clowns, are very ich resistant.

Simply not true:
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1182259

 

[Stephers]

I have two I got from LA earlier this year. I quarantined them for observation only. They were fine. I fed them BBS using Paul B's feeder. They did great and got super fat.

 

[Stephers]

I have two I got from LA earlier this year. I quarantined them for observation only. They were fine. I fed them BBS using Paul B's feeder. They did great and got super fat.

 

[AlgaeBarn]

Algaebarn’s fish are not disease free. But they do their best to ensure everything they are sending to their customers are healthy.

They postponed one of my orders because they had to treat a CB blue tang. They did end up compensating me for the wait.

We unfortunately do not always receive healthy fish. All of our systems are isolated from one another (will go into detail in a coming post). We never ship any fish that we suspect has a disease. It's just not fair to our customers.

 

[DibsOnMcRibs]

We unfortunately do not always receive healthy fish. All of our systems are isolated from one another (will go into detail in a coming post). We never ship any fish that we suspect has a disease. It's just not fair to our customers.

I hope my post didn’t sound like shade. I’m glad I wasn’t sent a sick fish.

 

[AlgaeBarn]

Hey @AlgaeBarn care to comment on if your fish are likely to have ich, flukes, velvet brook, internal parasites, etc...

@Pbh-reef We never ship a fish that we even slightly suspect as having any disease, flukes, velvet, brook, parasites, etc.

We keep all fish from a specific vendor in their own system that has a 7ft air barrier, they all have their own color coded equipment, etc. Once we started following aseptic/cleanroom type procedures (I have academic and extensive industrial experience in both areas), we have never had an issue with cross contamination.

If any one fish breaks out in disease in their own system, we stop selling all of that vendors fish, stop all orders with the affected item, notify the customer, and medicate/treat accordingly.

This procedure has saved us at least once, we had one incident where some of foreign captive breed blue tangs we got in broke out in ich. They were in a completely isolated system and were not able to infect any other system.

 

[AlgaeBarn]

I hope my post didn’t sound like shade. I’m glad I wasn’t sent a sick fish.

I didn't take it as a negative. I'm glad we are earning a reputation as a company that doesn't ship sick fish.

 

[AlgaeBarn]

They have promised me that they keep their inverts separate from the fish. The fish probably go through the wholesaler where the tangs picked up a parasite; unless it was a bacterial infection. I'd like to know but have not asked them. They would be parasite free directly from Biota.
In the past, I have purchased many inverts from them and not quarantined them. However, I managed to get velvet in the DT and all my remaining fish are in QT and the tank is fallow. I either cross-contaminated it or it came in with an urchin. I suspect my error but I can't be sure. I only put them in suspicion because I knew about the tangs in treatment. The fish I put in QT never had any symptoms and looked perfect, still do after 2 months in QT with nothing but PVC.
I thinking about one of their yellow tangs but I'm out of QT space.
BTW it took a solid three weeks before the velvet was obvious. I would not consider a two-week observation long enough anymore.

Hi @AcanthurusRex, We keep all invert systems fallow, and they are separated even further by vendor. We never sell anything that we suspect would transfer disease/parasites. One idea we have floating around would be a 72 day fallow period for inverts, but we would have to setup a large number of systems to allow for multiple incoming batches, There are certain inverts that we are looking at captive breeding inhouse (to guarantee pest free status), but we are finishing up our copepods/phyto/macroalgae push at the moment. There is nothing like a new, shiny project to try to distract me from finishing up the old ones


The blue tangs came in from a wholesaler (not biota). They were kept in an isolated system and were not able to infect/contaminate/spread outside of the system.


We are likely the closest thing to buying direct from Biota. All of their fish are isolated in their own system. We do not share equipment/water between vendors.

With all of the fish we receive, we make sure they are eating and are healthy and with the right care, go on to live a long life. Unfortunately, this does end up showing us as out of stock more often (as we will actually have the fish, but we will be fattening them up, not sure how much other vendors do this). When customers buy captive bred fish from AlgaeBarn, they will always receive a fish in excellent health. It's just not fair when you receive a skinny fish. Our ultimate goal is customers to experience a fantastic live goods order from us.


FYI, We have space planned for a cleanroom (actually a negative pressure "cleanroom") quarantine area to guarantee disease/parasite free, but we need to sell some more fish to fund this project

 

[Pbh-reef]

that's amazing! well done @AlgaeBarn

 

[AcanthurusRex]

Hi @AcanthurusRex, We keep all invert systems fallow, and they are separated even further by vendor. We never sell anything that we suspect would transfer disease/parasites. One idea we have floating around would be a 72 day fallow period for inverts, but we would have to setup a large number of systems to allow for multiple incoming batches, There are certain inverts that we are looking at captive breeding inhouse (to guarantee pest free status), but we are finishing up our copepods/phyto/macroalgae push at the moment. There is nothing like a new, shiny project to try to distract me from finishing up the old ones


The blue tangs came in from a wholesaler (not biota). They were kept in an isolated system and were not able to infect/contaminate/spread outside of the system.


We are likely the closest thing to buying direct from Biota. All of their fish are isolated in their own system. We do not share equipment/water between vendors.

With all of the fish we receive, we make sure they are eating and are healthy and with the right care, go on to live a long life. Unfortunately, this does end up showing us as out of stock more often (as we will actually have the fish, but we will be fattening them up, not sure how much other vendors do this). When customers buy captive bred fish from AlgaeBarn, they will always receive a fish in excellent health. It's just not fair when you receive a skinny fish. Our ultimate goal is customers to experience a fantastic live goods order from us.


FYI, We have space planned for a cleanroom (actually a negative pressure "cleanroom") quarantine area to guarantee disease/parasite free, but we need to sell some more fish to fund this project

I know that we cannot expect any vendor to guarantee that their livestock is disease/parasite free. There a those who might attribute acquiring a disease from that vendor when they did something stupid like I did. The only "wet" items that went into the tank were some urchins and a net I used a few days prior to transfer the fish into the QT; the net was in the garage drying for several days.
I never really thought that the velvet came in on the urchins and I hope that I didn't imply that I did. Simply there were only two vectors and the urchins were one of them. I suspect most vendors would be less candid than @AlgaeBarn has been in this thread.

If we could only get some of our coral vendors to step up. At least illustrate their efforts to mitigate fish parasite transfer via coral frags. I don't buy from most vendors simply because SPS QT is a daunting prospect.

Fish;
I'd like to see more captive bred angels available, don't really want a coral beauty. Lost my captive bred flame; this flame never touched any coral. I lost my neon goby yesterday and I'd like to replace him as well.
Plan on getting one of your captive-bred Yellow tangs when I have some QT space open up.

 

[mwilk19]

We bought our captive bred Mandarin and Blue Tang from AlgaeBarn. We did not quarantine due to the fact that they were captive bred and I wanted to make sure the Mandarin had a good supply of pods to eat. We've had them for more than two years without a problem. Any other fish we make sure to quarantine.

 

[VR28man]

My impression is that Biota maricultures their fish - i.e. grows them in pens in the sea, or at least in vats filled with NSW - in Palau. . (I know ORA and probably Proaquatix do that too in Florida).

Doing this carefully with a controlled set of broodstock obviously massively reduces the risk of disease compared to even very carefully catching all kinds of wild fish, but there's still potential pathogens in NSW. (I assume it would be uneconomical to do large scale saltwater fish culture using ASW)

And then there's the flight. Biota must send its fish first (presumably) through Tokyo (based on my understanding of airfreight) and from there to some major US airport before it gets to an LFS or big online seller like @AlgaeBarn . Thus, even to a major vendor in a large US city like LA or (in my case) DC, Biota's fish have a minimum 20 hour flight from Palau to Dulles Airport; in reality I'm sure it's much longer when you account for packing the fish, bringing them to the airport, layovers, time spent waiting in the cargo processing areas, etc.. (in contrast, Proaquatix, ORA, or even a good Florida collector like KP aquatics could easily do less than 18 hours from their tank to my home DC area QT tank via UPS depot pick up, and by airfreight only would have a 1 hour flight direct flight to Dulles).

So, don't think that "it's aquacultured it must be clean". If I were keeping lots of Biota fish for retail sale like @AlgaeBarn , I would QT them for sure like they do. Whether or not you the average hobbyist do further QT is up to you - your options start from @Paul B 's philosophy to the people who automatically do minimum 72 days of various medicines from the get go. A direct shipment (UPS overnight, pick up at UPS depot) from an as-clean-as-practically-possible breeder or vendor definitely minimizes your chances of the fish falling sick.

IMO, I either get them directly from an as-clean-as-practically-possible facility or from an LFS I trust. I watch the fish in untreated QT for a few days, and if it's eating and acting well it goes to the acclimation box. And I feed LRS @ReefFrenzy , pods, and will get back into live food since @Paul B makes sense to me - he has a lot of experience as a reefer and apparently grew up in a household that sold live seafood. So far I've never needed to do any treatment, from an admittedly very small fish population.