PLEASE STOP USING TTM-IT'S BARBARIC

[NYAquatic]

At the risk of starting a war, please see thread title.

TTM is, in my not so humble opinion, one of the worst things to hit the hobby in my 20+ years doing it. Why do people love it? In my opinion, it comes down to two things:

1) I call it the **** (online vendor) effect. Back in the day, they invented 14 day guarantees. That shifts the financial burden of QTing from customer to supplier. In short, people don't so much care, or at least don't feel the $ pinch, of QT losses. Trading QT losses for safer display makes economic sense with guarantee. But it's barbaric. We have an obligation to do what we can to assure the survival of the fish we purchase.
2) People love to brag/post about their prowess in the hobby. Hey look, we have this new QT protocol and my fish came through it great. And thus it spreads. People are MUCH MUCH less likely to post-man I"m an idiot. I tried this new method and killed a bunch of fish. Don't make the same mistake I did.

Why do I think TTM is horrible:

1) Fish when shipped, or even moved from store to home, are by definition highly stressed. You're now taking this stressed fish and putting it in a way too small, totally uncycled, often unfiltered tank. It violates every tenet the hobby was built on.
2) Letting a new fish repeatedly go through a tank cycle, and fighting against it with water changes and TT is super stressful on already stressed fish. Sure, some fish survive it, but way too many don't.
3) repeatedly catching and moving new arrivals from tank to tank also highly stressful
4) I understand the biology of TTM and in theory it is very effective in treating ich. Since all parasites have different life cycles, it is ONLY effective against ich, and ignores all other issues. Why focus QT attention on a single problem, when there are lots of potential issues, all of which will be made worse by having super stressed out fish.
5) Ich is the easiest issue to deal with in QT. If you see it, a quick course of cupramine is 100% effective, MUCH MUCH cheaper and easier, and much much much much much less stressful on fish than TTM.

I absolutely 100% do not see any sense in TTM

Better to have a proper QT tank, observe new arrivals and treat as necessary.

Michael

 

[Crabs McJones]

I apologize, but I am completely out of the loop, what is TTM?

 

[S-t-r-e-t-c-h]

I apologize, but I am completely out of the loop, what is TTM?

Took me a second too...

Tank transfer method. It's maintaining two (or more) quarantine tanks and transferring the fish every 3(?) days so that you interrupt the ich lifecycle.

 

[Crabs McJones]

Took me a second too...

Tank transfer method. It's maintaining two (or more) quarantine tanks and transferring the fish every 3(?) days so that you interrupt the ich lifecycle.

Thank you for the information! Sounds like it could be extremely stressful to the fish.

 

[Dennco2000]

My TTM method is to use my 20 gallon frag tank, its also my emergency back up tank in the event a a leak or similar catastrophic event.
I think everyone with any amount of $$ invested into their tank should consider this. It's a cozy location for new fish with a couple hiding spots but when it's time to transfer the fish i dont have to move alot of stuff to get the fish out. As well I have almost had to move some fish that I wasnt sure if they were going to make the cut do to my bullies in the tank.

Dennis

 

[andrewkw]

Personally I disagree. I'd say TTM is the least stressful way to QT a fish (I will still observe after TTM is complete).

I can see your frustration as a retailer and people finding ways to screw up easy things but done properly it's not very stressful on the fish. I'm not sure what kind of crazy cycles, you or your customers are having but personally I'm not pouring in enough food to cycle a tank in 72 hours. In particular a shipped fish likely is going to produce less waste since it was just shipped and probably not fed, but even a fish fed right before ttm should not be creating enough waste. There is always prime but I've never had to use it in 72hrs. Of course if you are going to put 6 fish in a 10 gallon and feed them 5 different kinds of food that's another story.

With identical water parameters there is little to no stress on the fish. I use pvc pipes or elbows dependent on fish size. If there are multiple hiding spots I remove all but one, the fish goes in and then I grab it that way. No net, just a quick scoop and plop in an identical looking tank to it's previous. If I had a big fish I'd probably go with cupramine but if it was a fish I didn't want to I'd get something larger for their tank transfers only. For instance I used to have a pair of masked swallowtails and I used a 55 and an 80 to ttm since the standard 10g transfer tanks would be a little tight for them and with higher end fish I was taking less chances. If it was an expensive wrasse I'd feel much safer using 10gallon ttm's then cupramine.

