Quarantine (or not) methods and outcomes - too much for a poll

[CindyKz]

Cindy, you are correct, I didn't read the rest of the question on survival rates. I don't quite know how to answer that because my survival rates as in disease deaths are 100%.

But new fish sometimes die from jumping out, starving because they are bullied or being killed by something right away.
Sorry for me screwing up your question.

I wouldn't say you screwed it up Paul! Thank you for adding that

 

[MnFish1]

Type (or none)	# respondents	Survival rate	# respondents w/disease in DT
No quarantine – acclimate and add	6	83.8%	3
Observation, treat if necessary	5	89.4%	2
Quarantine with meds	3	82.7%	1
TTM	1	91%	0

I used the above table to try to organize the information in this thread – thanks to everyone who answered! There were 2 responses (Paul B and Qasimja) that were not included because they didn’t include survival rates. MnFish1, I counted yours as observation because we don’t really know how many of your LFS’s fish make it through their quarantine process.



I don’t remember enough statistics to analyze this information but it seems that all methods are on a fairly level playing field – nothing is standing out. If anyone would like to check my math or play with these numbers further, please feel free (especially the “check my math” part). I had to extrapolate from a couple of posts to get survival rates.

Thanks - I think this is very interesting - and actually it goes along with the reason why everyone debates QT on this site - because the ones that 'don't' have similar results to those that 'do'. I wish this had been made a featured poll to get more information. because - since the number are so small - its hard to tell. @Daniel@R2R????


Addendum: It does Seem even with the very small numbers - that disease in the display tank is decreased with prophylactic medication

 

[CindyKz]

Thanks - I think this is very interesting - and actually it goes along with the reason why everyone debates QT on this site - because the ones that 'don't' have similar results to those that 'do'. I wish this had been made a featured poll to get more information. because - since the number are so small - its hard to tell. @Daniel@R2R????


Addendum: It does Seem even with the very small numbers - that disease in the display tank is decreased with prophylactic medication

I wish we had gotten more responses also. I don't think any conclusions can be drawn with such a small sample.

I think if you controlled for the number of responses - ie multiply x2 across the board for prophylactic meds - you would have 2 of 6 respondents (vs 1 of 3) with disease in their tanks, which is the same as Observational QT. I think that's the correct way to figure it, but I'm not positive.

ETA: another way to look at it - 33% of respondents that use prophylactic meds observed disease in their tanks, while 40% of respondents using observational quarantine observed disease. I think that is more accurate. Wish more people had responded!

 

[MichaelReefer]

1. No
2. -
3. two years freshwater, one and a half years Salt.
4. -
5. No. I dip them, then drip acclimate for 1-2 hours.
6. No, never.

 

[CincinnatiReefer]

These numbers are not portraying the whole picture. At least one or two of the resondends who reported not quarantining their tanks at one time or another experienced a full wipe out of ALL of their fish. You only took numbers from their current setup. And I bet a bunch more have lost fish in the past to disease/parasites as well.

 

[CindyKz]

These numbers are not portraying the whole picture. At least one or two of the resondends who reported not quarantining their tanks at one time or another experienced a full wipe out of ALL of their fish. You only took numbers from their current setup. And I bet a bunch more have lost fish in the past to disease/parasites as well.

If you go back and look at the questions, I didn't ask for any information regarding any current setup. Only QT practices and the results of those practices. . Historical data was not considered for any group.

 

[mmorriso]

1. Do you use any quarantine/isolation method?

Yes, I maintain two quarantine tanks.

2. If you use any method other than just adding the fish to the display tank, please describe it. Include medications, sterile tank vs. cycled with rocks and sand (or anything else), TTM, etc.

Tanks are cycled. I don't normally use sand but I'm trying my luck with a Lennardi so I do have sand currently.

I will sterilise if I confirm the presence of a disease / parasite. Basic TTM and I generally medicate (Copper, prazi) regardless of whether the fish shows issues.

3. Approximately how long have you been following your current method?

About 8 months.

4. If you use any type of quarantine, what percentage (roughly) of quarantined fish live through the entire quarantine process? If you add fish directly to the display, approximately how many live to become part of your fish community?

