QT - Why it sometimes fails?

[Forsaken77]

I think the only way a prophylactic treatment can fail is if you're treating for something the fish doesn't have, or the fish is too far along (or you're not treating properly).

Personally, I use Cupramine, Prazi, and Kanaplex for fish. Metro is more for coral health. My way treats Ich, Velvet, Flukes and internal bacterial stuff.

I have NEVER had a fish die in QT, or had a sick fish in my display.

One thing I will say is that I've had some fish species go blind after roughly 2 years. I don't know if that has to do with the treatment, but it seems like a while for the fish to go after QT and then go blind.

Also, I QT 1 fish at a time in a 12 gallon Fluval Evo tank so it's easy, and inexpensive, to do complete water changes between meds. Plus I use less meds in a smaller tank.

Every fish has been very happy and energetic in QT during treatment. Probably because they see the bigger tank and want to get to it, lol.

I find putting a piece of cardboard that blocks 1/3 of the viewing area works better when the fish wants to disappear than pvc pipe that they never use. Then, when they want interaction or food, they swim where they can be seen. Stresses them less.

 

[MnFish1]

Well I purchased a Squareback Anthia on 5-12-19. He had arrived at my LFS on 5-7-19
The tank he was in had two other tankmates, they had flukes. Both fish flashing on the gravel.
The owner of the LFS had or was going to start FW dips.

I bought the Anthia anyway and put him in a 20G QT and full dose of General Cure, now its day three of treatment, tomorrow will be the end of the treatment and I will be doing a 50% WC and add the carbon. I will wait another day and then consider a FW dip.
So far I have not had the best of luck with the QT process, I have tried the observe first and see if signs show up, well that has been a total failure, so now I am going to be proactive and see how that goes.

So far the Anthia has been doing fine, today he has not eaten for the first time, so I am concerned.
Though shy he will come out and swim around, no heavy breathing.
I don't like the no WC bit for four days so the medication does not get diluted, but I worry about ammonia levels.
My Seachem patch is starting to change color.

Back on topic, I have had QT failures 9 fish deaths in total. IMO if they don't make it out of QT then its a fail.
Fault on the other hand is the subjective part and IMO the real question.

QT is the only way to go.

I have been there. My suggestion - if you see a fish in an LFS etc - with a disease - point it out to the owner - and say 'I won't be buying anything today because of xxxxxx'. JMHO

 

[MnFish1]

I think the only way a prophylactic treatment can fail is if you're treating for something the fish doesn't have, or the fish is too far along (or you're not treating properly).

Personally, I use Cupramine, Prazi, and Kanaplex for fish. Metro is more for coral health. My way treats Ich, Velvet, Flukes and internal bacterial stuff.

I have NEVER had a fish die in QT, or had a sick fish in my display.

One thing I will say is that I've had some fish species go blind after roughly 2 years. I don't know if that has to do with the treatment, but it seems like a while for the fish to go after QT and then go blind.

Also, I QT 1 fish at a time in a 12 gallon Fluval Evo tank so it's easy, and inexpensive, to do complete water changes between meds. Plus I use less meds in a smaller tank.

Every fish has been very happy and energetic in QT during treatment. Probably because they see the bigger tank and want to get to it, lol.

I find putting a piece of cardboard that blocks 1/3 of the viewing area works better when the fish wants to disappear than pvc pipe that they never use. Then, when they want interaction or food, they swim where they can be seen. Stresses them less.

Kanamycin is a big time antibiotic. I'm always surprised when people use it routinely - not a critique - just a comment. Thanks for posting your experience.

 

[Ferrell]

First I did not quarantine at all just float and drop which is the way we did it back in the 80s and 90s. Totally wiped out 8 fish to velvet in first six months.

In the last year I:

Quarantined in a cycled tank, no meds observe only no luck
Quarantined in a tank with sponge filter from DT with prazipro melafix primafix and no copper no luck

After loosing 6-8 fish I Sought help at R2R

Now I quarantine with GC then Copper Power > 1.75 for 30 days and one week after with no meds and have not lost a fish including tangs. Granted I only have 5 fish in my 75 now but will be looking at adding a couple final ones soon.

