Quarantine question?

[burtonpj48]

Hello Everyone!!

I have a question regards to quarantine procedures. When do you take the fish out from the display, for example treating itch. Do you let the fish try and fight it, on its own. The second you see itch, do u already remove the fish from the display. My concern is if i let it fight it, other fish may catch it. Would like to know what other peoples opinion regards to the matter. Thanks.

[Flash]

i saw a dot.. went to bed... came back the next morning and BAM.. COVERED.. I did QT that fish the seconds i saw it that bad but it was too late. You can get treatments, but your fish will likely be in QT for atleast 3 weeks! I would say pull the fish out if you can, it also makes is easier if the fish does happen to die, that you don't have to dig around the rockwork to get it out.

[banditpowdercoat]

My Regal tang has had ich 2 times since I got her. I feed well with Garlic and Selcon and it clears up.

you can also lower your salinity to 1.018 and raise the temp to 82 and feed garlic and selcon seems to work like a charm. I read it on a site that a guy runs a forum on the net. I'll try and find it again and post He does recommend QT all fish before they get into DT and always fresh water dip every thing 10 - 30 Min's as long as the fish is not stressing out you have to match the PH and have temp at 80 for dip/ bath. he says dips less than 10 Min's are pretty much useless but if the fish is stressing out to much do multiple short dips in a day and give the fish a good break in between dips. This may help in severe case and lessen the stress on the fish. If you QT use formalin not copper as copper is very toxic and may very well kill the fish instead of helping it. If you have quinine sulfate, I understand it is very effective on parasites and not as toxic. found this out on the same site.

Bill

[bry&sha]

This may be long...

We have been members for a while now but this is our first post. We are not new to this hobby but at the same time are still learning. We have a 35gal "mean" tank (I'll explain on request), a 160Gal tank which we use to culture our own liverock from Rocky Mountain Tufa, and our display, a 65Gal reef tank which has been home to our two clowns and unfortunately a small collection of fish that didn't survive ich.

A few months ago we ran into ich after introducing a blue hippo. Later we found out the LFS had already treated the hippo for ich but not until we saw it in our own tank first. We removed all the fish and placed them in QT following strict procedures to maintain healthy environment levels and what not. Our clowns were the only fish to survive. We kept them in the QT for a total of six weeks and didn't introduce any new fish to our display for several months.

Now we have a brown powder tang that is covered in ich. We do not want to set up a QT because we don't believe it makes sense. We understand we can't treat our display tank with cupramine and we don't want to but think of it this way: If Ich is caused by stress which lowers immune systems in fish, what good does putting that same fish in a situation where it is forced to acclimate to new environment levels in a tank with a fraction of the buffering capacity as the one it is comfortable in? QT, in our experience equals one stressed fish, no matter how many pvc club houses you make for them.

The other thing that is frustrating is people using the word "proven"; "strategy A is the only proven way." Nothing is proven. You can read posts from 98,2002,04, all the way to today.. they all disagree and agree about the same things they disagreed and agreed about a decade ago. What has been learned?

We have begun increasing the temperature in our display. Is garlic a good choice? Any thoughts on our choice not to QT? Any help would be great. We are not setting up our QT.

Thanks,

Bryan and Shalane

[fishytime]

^^^ very nicely put! bry&sha....and welcome out from the lurking closet.......I think that certain fish can successfully be treated in a QT tank.....but IME tangs aren't one of them (Unless the QT tank is LARGE)....I've said it here before and I will likely say it again.....I think we grossly underestimate the stress a fish goes through when we try and net it....some fish seem to have a better capacity for handling the lactic acid build up that happens in their muscles,then others......Tangs dont, tangs stress bigtime......and netting them and putting them in small QT when they are already weakened in most cases is a death sentence.......I think if the fish is eating and otherwise acting normal, leave it in the display and start feeding garlic and vitamin soaked foods......if it has stopped eating then try and get it out because its likely on its way out anyway.......FWIW my regal gets a "flare up" every couple months.....

p.s. raising the temp does nothing for marine ick......so save the stress on your corals.....

once a fish is in my DT I don't remove unless I really have to I will take a fish out and dip in freshwater and formalin not coppermine. I do not use coppermine as the toxicity is to much for most sick fish to handle in the first place and you are not suppose to treat tangs or angle fish with copper as it kills the bacteria in their stomachs. Then they can not digest food properly, got that from marine biologist. You see it helps to read allot and I mean allot. My oldest daughter is a reader also she reads 3 or 4 book a day given the opportunity. She has learned that knowledge is a strength and can make things easer in the long run. Keep Reading posts from a decade ago to present and you will find that there are allot of common factors out there these are the thing to look deeper into for what you are seeking an answer for.

Bill

[kien]

Originally Posted by fishytime

^^^ very nicely put! bry&sha....and welcome out from the lurking closet.......I think that certain fish can successfully be treated in a QT tank.....but IME tangs aren't one of them (Unless the QT tank is LARGE)....I've said it here before and I will likely say it again.....I think we grossly underestimate the stress a fish goes through when we try and net it....some fish seem to have a better capacity for handling the lactic acid build up that happens in their muscles,then others......Tangs dont, tangs stress bigtime......and netting them and putting them in small QT when they are already weakened in most cases is a death sentence.......I think if the fish is eating and otherwise acting normal, leave it in the display and start feeding garlic and vitamin soaked foods......if it has stopped eating then try and get it out because its likely on its way out anyway.......FWIW my regal gets a "flare up" every couple months.....

p.s. raising the temp does nothing for marine ick......so save the stress on your corals.....

I'm in full agreement with you there brotha.

My blue tang gets ich (a few spots here and there) every once and a while too and it makes a great snack for all my cleaner shrimp.

[the marine apprentice]

ive read a few times that the engineer goby eats ich. am i mis informed? or do they really eat it? i have never had an issue with ich in my tanks, my regal had it for a very short time and was gone in a few days and never returned and i have an engineer goby in my tank

[bry&sha]

Thanks guys. It feels good to know we aren't completely out of sync with deciding not to go with a QT. We do understand how important they are and still have one on stand by for that reason. However what Fishytime said about tangs not doing well in them makes sense and sadly we have seen it first hand.

As for the fish, it is doing great minus the fact that it looks like someone dumped a saltshaker on it. It eats, explores and so far it hasn't 'itched' itself a whole lot. I personally worry that it will eventually get it on its gills and stop breathing.

What would switching from flaked food to frozen mysis do? We occasionally feed the frozen food but I am wondering if it would be better to only feed them that. Would it have more nutrients enough to matter?

Again thanks for all the help. It is definitely brighter outside the closet.