I have lost 4 fish in quarantine, 1 of which was a jumper. None showed any obvious symptoms and I have attributed their demise to the stress of quarantine. I also have seen some instances of HLLE while in copper.

5. Do you quarantine inverts and coral? If so, how?

No, I dip corals. I believe ich has entered my system twice due to this and it's made me question the whole quarantine process.

For my situation, quarantining corals and inverts for 76 days is not realistic and would detract materially from my enjoyment of the hobby.

6. Have you experienced disease outbreaks in your display tank while using your method?

Yes, ich twice now. Given my quarantine process (and the 90 days I went fallow in between) I'm assuming the parasite entered the tank via a coral / invert. Destroying my tank to catch the fish the first time was a bug lowlight for me.

This latest outbreak has caused me to question my whole process. I'm strongly considering ditching medicated QT altogether and just maintaining an acclimation tank in order to ensure new fish have a safe space to feed and settle into tank life, medicating only upon observation of an issue.

At the moment, PaulB's writing is a great source of hope to me, as my quarantine process has not worked and I don't think I can follow any more strinent a process and still enjoy / participate in the hobby. For me personally, I'm beginning to believe that I will never be able to keep a reef ich free, but do think I could work towards keeping a reef stress free such that the fish can deal with ich themselves.

 

[MnFish1]

1. Do you use any quarantine/isolation method?

Yes, I maintain two quarantine tanks.

2. If you use any method other than just adding the fish to the display tank, please describe it. Include medications, sterile tank vs. cycled with rocks and sand (or anything else), TTM, etc.

Tanks are cycled. I don't normally use sand but I'm trying my luck with a Lennardi so I do have sand currently.

I will sterilise if I confirm the presence of a disease / parasite. Basic TTM and I generally medicate (Copper, prazi) regardless of whether the fish shows issues.

3. Approximately how long have you been following your current method?

About 8 months.

4. If you use any type of quarantine, what percentage (roughly) of quarantined fish live through the entire quarantine process? If you add fish directly to the display, approximately how many live to become part of your fish community?

I have lost 4 fish in quarantine, 1 of which was a jumper. None showed any obvious symptoms and I have attributed their demise to the stress of quarantine. I also have seen some instances of HLLE while in copper.

5. Do you quarantine inverts and coral? If so, how?

No, I dip corals. I believe ich has entered my system twice due to this and it's made me question the whole quarantine process.

For my situation, quarantining corals and inverts for 76 days is not realistic and would detract materially from my enjoyment of the hobby.

6. Have you experienced disease outbreaks in your display tank while using your method?

Yes, ich twice now. Given my quarantine process (and the 90 days I went fallow in between) I'm assuming the parasite entered the tank via a coral / invert. Destroying my tank to catch the fish the first time was a bug lowlight for me.

This latest outbreak has caused me to question my whole process. I'm strongly considering ditching medicated QT altogether and just maintaining an acclimation tank in order to ensure new fish have a safe space to feed and settle into tank life, medicating only upon observation of an issue.

At the moment, PaulB's writing is a great source of hope to me, as my quarantine process has not worked and I don't think I can follow any more strinent a process and still enjoy / participate in the hobby. For me personally, I'm beginning to believe that I will never be able to keep a reef ich free, but do think I could work towards keeping a reef stress free such that the fish can deal with ich themselves.

This is interesting. (your experience) - what do you think might have led to Ich (CI) being added to your tank after these methods?

 

[mmorriso]

This is interesting. (your experience) - what do you think might have led to Ich (CI) being added to your tank after these methods?

I assume it entered via coral or invert, as I think my process was sufficient for fish. Especially the second instance, due to the fallow period all fish were quarantined for an extended period. I suppose it’s possible that it may have survived the fallow period (90 days for me) which also causes me to question the entire endeavour.

I’m starting to believe that striving to keep a reef ich free will ultimately result in me leaving the hobby. The point is moot in a sense; i will not be able to catch all my fish after this current outbreak and even if I could I cannot QT this many simultaneously given my resources (time, space). As such, I’ll be defaulting to ich management.