 

[Blackened]

I have tried everything on the list except TTM.

I have experienced least success with fish out of Indonesia. These fish are questionably caught and their transportation to holding systems and subsequent shipping to international customers are not managed.

You end up with a weaker fish to fix and waiting is the key before beginning QT. Despite that, the number of Indo fish dying in store during QT is significantly higher than other countries.

 

[Aquanaut WA]

I would like to hear from people who 'Quarantine' their fish - not from those who do not use this method. This is not designed to determine what percent of people use QT methods - but rather those who do - what percentage have had a failure....

Lets discuss the reasons why it is 'great' - and the reasons you might have had where your quarantine methods fail. Note in the poll - I tried to put in the various definitions of quarantine - so if yours is not there - comment below - or comment below for any reason. THE MAIN QUESTION FOR THIS POLL (COMMENT WISE) - IS IF YOUR QT METHOD FAILED - WHAT HAPPENED AND WHY? Thanks.

BTW - I allow people to make multiple choices - in case people have tried multiple methods.

I have difficulty eradicating Gill Flukes and multiple Prazi treatments. I have had ick survive 80 days DT Fallow to break out returning fish that QT copper 6weeks then observed till return. 6 months Fallow worked when tank bust seal and tank was taken down with fish returning to QT again till new install at 6 months.

 

[Fallling]

I've lost several expensive in wrasses around week 3 of QT with just doing metro soaked food and prazi - I believe the culprit to actually be velvet that wasn't obviously apparent. Unfortunately, by the time I realized something was up with the fish, they were dead within a day or 2 and usually covered in fine white spots. My plan is usually is to do copper, but then life gets busy and I slack on it getting it going. I'll never be lax on copper with wrasses again. With other fish, I've been mostly successful with just prazi and metro soaked food.

 

[MnFish1]

I have difficulty eradicating Gill Flukes and multiple Prazi treatments. I have had ick survive 80 days DT Fallow to break out returning fish that QT copper 6weeks then observed till return. 6 months Fallow worked when tank bust seal and tank was taken down with fish returning to QT again till new install at 6 months.

Thats horrible

 

[Forsaken77]

First I did not quarantine at all just float and drop which is the way we did it back in the 80s and 90s. Totally wiped out 8 fish to velvet in first six months.

In the last year I:

Quarantined in a cycled tank, no meds observe only no luck
Quarantined in a tank with sponge filter from DT with prazipro melafix primafix and no copper no luck

After loosing 6-8 fish I Sought help at R2R

Now I quarantine with GC then Copper Power > 1.75 for 30 days and one week after with no meds and have not lost a fish including tangs. Granted I only have 5 fish in my 75 now but will be looking at adding a couple final ones soon.

Back in the 90's I used to just dump the fish straight into the tank and never had an outbreak on a SEVERELY overstocked tank. Unfortunately, these are different times and that no longer works.

 

[Aquanaut WA]

Thats horrible

My successes have led to hosting fish of 6-8yrs of age and 10yrs of fish I adopted from those leaving the hobby.

 

[divewsharks]

All my fish go into QT. They get treated with a formalin of some kind, GC in the water column and either GC or Metro soaked food. I have other meds on hand in case something else is seen and needs to be treated after observation.
Recently the chief thing I have been battling is internal parasites - even after eating the 'treated' food.

 

[griff500]

I've used CP with good results but some fish don't tolerate it and biofilter issues are a big negative.

What are the biofilter issues that CP creates?

 

[saltyhog]

What are the biofilter issues that CP creates?

It's not that CP creates a problem with the biofilter, it's that the biofilter can break down the CP to subtherapeutic levels and we have no way to monitor the levels. So you pretty much have to depend on water changes, etc. for ammonia control.

 

[Jeff_H]

I'm still relatively new to the hobby and only have 3-4 years of experience. To date, I've QT'ed 20 fish and have never lost one to disease after quarantine. I have lost three in quarantine, but reflecting back on those fish, I think it was my lack of experience on two of them and related to the extra low salinity LFS keep their tanks at. I've since learned to match my QT water to the water they come in at and slowly raise it over the next 6-12 days to match my DT levels.

I've only used TTM + Prazi unless something pops up requiring a specific targeted treatment.

Regarding Velvet, I've been fortunate to not run into it yet. Since I only purchase small fish, I don't need extra large containers for the TTM, so I've considered switching to a 24 or 48 hour cycle with a RALLY dip between transfers or several hours before the next transfer. The "THEORY" is 24 - 48 hours would work the same way the 72-hour window works on Ick and allow you to outrun the lifecycle of the parasite. I don't know if anyone has tried it yet, but this was a discussion on R2R a while back.

One major thing I feel is important to my QT protocol I haven't read in this thread is my non-negotiable requirement to QT anything "wet" going into my DT. The owners of the two LFS I mainly purchase from thinks I'm crazy to QT snails, Hermit crabs, Chaeto, and even coralline algae once. In the past year, they have started to ease up on the harassment since they've both lost fish to disease in personal tanks.

 

[BryanD]

Putting fish directly into my DT without QT worked for a few years .... until it didn't and I lost a awesome fish (not the new one purchased). I have quarantined ever since. That has never failed. People who don't QT WILL have an issue, sooner or later, if your in the hobby for more than a few years. Count on it.

 

[MnFish1]

Putting fish directly into my DT without QT worked for a few years .... until it didn't and I lost a awesome fish (not the new one purchased). I have quarantined ever since. That has never failed. People who don't QT WILL have an issue, sooner or later, if your in the hobby for more than a few years. Count on it.

Did you ever have an issue where a fish died in QT? Or in your tank for no reason. What disease do you think the fish that died had? Thanks -

 

[nkyreef]

Never QT'd before but when I upgraded to a larger tank I felt I was more invested and should be more cautious. I started a poor QT on a newly purchased Foxface.

The first 4 days he didn't eat a thing so I didn't treat with any meds - just observation. Once he started eating I continued the observation without treatment for about 3 weeks. I was having ammonia issues because I didn't have any biological filter. Doing water changes almost daily was getting old. He was doing well so I did a quick fresh water dip to convince myself I was good and in he went. Two weeks later 2 fish were dead from velvet.

The remaining four fish are now in a QT being treated with copper. Since I've never QT'd any of my fish before I'm going to treat and observe as if I'm treating for ich. I'll always QT in the future.

 

[Lukas75]

Personally I've tried a number of different quarantine processes and have yet to have one fail. I've had fish die during the QT process, but never introduced something into my DT. That having been said I have been just as guilty as everyone else about being lazy or overconfident and skipping the QT. And just like most others I instantly regretted it. Velvet, Ich, etc.

 

[Lostreefin]

I quarantine all new fish. I have had good luck with only prazi and copper in the past. Recently though, was determined to have some chromis, and decided to start with metro dosed in the water column from the very beginning, did that for 14 days and then still observed symptoms of uronema while doing my normal treatment protocol. With some help from folks on here, I dipped them in ruby reef rally and then re-treated with metro in the water and fed metro/focus for 14 days and was able to get most of them through to the display. From now on I will add metro to my prophylactic treatment regimen.

 

[MnFish1]

I quarantine all new fish. I have had good luck with only prazi and copper in the past. Recently though, was determined to have some chromis, and decided to start with metro dosed in the water column from the very beginning, did that for 14 days and then still observed symptoms of uronema while doing my normal treatment protocol. With some help from folks on here, I dipped them in ruby reef rally and then re-treated with metro in the water and fed metro/focus for 14 days and was able to get most of them through to the display. From now on I will add metro to my prophylactic treatment regimen.

Metronidazole is not usual for uronema - based on what I've seen - but #reefsquad can probably answer... My take - they recovered from the uronema - with the other treatments. BUT I seriously DK