If you really feel TTM is too stressful initially you can always observe and feed more in a larger isolation tank then ttm at a later time prior to display introduction. Of course doing this risks infecting the isolation tank but if you are buying fishes in bunches you can always drain the isolation tank and clean it out between fish purchases.

 

[4FordFamily]

Michael, by and large I agree.

The only time I recommend TTM is for fish that cannot survive copper or CP treatments -- those are few and far between.

TTM doesn't treat velvet or brook and IME velvet is every bit as common as ich now. It's a poor solution, I agree. I've lost a lot more fish to TTM than copper.

 

[NYAquatic]

Personally I disagree. I'd say TTM is the least stressful way to QT a fish (I will still observe after TTM is complete).

I can see your frustration as a retailer and people finding ways to screw up easy things but done properly it's not very stressful on the fish. I'm not sure what kind of crazy cycles, you or your customers are having but personally I'm not pouring in enough food to cycle a tank in 72 hours. In particular a shipped fish likely is going to produce less waste since it was just shipped and probably not fed, but even a fish fed right before ttm should not be creating enough waste. There is always prime but I've never had to use it in 72hrs. Of course if you are going to put 6 fish in a 10 gallon and feed them 5 different kinds of food that's another story.

With identical water parameters there is little to no stress on the fish. I use pvc pipes or elbows dependent on fish size. If there are multiple hiding spots I remove all but one, the fish goes in and then I grab it that way. No net, just a quick scoop and plop in an identical looking tank to it's previous. If I had a big fish I'd probably go with cupramine but if it was a fish I didn't want to I'd get something larger for their tank transfers only. For instance I used to have a pair of masked swallowtails and I used a 55 and an 80 to ttm since the standard 10g transfer tanks would be a little tight for them and with higher end fish I was taking less chances. If it was an expensive wrasse I'd feel much safer using 10gallon ttm's then cupramine.

If you really feel TTM is too stressful initially you can always observe and feed more in a larger isolation tank then ttm at a later time prior to display introduction. Of course doing this risks infecting the isolation tank but if you are buying fishes in bunches you can always drain the isolation tank and clean it out between fish purchases.

Andrew, using a 55 and 80 for TTM is impressive, also I'd think extremely rare.
It's I believe much more the norm to use 10 gallon tanks.
An 80 won't start cycling that quickly you are right.
A 10 will

Personally, I think TTM with that size tanks is way too difficult, expensive and impractical.

My other issues, including just treaing ich, stand

 

[andrewkw]

Well that was a one time thing with expensive big fish. I still think a 10g works in most instances. Those fish are about as expensive of a fish as I would buy and with a couple of used tanks I felt safer doing that than exposing them to medications other than prazipro initially. Some common sense is needed vs saying no to TTM and also saying yes to TTM in all cases. When I had an Achillies I never even attempted ttm went straight to cupramine. There probably isn't a all in one solution to how we quarantine fish, especially when people keep everything from a half inch flaming prawn goby to a 15" unicorn tang. Different fish are prone to different things but as a consumer it's generally a good thing to assume your fish are exposed to disease.

If for some reason I had an emaciated fish I would worry about fattening them up more then ich, but if I had a seemingly healthy fish I'd worry about what it's carrying vs getting it to grow bigger before it even reaches my display tank. You are right there are lots of other issues. I always treat with prazipro as well but as mentioned that along with ttm is no treatment against say velvet which is why I will still monitor the fish for 30 or so days after ttm so it has a chance to show symptoms and be treated in that or another tank before it gets a chance to infect other fish.

 

[Crashjack]

I studied current quarantine protocols before I got back into the hobby. I worried about the stress of TTM but more importantly, it was way too much for me to handle being physically handicapped. It also only treated ich, which would leave me open to a host of other potential problems.