 

[MnFish1]

I assume it entered via coral or invert, as I think my process was sufficient for fish. Especially the second instance, due to the fallow period all fish were quarantined for an extended period. I suppose it’s possible that it may have survived the fallow period (90 days for me) which also causes me to question the entire endeavour.

I’m starting to believe that striving to keep a reef ich free will ultimately result in me leaving the hobby. The point is moot in a sense; i will not be able to catch all my fish after this current outbreak and even if I could I cannot QT this many simultaneously given my resources (time, space). As such, I’ll be defaulting to ich management.

One thing that one does not often hear about is 'velvet management'. Thanks for answering

 

[mattzang]

i'm torn between following the aggressive procedures of hotrocks/4ford/humblefish and just trying to be smart where i get fish from and doing h2o2 dipping along with feeding medicated foods for a couple of weeks. i do have a 40 breeder setup for observation type QTing, but not really medicating. it leaves me open to getting ich eventually (assuming h2o2 dips work for everything except ich, which seems to be the consensus so far), which sucks, but seems people roll with ich and manage it. and i don't see myself ever qting corals. the inverts seem easy enough, but keeping track of a coral tank seems like a massive headache. and lastly the super ich magnet tangs don't interest me, no powder blues or anything of that sort for me thank you.

 

[mmorriso]

One thing that one does not often hear about is 'velvet management'. Thanks for answering

I think the lethality of velvet would mean that there's very little opportunity for management and you'd either catch what you can and hospitalise or everything would just die out and you'd be fallow anyway, but thankfully I've not had to deal with it.

I'm not advocating dropping straight into DT, for a number of reasons. I think more sensitive (If otherwise healthy) fish would struggle to outcompete more established and aggressive fish for food in any case, so I still intend to place all newcomers into a separate system for observation, I'm just not sure about medicating off the bat.

The reality of my situation is that I have more than 80 kg's of live rock in my tank which I fused together. I have a large number of encrusted corals. I have 10 fish, including 2 large wrasses and 2 large tangs. I don't know how I could catch everything and if I did I don't know what I would do with them as I'm already maintaining 2 additional 4-foot quarantine tanks which I have stock in, purchased prior to the current outbreak.

I feel like I'm danged if I do and danged if I don't.

My corals are going gangbusters so maybe I should go invert only for a couple years and see if anything comes of this vaccine

 

[Beefyreefy]

1. Do you use any quarantine/isolation method?
Historically, no I dumped into the DT. For the past couple years I started a QT tank but its only observation.
2. If you use any method other than just adding the fish to the display tank, please describe it. Include medications, sterile tank vs. cycled with rocks and sand (or anything else), TTM, etc.
I do observation only in a separate QT tank. No prophalactic treatment or dips. I use a separate tank with live rock I took from my DT sump. I use water that comes directly from my display tank, adjusting salinity to the water that came with fish and slowly increase to 1.026. I use tank water because in theory my DT has Ich as I never originally quarantined. I'd rather the new fish develop Ich in the QT tank than in the display. I get the fish eating a mix of quality foods, pellet, frozen, and California black worm. At two weeks if no sign of distress or disease they go in the display. I will also say that most of my fish come from a LFS that doesn't run copper or quarantine. They usually don't run hyposalinity either. I pick only healthy, eating fish to bring home.
3. Approximately how long have you been following your current method?
2 years
4. If you use any type of quarantine, what percentage (roughly) of quarantined fish live through the entire quarantine process? If you add fish directly to the display, approximately how many live to become part of your fish community?
When I performed No QT and added directly to display I had 98% survival. The only fish I had die shortly after addition was a pajama cardinal and it had no outward sign of disease. I have had fish, mainly Tangs, show some mild signs of white spot after addition but it always resolved shortly thereafter with no death.
98% survived through QT maybe. I lost a single juvenile yellow Tang after 1 week in QT. From the start it didn't eat well and always hid. When it died there was no outward sign of disease. Everything else has survived.
5. Do you quarantine inverts and coral? If so, how?
No, right into the tank.
6. Have you experienced disease outbreaks in your display tank while using your method?
As noted above, when I used to add directly to the display tank, sometimes fish, mainly Tangs, would develop a few white spots within a day or so of addition to the tank. It never progressed from there and within a week it would disappear totally. Never had an outbreak. Oddly enough, now that I do observational QT with water from the display tank, I have not seen any white spot, including on Tangs. I actually wonder if Ich has died out from my DT.

