QT Methods - Copper vs TTM

[madducks42]

When we first started our tank a little over a year ago we didn’t quarantine everything. After basically all the fish in our tank dying we put the survivors, two clownfish and a yellow watchman goby, into quarantine. Fast forward 3 months. The clownfish are back in the display tank after going through TTM and copper treatments, the goby died during the copper treatments.

We also acquired a yellow tang and coral beauty two weeks ago that were put into QT, 10 gallon tank with heater and air stone. Let them adjust for a few days, they were eating and acting okay. Started copper acclimation, spent 5 days slowly upping it up to .2 which is the therapeutic level for the type of copper we’re using. The tang started to look like crap after 2 days, pulled it out of the copper tank and put it in a different tank with no copper. Tang died within a few hours. The coral beauty made it a few more days in the copper before also starting to look terrible. Also pulled it out of the copper treated water and put in a bucket with regular salt water. Pretty sure it’s going to be dead within an hour though.

So I’m thinking of going back to TTM for future quarantines. It’s my understanding this will treat ick but not velvet or anything else. Assuming we use TTM how long should we keep the fish in QT to make sure the fish aren’t carrying velvet or something else?

 

[Dr. Reef]

If you just want to qt the fish then just place them in tank and observe over 3 to 4 weeks. Treat with prazipro for internal parasites. Leave the external till you fully diagnose the problem before administering drugs.
Now I do treat all tangs for ich no matter what with chloroquine phosphate.
When you do see an external parasite then treat accordingly.

 

[Smo]

Just curious what Cu product you used and what test kit. Also, confirm you didn’t have an ammonia issue with only a 10 G tank and an air stone. What was your water change schedule?
Personally, in a 10 G tank I use a large seeded air driven foam filter plus a HOB power filter.

 

[AcroNem]

Copper can be very stressful on fish, I use it only on very tough fish or if absolutely "needed". If you didn't slowly bring your tang off of copper that's what killed it.

I've never used TTM and likely never will. Personally, I'd treat with Formalin. It's a pretty safe drug but will still kill Cryptocaryon with proper duration. 5 treatments ( dose every other day, so 10 days total) with a 50% water change in between treatment days.

Treatment dosage as follows

Using 37% formalin, dose .09mL/gal to get 25ppm, but make it easy and just dose .1mL/gal, it has such a short half life that it's difficult to OD it. Make sure you're running an air stone or other aeration during treatment, and discontinue use of UV and carbon.

That's my method and what I would use. But of course totally up to you if you decide to use TTM

 

[jschultzbass]

I wasn't QTing and ended up killing almost my whole tank so last year I started over and strictly do the TTM with Prazipro. Knock on wood I haven't had any sign of disease since. Now that I have my routine down for the TTM I'll never go back to anything else. Uses a little salt obviously but not a big deal. The good thing about TTM is i've never even seen a white dot on my fish because you transfer them out of the aquarium before Ich can hatch and overwhelm the fish which is when you see all the white dots. Fish stay much healthier.

 

[madducks42]

Thanks for the responses all! The copper I was using was Brightwell Aquatics Cuprion. I picked up one of the Hanna copper checkers a few weeks ago when it was announced that they worked for salt water. I have a really hard time with a lot of the color based tests, my boyfriend swears I'm color blind, lol. I can tell the difference between different colors like green and purple. But telling the difference between three slightly lighter shades of blue? Not so much. It's more of a guessing game at that point which really doesn't seem like a good way to go for something like copper when you really need to know what level it's at. Anyway, assuming the Hanna checker was accurate the copper levels never went above 0.23. But maybe I brought the copper level up too fast or they were just more sensitive.

I picked up three fish yesterday, yellow watchman goby, dragon goby, and royal gramma. The first two are in a 10 gallon tank together and the gramma is in a different 10 gallon; we have a lot of extra ten gallon tanks : ) Planning on doing TTM with them along with Prazipo followed by a 2 weeks observation period. With TTM the water gets changed enough that the ammonia doesn't get too high but when I'm not doing TTM I usually do 50% water changes every 3 days. I do have some sponges in the sump of our display tank and I'm planning on putting those in the QT tanks during the 2 week observation period in hopes of keeping the ammonia down. I'll still check the ammonia daily though to make sure it doesn't creep up.

 

[PatW]

The tank transfer system works on ich. The real bad thing is marine velvet. It can kill an entire tank in a very short period of time.

I would suggest at least doubling your observation period. Many people use a 6 week observation period. You are pretty likely to spot any issues in that amount of time.

But two weeks is far better than nothing.

 

[tastyfish]

Honestly, unless you’re treating anthias, then Chloroquine is a much broader and often more effective method for ciliate, Dinoflagellates and protozoan parasites than both TTM and copper IME.

I can effectively treat cryptocaryon irritants, amyloodinium occelatum, brookynella hostilis and Uronema marinum with one 21 day treatment.

I use at 10.5mg/litre which is an effective therapeutic dose, but gentle enough for nearly all fish, including wrasse.

I would not however consider for anthias which seem to have severe issues and often die suddenly under chloroquine treatment.

I combine this with a freshwater/Prazinquantel dip to rid the fish of flukes and worms also.