If stress to new fish is the most important issue, then no quarantine is probably best, especially in a reef tank with lots of hiding spots and possibly constant food sources (algae, pods, etc.). Unfortynately, that ignores the health of the existing fish. For me, QT observation only is fool's gold. My QT is a Sterilite container on the ground, which makes it hard to observe much more than some behavior. Even if I did have better viewing, I'm not sure it would matter. I have some fish in my QT right now, one being a c. rubeus wrasse. The little wrasse has been eating and doing perfectly fine. I started my prophylactic treatment of General Cure Saturday afternoon. Sunday morning, the wrasse was hiding between the side of the tank and a pvc elbow and was rigid. I watched for a few minutes and he started to swim and convulsed or twitched and then swam away. I'm thinking that either the fish was reacting to the medication, or it had flukes. If it was flukes, I might not have noticed anything and then would have eventually introduced to my DT. I think people should do what they can to avoid introducing disease/parasites to their tanks, which might not be 100% inline with quarantine BEST practices.

 

[Peng]

The reason I switched to TTM was because of ammonia in cupramine dosed QT tank. IME QT w/ cupramine seems to not be able to have functioning nitrification bac. However TTM was very stressful to fish and I need to check ammonia everyday. Also it's quite expensive and physically demanding to do TT. But I've made the mistake of killing fish by using cupramine so I'm still afraid of it especially for angels.

It's funny that when I TTM achilles tang, did fallow for 3 months and put it back in and it picked up ich and then I did everything over again and it still got ich. So then I just sold my achilles after TTM decided to live with ich. After 8 months or so ich stopped periodically showing on on moorish idol and I bought another achilles and put it directly in and it didn't get any ich and has been half a year since then. I couldn't believe it because in the past they always get it. Maybe ich does run out after several months.

 

[leahfiish]

I think ttm has its uses but if applied properly it's not barbaric... I think it works best for smaller fish that are comfortable in smaller tanks. Damsels, gobies, etc. It's not ideal for large fish, very active ones, or burrowing fish like Halichoeres sp wrasses and jawfish.

 

[bblumberg]

I use a normal quarantine tank (old 55g in the garage) with a small amount of live rock, a cycled canister filter containing live rock rubble and Siporax and an old skimmer. If feel the need to medicate any fish, I put them in a bare bottom 10g tank with a cycled sponge filter. I have never observed an ammonia spike during cupramine treatment and don't often lose fish after any initial deaths from shipping stress. I'd say survival is more than 80 percent with salt water fish and more than 90 with fresh water, depending on the vendor. Most have zero to few losses while some others are much worse.

A good source is PaulB's thread about how to keep an immune tank.

Bruce

 

[najer]

England (the 1 next to europe) calling, I have fish but am mainly a coral person.
Only been in the hobby about 8 or 9 years.
I sort of see the point of quarantining fish but back to the original post, IMO, way to stress your fish out!
I have never quarantined a fish!
I have never had a fish disease!
It really appears to me, from reading lots of threads on R2R, that you have a lot bigger disease problem in the States than we do in England?

 

[4FordFamily]

England (the 1 next to europe) calling, I have fish but am mainly a coral person.
Only been in the hobby about 8 or 9 years.
I sort of see the point of quarantining fish but back to the original post, IMO, way to stress your fish out!
I have never quarantined a fish!
I have never had a fish disease!
It really appears to me, from reading lots of threads on R2R, that you have a lot bigger disease problem in the States than we do in England?

It depends on what you keep. Some species are harder and ich management (not quarantining and treating prior) is far more feesible and less risky with some species. If you're a coral person, I'm guessing you don't invest as much in fish as you do coral. Most are one or the other dominant. I'm the opposite.

Many of the common fish you buy at an LFS (aside from tangs other than zebrasoma and angels) are not very prone to ich, and in the case of some gobies, dragonettes, and some wrasse -- are not very prone to velvet, either. But you'd better not add any other fish or they'll succumb when the current resisdents thrive.

Stress will throw the resistance out the window even in hardy species at some point, however.

 

[BoomCorals]

Why do we think TTM is more stressful than copper? Has there been any scientific research done in this area? I haven't heard of that yet.

 

[saltyhog]

Michael you've posted this before and this kind rhetoric is very irritating. As a part of a total quarantine protocol it's an invaluable way to treat many fish (especially wrasses). Stressful? I have had more fish than not eating out of my hand before they finished TTM. If you have issues with ammonia in TTM you are either trying to treat too many fish at one time or grossly over feeding. I can't recall ever losing a fish during TTM. I have lost several while trying to treat them with copper.

