So some brief backstory here, I set up my first saltwater tank about 6 weeks ago, got it cycled and added my first fish last week (firefish goby). I decided to forgo QT for the first fish fully aware of the potential consequences of this, figuring I'd get lucky with my first fish and I'd get my QT ready for all my next fish.
To my complete lack of surprise, my firefish rewarded me by almost instantly developing ich. So I'll be running hypo for a month or two to fix that and hopefully eliminate any ich added to the system.
Backstory over, my plan now after fixing all my mistakes so far is to do hybrid tank transfer with peroxide dips for all my future fish (I'm in Canada so meds like prazi and general cure seem to be nonexistent, and even copper is pretty hard to come by).
Despite mountains of research I'm clearly quite new to the hobby, and so I had a couple of questions about TTM I was hoping @Humblefish or some other experienced reefers could answer:
1. I've heard it said that it's not a huge deal if a few drops of water get transferred when moving the fish, because after 4 transfers the odds of any contaminated water making it through is near zero. With that logic, couldn't one use a single tank for tank transfer, get the fish to a temporary bucket and quickly sterilize the tank and dry it completely, then add new water and add the fish back in?
2. If the above is possible, even if it slightly lowers the efficacy of the treatment, could that be mitigated my simply doing 1 extra transfer before completing the treatment?
3. I know many fish (like my firefish) come with ich already in their system, but it doesn't present itself until a stress event. Would TTM still eridicate dormant ich from a fish that isn't presenting any symptoms yet? I'm worried if the ich remains dormant in the fish the entire time it could survive through the treatment rendering it a waste of time.
4. Does hybrid TTM do anything to eliminate any internal parasites the fish may have? As mentioned we don't have things like API GC or PP here, and to my understanding the peroxide dip treats external parasites, but I wasn't sure if it did anything internally.
So much to learn in this hobby, the big lesson so far for me is that punishment for slipups is swift and guaranteed! In my experience there's no such thing as luck haha... Thanks for all the help and patience!
To my complete lack of surprise, my firefish rewarded me by almost instantly developing ich. So I'll be running hypo for a month or two to fix that and hopefully eliminate any ich added to the system.
Backstory over, my plan now after fixing all my mistakes so far is to do hybrid tank transfer with peroxide dips for all my future fish (I'm in Canada so meds like prazi and general cure seem to be nonexistent, and even copper is pretty hard to come by).
Despite mountains of research I'm clearly quite new to the hobby, and so I had a couple of questions about TTM I was hoping @Humblefish or some other experienced reefers could answer:
1. I've heard it said that it's not a huge deal if a few drops of water get transferred when moving the fish, because after 4 transfers the odds of any contaminated water making it through is near zero. With that logic, couldn't one use a single tank for tank transfer, get the fish to a temporary bucket and quickly sterilize the tank and dry it completely, then add new water and add the fish back in?
2. If the above is possible, even if it slightly lowers the efficacy of the treatment, could that be mitigated my simply doing 1 extra transfer before completing the treatment?
3. I know many fish (like my firefish) come with ich already in their system, but it doesn't present itself until a stress event. Would TTM still eridicate dormant ich from a fish that isn't presenting any symptoms yet? I'm worried if the ich remains dormant in the fish the entire time it could survive through the treatment rendering it a waste of time.
4. Does hybrid TTM do anything to eliminate any internal parasites the fish may have? As mentioned we don't have things like API GC or PP here, and to my understanding the peroxide dip treats external parasites, but I wasn't sure if it did anything internally.
So much to learn in this hobby, the big lesson so far for me is that punishment for slipups is swift and guaranteed! In my experience there's no such thing as luck haha... Thanks for all the help and patience!