Quarantine Questions

[dankolle]

I am in the process of quarantining a desjardinnia tang and two fire fish. They have been in the qt for about 2 weeks (total recall anyone??) and the tang had a white spot on this top fin that looked like loose skin. It has she'd this mark and is healthy now. This was about 5 days ago we notice the spot has gone away.

Question is: Do you copper every fish just to make sure or should a 4 week qt. symptom fee be enough? I don't want to introduce ich or brook into the display from a carrier but not a symptom shower.

All three fish look fine at two weeks.

 

[salt_for_brains]

If you are going to QT then you need to copper or hypo the fish. Some fish do not show visible signs of ich but still have the parasite. So if you are not doing anything to kill the potential parasites you basically have another display tank and not a QT.

 

[monique]

If you are going to QT then you need to copper or hypo the fish. Some fish do not show visible signs of ich but still have the parasite. So if you are not doing anything to kill the potential parasites you basically have another display tank and not a QT.

i dont know about that, i dont use copper, i do the hyposalinity thing with a ultraviolet sterilizer, buti do. .nt do any thing until i see signs of illness. 2 wks is not long enough. quarantine at least a month. if you havent seen anything by then you should be ok. i personally do 6 wks to 2 months

 

[mariobrothersleeve]

I don't qt fish so I won't have any sound advice.

 

[Rob M]

I will give my 2 cents (which will be one opinion in a thousand on what to do). The longer you can keep in QT the better your chances and will make you feel better. I try to go 5 to 6 weeks without any major medications since some fish are sensitive to medications even copper (can't remember if it was tangs or angelfish that are sensitive to copper and need to be careful). usually the stress of moving and basic QT tank will cause enough stress to show signs of a problem in a couple of weeks so time should help identify. If your tang had only one spot and gone for awhile just wait it out in QT for another couple weeks. The problem is there is NO GUARANTEE that anything will be 100% fool proof. Even if you medicate or hypo, how do yo know you did it long enough or accurate enough to 100% eradicate all parasites especially whenn there were no signs to begin with. Lately, what I have been doing with great success is using Seachem Paraguard for the firsrt week or 2 of QT as an all around preventative. Helps with parasites and fungal type stuff. It is a very mild medication and takes awhile to work so I figured since they are already in QT for awhile let me just try to prevent several issues. Can I gurantee it is doing anyhing , NO but I have been very successful in getting fish through QT with no issues. It says it cures ich but not sure it will be as successful once the fish is severely infected but may be great as a cure for low infection. Agan my 2 cents and what is working FOR ME

 

[monique]

i agree, longer is better, but i dont use anything unless i have too. but do use a qt. in my case my tank is to big and i have too much money invested in it to take a chance of knowingly putting something i there that is going to wipe it out. i have 5 yrs of collecting corals and fish in there. it would be devistating to lose it.

 

[JohnVH]

I QT 4-6 weeks. If you are treating in any way using Copper or HS (Hyposalinity) the fish should remain in QT for about 4 weeks after the last visible signs of infection are gone. If you choose to do HS as a treatment make sure you have an ATO for your QT as well as a Refractometer, Hydrometers are not accurate enough for HS and the salinity has to be stable throughout the entire treatment process.

 

[Ted]

I have never quarantined fish. Two reasons, one my tank is small 45 gallons so I cant keep a Angel or a tang second I just dont have the space to keep a qt set up. At one time I did keep a 10 gallon around thinking that I would use that but never actually did. I have know many people that have had a ich out break and just supplemented the feedings with garlic and it went away and never returned. Being that QTing a fish is not 100% guarantee that you will be ich free it seems to me to be adding another stress phase to the fish...or two in my case a QT tank that is just to small and the added catch and move to the main tank.

Just my 2 cents....

 

[monique]

i always quarantine unless its a fish that cant take it. ie possum wrasse or dragonette. but even they get at lest a couple days. the closest store to me is 320 miles and there is no live delivery here. i have to travel to far for my stock to not try everything i can to keep bad things out.