 

[jack_aubry]

1. Do you use any quarantine/isolation method?
no
2. If you use any method other than just adding the fish to the display tank, please describe it. Include medications, sterile tank vs. cycled with rocks and sand (or anything else), TTM, etc.

3. Approximately how long have you been following your current method?
7 months with fish
4. If you use any type of quarantine, what percentage (roughly) of quarantined fish live through the entire quarantine process? If you add fish directly to the display, approximately how many live to become part of your fish community?
3 of 4 75% (lost a lanturn basslet for unknown reasons 5 months after adding)
5. Do you quarantine inverts and coral? If so, how?
no
6. Have you experienced disease outbreaks in your display tank while using your method?
not to my knowledge still waiting to see if lanturn basslet died from an infection

 

[CindyKz]

I always wonder how many folks who believe they had an "ich outbreak" (or outbreak of any disease for that matter) are mis-diagnosing. How many threads are out there titled something like "HELP! Ich outbreak" and contain a few blurred, fuzzy photos? Someone invariably replies "it looks like (insert your parasite here)". I have had fish deaths but have never been able to attribute a single one to a known parasite. Usually they just die and I'm left scratching my head. I will say I've lost far fewer fish using a cycled QT with rocks and sand than I did with a "sterile" QT with PVC.

Personally, I have a really hard time deciding if a couple of white spots are anything worrisome even though I've looked at hundreds of online photos and read multiple articles. Until I have someone in front of me who can actually show me a diseased fish and say "this is ich" I'll never really be sure what I'm looking at.

I've seen transient suspicious spots on a couple of fish in my DT but I'm not convinced they were ich. To be honest, I'm not convinced it isn't there either. I honestly don't know, because I haven't seen a confirmed case on an actual fish. Only photos.

 

[Paul B]

I have a problem with polls of this type. (I have a problem with a lot of things on fish sites)
I believe the fact that a fish lives through quarantine or no quarantine doesn't mean much if the fish dies a few months or even years later.

I believe we can cure almost anything "external" on a fish and quarantine can also allow a fish to live a while. But how do we define "a while"?
Is a while 3 years? 5? 10?

To me (and I know I say this to much) if a fish dies of anything besides old age we failed.

So I would like to see a poll of quarantined fish and non quarantined or medicated fish to see how long they live after that procedure or lack of it.

Of course a poll such as that will take 15 or 20 years to complete, but this salt water hobby has been with us (in the US ) for 48 years which is longer than almost any "ornamental" salt water fish can live.

Yes, we have "ornamental" fish as they serve no other purpose than to make us go "ooh and aah".
(When I first kept fish in the 50s I bought them in a toy store and they were called "toy fish".)

Some of our fish like clowns can easily live into their 30s and most others live maybe 15 years.
How many quarantined fish or even non quarantined fish live in a tank that long?

5 or 6 years with a tang is like a human living to be a teenager with acne which is a pretty lousy lifespan.

So, I don't think this poll means anything the way it is. We can now keep cancer, severely senile people , or people with the wrong political affiliation alive for decades, but are they really living?

I am old so I have sen too many people kept alive artificially for too long with no quality of life.
I think we need to try to keep fish living long enough to die of old age naturally with no need for medications or artificial means.

To me, as an aquarist , we should "try" to get the fish from the sea and keep it in the state of health it has always been in without actually giving it an ailment in an attempt to cure it of a disease we actually caused. Then to keep it in that healthy state for it's presumed natural lifespan.

We will always lose new fish. I lose new fish all the time but not from disease. It is a huge trama for a fish to make the transition from the sea to our tanks especially if it is a new tank or if the fish is in a holding tank or transit for a long time. Then if we put it in a bare tank with medication that fish has little chance and if it does live through that, it's biology, meaning it's gut bacteria will be negatively affected for it's entire life as it will have lost it's natural biome that it was born with.