I think you are doing a disservice to your customers and the hobby with this inflammatory type of post. How many fish have you actually tried to do TTM on? I can comprehend you not understanding if you have never done it but the blanket statements you've made several times seem to say you have experience with it. Do you?

I am pleased with the purple tang, C. isoscoles and C. jordani swimming in my tank right now that I bought from you as well as the others (can't remember which of the others for sure). Unfortunately I think they will be the last.

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[Gablami]

My concern with QT and treating as needed, is that some fish are "silent carriers" of ich. I TTM'd all my fish, until I was worried about TTM stressing out my new leopard wrasse. The wrasse did fine in QT for weeks. I transferred him into my DT and in 2 weeks noticed ich on my achilles. I'm currently 5 weeks into my fallow period having TTM'd all the fish from my DT.

So how can you protect yourself from subclinical infections of ich? I am NEVER going to be breaking down my rock work, catching 20 fish, doing 40g TTM, emergency cycling a 70g holding tank again. Not if I can help it.

 

[NYAquatic]

My concern with QT and treating as needed, is that some fish are "silent carriers" of ich. I TTM'd all my fish, until I was worried about TTM stressing out my new leopard wrasse. The wrasse did fine in QT for weeks. I transferred him into my DT and in 2 weeks noticed ich on my achilles. I'm currently 5 weeks into my fallow period having TTM'd all the fish from my DT.

So how can you protect yourself from subclinical infections of ich? I am NEVER going to be breaking down my rock work, catching 20 fish, doing 40g TTM, emergency cycling a 70g holding tank again. Not if I can help it.

Personally, if going into a reef, I'd treat everything with a course of copper.
After observation and making sure they're eating properly.

In terms of overfeeding, it's very common for people to try multiple different foods and likely overfeed new arrivals out of natural concern to get them eating and fattened up.
This again would prove problematic in an unfiltered/uncyled tank.
There's no reason to ever lose a fish due to properly dosed copper treatment.
You may lose fish during that period, but it shouldn't be due to copper.

 

[Sleepydoc]

Well, what are you defining as stress? The fact that it doesn't like being moved? Appetite changes? histologic changes in the liver? Difficulty swimming? If you're concerned about moving the fish, the least 'stressful' way would be to introduce it directly into the DT, but I hope you're not advocating that.

The known ways of treating ich are: Tank Transfer Method (TTM), Hyposalinity, Copper and Chloroquine Phosphate.

I've used hypo - and aside from the fact that there are known isolates of crypto that are tolerant & can survive hypo, it's difficult to maintain the proper salinity. You are essentially right on the border of what the fish can tolerate. I clearly remember coming down one morning to see a fish almost dead because the salinity was too low. I find it hard to argue that that isn't stressful on the fish.

Now for copper - like all drugs, it is also toxic to fish, it's just much more toxic to the parasites and most fish tolerate a therapeutic level fairly well, but higher levels of copper are known cause liver issues and fish routinely show appetite changes and stop eating. I've also had a fish die from raising the level too quickly. Again, it's pretty clear to me that copper can be stressful on fish, too.

I have never used Chloroquine Phosphate and it's relatively new, so much less is known about it's effects on fish. It is expensive and difficult to get and there is anecdotal evidence that some species (i.e. hippo tangs) don't tolerate it. I'll count death as stressful.

Tank Transfer Method, if done properly involves putting the fish in a tank, waiting 2-3 days, then transferring it to a separate tank, then repeating this again in 2-3 days. You repeat this process 3 times, so it involves 3 extra transfers of the fish. Ideally, you have the temperature and salinity of the successive tanks matched, so there is no shock from the new water. No fish enjoys being caught, but if done right, there is no injury to the fish and they rapidly adjust to their new home. If you are using two 10 gallon tanks, I challenge you to convince me that the fish knows the difference between them.

Buying, moving and quarantining a fish is stressful on it, no matter how you slice it, but I find it hard to argue that tank transfer method is more stressful than any of the other methods we employ. Indeed, if you truly do consider it barbaric, then you should consider our entire hobby barbaric and quit keeping fish altogether.

Edit- I personally use copper, primarily because it treats other things besides ich, but if I were only treating ich I would have no issues with TTM