Quarantine fish without medication or salinity drop?

[CyberGuy]

I received a medium size powder blue tang on Monday (4 days ago) and I put it in a quarantine tank. It has been eating really well and swimming at normal speed. It shows no sign of any disease.

I prefer not to use copper or any other medication. I do have a bottle of Coppersafe though.

Is it OK for me to just quarantine by close observation for a few weeks without treating it with copper?

I will be putting it in a 120 gallon tank with a medium purple tang and yellow belly blue tang.

My other fish in the display tank include a super male Hawaiian Flame wrasse (my favorite fish in the tank), China Wrasse, yellow coris wrasse, a pair of Black Storm clown, Royal gramma, 2 Barletts anthias, 1 female lyretail anthias, Helfrich, and a white Molly.

This powder blue tang will be the last fish that I will add to the tank for a very long time due to its aggressive nature.

 

[kingjoe]

I received a medium size powder blue tang on Monday (4 days ago) and I put it in a quarantine tank. It has been eating really well and swimming at normal speed. It shows no sign of any disease.

I prefer not to use copper or any other medication. I do have a bottle of Coppersafe though.

Is it OK for me to just quarantine by close observation for a few weeks without treating it with copper?

I will be putting it in a 120 gallon tank with a medium purple tang and yellow belly blue tang.

My other fish in the display tank include a super male Hawaiian Flame wrasse (my favorite fish in the tank), China Wrasse, yellow coris wrasse, a pair of Black Storm clown, Royal gramma, 2 Barletts anthias, 1 female lyretail anthias, Helfrich, and a white Molly.

This powder blue tang will be the last fish that I will add to the tank for a very long time due to its aggressive nature.

If you wish to quarantine without medication, that is fine, provided your vendor has a good record of selling or shipping reliably healthy fish. I quarantined a powder blue in a 20 gallon long with an Aquaclear 300 power filter, and ran a Vortex diatom filter for supplemental filtration. He sailed right through without any problems. Of course, Acanthurids are out-of-this-world susceptible to ecto-parasites, so it is good that you prepared by having some Coppersafe on hand. Make sure you purchase a copper test kit as well. Some aquarists like to medicate all incoming fish, so look into some other entries in this forum on the topic. If he appears to remain disease and parasite free while in quarantine, I'd recommend a minimum of 30 days isolation- and 45 would be even better. If you do have to medicate, treat until he appears cured, then set the quarantine clock back to day 1 and begin again. Oh- make sure he gets his seaweed daily, preferably with a soak of Selcon, Zoe, and vitamin C.

 

[Jekyl]

Why treat for something that isn't even showing?

 

[CyberGuy]

My powder refuses to eat all types of seaweed, even soaked in Selcon.
He just spits all types of algea/nori out. However, he devours frozen mysis like crazy. I think my powder blue is a carnivore instead of omnivore. He has a healthy deep blue coloration too.

 

[ca1ore]

There are many of us that do observational QT and eschew meds unless disease symptoms present.

 

[jtf74]

72 days min for ich without treatment. I personally do 90 days observation only. Treat if needed.

 

[kingjoe]

My powder refuses to eat all types of seaweed, even soaked in Selcon.
He just spits all types of algea/nori out. However, he devours frozen mysis like crazy. I think my powder blue is a carnivore instead of omnivore. He has a healthy deep blue coloration too.

I've read of tangs that seem to prefer meat products. Have you tried Formula 2 or spirulina flakes? Maybe spirulina enriched brine shrimp? The important thing is that he is eating; he may, in your aquarium, develop more of an appetite for algae-based foods in time. Do you have access to live macro algae? That may be an option, too. He's only been in your tank for a short time, so I think that his apparent health and his appetite for mysis is encouraging.

 

[CyberGuy]

I've read of tangs that seem to prefer meat products. Have you tried Formula 2 or spirulina flakes? Maybe spirulina enriched brine shrimp? The important thing is that he is eating; he may, in your aquarium, develop more of an appetite for algae-based foods in time. Do you have access to live macro algae? That may be an option, too. He's only been in your tank for a short time, so I think that his apparent health and his appetite for mysis is encouraging.

I have this type of red algea in my refugium. Should I put it in the quarantine tank to see if the PBT will eat it? It may also help decrease ammonia, nitrate, and phosphate in the quarantine tank.

 

[CyberGuy]

72 days min for ich without treatment. I personally do 90 days observation only. Treat if needed.

How often do you change water and by how much?

I have not changed water for 4 days since I put the PBT in fresh new saltwater.

 

[hds4216]

Personally I always do chemoprophylactic quarantine. It makes me feel safer, and it basically completely eliminates the possibility of disease. It's possible for ich or flukes to slip by unnoticed for even for 90 days imo. Ich, for instance, can hide in the gills and doesn't always present as white spots.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

I always do a proactive quarantine: 30 days Coppersafe, 3x praziquantel (2 weeks) then 2 weeks of observation and a FW diagnostic dip. If Neobenedenia is seen during the dip, the fish get 35 days hype, two more weeks of observation and a second diagnostic dip check. No exceptions to this - with 180,000 gallons of parasite-free fish under my care, I can't risk moving anything over....

Avoid the trap of "just observing longer" - fish can maintain sub-acute levels of Cryptocaryon and/or flukes for longer than any time period you might use.


That said, if you didn't actively quarantine your other fish in the tank, there is no need to start now (grin).


Jay

 

[kingjoe]

I have this type of red algea in my refugium. Should I put it in the quarantine tank to see if the PBT will eat it? It may also help decrease ammonia, nitrate, and phosphate in the quarantine tank.

Is that red ogo? Try a small piece rubber banded to a rock, see what happens. It is a recommended food for tangs.

 

[cbellm]

I would avoid the "just observe" many parasites such as ich have life cycles that take weeks to complete that being said if you have only a few of them on the fish it could take months for it to build up to the point you personally see the signs of a sick fish

If you dont want to do meds or salinity drop you could do the tank transfer method (which is all about breaking the life cycle) outlined here:

Tank Transfer Method

Tank Transfer Method What It Treats – Marine Ich (Cryptocaryon irritans) only. How To Treat – Tank transfer (TTM) is my favorite method for clearing a fish of Marine Ich, but the prevalence (and similarities) of Marine Velvet Disease can make TTM a risky gamble nowadays. To properly execute...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[jtf74]

How often do you change water and by how much?

I have not changed water for 4 days since I put the PBT in fresh new saltwater.

My QT tank is well cycled and I run a skimmer plus have live foods, algae, and macro algae as an extra food source. I leave it fishless afterwards for another 90 days again after I qt some fish before I put another new fish in. I would do weekly changes minimum if its a QT tank with "new" water and if you don't run a skimmer.

I don't do water changes anymore than with my display which is every couple of months at most. Others here obviously have more experience with disease prevention and pre-medication and I respect their knowledge and opinions, but for me observation only has worked well. I have QT'd a copperband, a hippo tang, yellow tang, powder brown tang, bicolor angel, lemon chromis, two maroon clowns, a four wheel goby, purple firefish, and a foxface., and I've not lost one fish doing it this way or had any trouble with ich, and three of those fish are considered difficult to keep . Maybe I'm extremely lucky, but IMO putting a wild caught fish into a sterile medicated tank isn't exactly a stress free process for the fish. Either way you go preventative medication or observation only my advice would be don't rush the process.