New to Quarantining Help

[Gonj]

I recently started the hobby and lost my pair of clowns due to velvet, I made the mistake of not quarantining and will never make it again. My question is do I have to quarantine incoming fish in a established tank? I just got a quarantine tank and am setting up I intend to treat incoming fish with seachem cupramine( if you have a different opinion on meds please express it). I’m going to leave my dt without fish for 45 days maybe more so the velvet can clear out. But I also want to quarantine my fish at the same time so once the 45 days is up I can introduce them. However because I just got a qt and it is not cycled I’m not sure if that would be safe for the fish?

 

[Spare time]

Get some big bottle of cycling bacteria and dump it in the QT. You can use a bunch of biomedia or sand as well as rock to act as the biofilter. This should rapdily establish the biofilter for fish. Microbacter xlm would be good.

I prefer copperpower over cupramine for some fish such as wrasses and dragonetts but this is under the assumption that you will never reuse the rock and sand from the QT. That plus being fed API general cure with seachem focus or given prazipro after copper treatment.

 

[Gonj]

Get some big bottle of cycling bacteria and dump it in the QT. You can use a bunch of biomedia or sand as well as rock to act as the biofilter. This should rapdily establish the biofilter for fish. Microbacter xlm would be good.

I prefer copperpower over cupramine for some fish such as wrasses and dragonetts but this is under the assumption that you will never reuse the rock and sand from the QT. That plus being fed API general cure with seachem focus or given prazipro after copper treatment.

Got it I have fritz turbo start 900 and some bottled ammonia on hand would that work to get it cycled? Also I wanted to grab a copper test kit heard Hanna was good but honestly not sure what the difference is between high range and low range any tips for that? I heard it’s best not to keep any substrate or rock in a qt as it can hold on to bad bacteria or give ich places to breed.

 

[davidcalgary29]

My question is do I have to quarantine incoming fish in a established tank?

No, you don't. Many people actually QT their incoming livestock in buckets with an airstone and a heater (if the organisms don't need a light source), monitor ammonia religously, and do frequent water changes (which also can also eliminate uneaten food). Just beware that adding copper to a QT with rock and substrate will a) make it more difficult to maintain constant copper levels (it will leach into the rock and subsrate), and then you'll probably have to throw the rock and substrate out at the end of the process (the copper will likely leach back out into the tank).

 

[Gonj]

No, you don't. Many people actually QT their incoming livestock in buckets with an airstone and a heater (if the organisms don't need a light source), monitor ammonia religously, and do frequent water changes (which also can also eliminate uneaten food). Just beware that adding copper to a QT with rock and substrate will a) make it more difficult to maintain constant copper levels (it will leach into the rock and subsrate), and then you'll probably have to throw the rock and substrate out at the end of the process (the copper will likely leach back out into the tank).

Got it I’ll give it a try also as mentioned before I wanted to grab a copper test kit heard Hanna was good but honestly not sure what the difference is between high range and low range any tips for that?

 

[davidcalgary29]

Got it I’ll give it a try also as mentioned before I wanted to grab a copper test kit heard Hanna was good but honestly not sure what the difference is between high range and low range any tips for that?

The HR tester is what you need for copper dosing in QT. Hanna checkers are kind of finicky and require some precision, but their results tend to be accurate for our needs.

 

[Gonj]

Thank you !!