Just my opinion of course.

 

[Borg]

Qt or not,
Only the strong survive.

 

[CindyKz]

To me, as an aquarist , we should "try" to get the fish from the sea and keep it in the state of health it has always been in without actually giving it an ailment in an attempt to cure it of a disease we actually caused. Then to keep it in that healthy state for it's presumed natural lifespan.

I 100% agree, especially with this statement. Unfortunately you're right, the type of poll you are describing would take decades. If I'm still around in a couple of decades maybe I'll try it.

This particular question was intended to try to determine whether various methods were effective at keeping parasites out of display tanks, and whether prophylactic medications do more harm than good (ie, "giving it an ailment in an attempt to cure it of a disease we actually caused". ) So I don't think it is "useless" - it just doesn't address the question of longevity.

 

[Gareth elliott]

1. Do you use any quarantine/isolation method? Yes
2. If you use any method other than just adding the fish to the display tank, please describe it. Include medications, sterile tank vs. cycled with rocks and sand (or anything else), TTM, etc.
Tank is cycled with nylon dish rings in a reactor. And i use the weird plastic balls with ceramic media inside, glued together to make “rocks”. They cane from marine depot, forget the product name.
I use a mixture of methods. Depending on the fish.
First step is methylene blue added to the bag they are delivered in. Main goal is O2 while they temp acclimate. But there is some antiparasitic activity in MB.
Next add them to a tank that matches their salinity.
Observe till an issue arrises or Wait to add to dt.
I do have copper and Assorted antibiotics on hand.
Have been experimenting with feeding specific ratios and types amino acids and vitamins to in qt to test if this has a positive effect during chemotherapy qt, so never used copper before several months ago on fish.(have used to kill snails in planted systems).
3. Approximately how long have you been following your current method?4 or 5 years

4. If you use any type of quarantine, what percentage (roughly) of quarantined fish live through the entire quarantine process? If you add fish directly to the display, approximately how many live to become part of your fish community?
I have lost one in qt that arrived with an bacterial infection (refunded) and lost another to aggression in my tank after added.
5. Do you quarantine inverts and coral? If so, how?
No, they get dipped. Careful who i buy from.
6. Have you experienced disease outbreaks in your display tank while using your method?No
Over the summer i did lose all my fish to a power outage.

 

[mmorriso]

...

The reality of my situation is that I have more than 80 kg's of live rock in my tank which I fused together. I have a large number of encrusted corals. I have 10 fish, including 2 large wrasses and 2 large tangs. I don't know how I could catch everything and if I did I don't know what I would do with them as I'm already maintaining 2 additional 4-foot quarantine tanks which I have stock in, purchased prior to the current outbreak.

I feel like I'm danged if I do and danged if I don't.

My corals are going gangbusters so maybe I should go invert only for a couple years and see if anything comes of this vaccine

As a follow up for any aquarists of the future that may be in a similar situation, here's what I've ultimately done:

- I investigated the possibility / impacts of dosing copper within my DT: No bueno
- I investigated diatomaceous earth filters and whether it could eradicate ich within my DT in conjunction with my existing oversized UVC: Inconclusive, I live in Australia and I don't think I could get one quick enough anyway, as they're only sold for pools here from what I can see.

I also bought and read Paul B's book cover to cover, which ultimately did help me settle on the way forward as even he recommends QT for newly established tanks (i.e. not inheriting any of the biome from a previous build) which is the case for mine.

What I ultimately came away with from all that is that there is no silver bullet, and any of the above methods would only have been helpful well in advance of an outbreak, if at all.

I then went bought several 100 litre containers, drained my tank, disassembled (Sounds better than broke) my live rock, caught my fish and transferred them to a 4ft hospital tank pre-dosed with Copper Power at half the therapeutic level, that I cleared of all other inhabitants except a powder brown.

It's pretty heartbreaking, but those are the breaks. From now on I'll also be quarantining corals and inverts.

Here's my reef, just prior to me becoming aware of the outbreak ;Drowning: