Avoiding disease moving forward - gameplan?

[saltcats]

After losing my yellow nose gobies back in June I'm finally feeling ready to try new fish again. (I was treating the surviving goby for flukes/velvet in a hospital tank following plenty of excellent guidance from Jay and others on here; he'd made it 48 hours in full copper and was eating better and then jumped out of the tank overnight through 1/8" mesh. Landed 2" from a bucket of saltwater as well, to add insult to injury. I still have no clue how he managed that but needless to say I was devastated.)

I'm very nervous to try new stock after all the issues I've had but I don't want my poor possum wrasse to stay in isolation
The plan is to get pre-treated fish, or captive bred direct from biota or ORA - these should be safer options, yes?

Knowing the luck I've had though, any fish I get will still be going into observation quarantine for at least a couple weeks before I feel comfortable putting them in the display. Plus, this way they can settle and start feeding after shipping stress.

I want to make sure I'm understanding and managing the risks appropriately so I'd really like some guidance on that.
1) How safe are pre-treated fish from eg dr reef? I know everything has some risk but is this pretty guaranteed?
2) Likewise for Biota fish etc.
3) Would 2 weeks of observation be okay for pre-treated fishes or would longer be still recommended?

Lastly - and the part I'm most unsure about - I still have my old observational QT set up and running (that the diseased fish were pulled from), as there were some coral frags etc I was holding in isolation still. It's been well over 70 days since any fish were in that tank... Can I call the contents "safe" and either pull them for my display or put newly acquired fish in there to settle in?
I would prefer not to nuke that tank if I can help it as it's been set up for a couple years and has nice maturity, and I have some macros and frags that I want to keep. But I did have multiple disease issues in that tank so, is it too risky?

Thanks very much in advance for any thoughts! Maybe some day in the future I'll feel comfortable QT'ing my own fish again (following Jay's protocol from the very start of course!) but I think I need to get some "stress-free" fish behind me first

 

[IvanL]

Lost over $1k due to velvet. Since then have been ordering from Dr Reef and for me worth the markup. Everything arrived without any sign of disease. I also monitored in a QT tank for about a week and to DT they went. No issues 4 months later.

 

[saltcats]

Lost over $1k due to velvet. Since then have been ordering from Dr Reef and for me worth the markup. Everything arrived without any sign of disease. I also monitored in a QT tank for about a week and to DT they went. No issues 4 months later.

Velvet is such a nightmare disease honestly. I'm not sure if that's even what I had (sounds like it could've been that or flukes) but the speed it kills and the difficulty of treating for it... I'm sorry for your losses!

 

[Tamberav]

2 weeks min but honestly 4 is better... I have had ich show right at the 4 week mark.

Fishotel is another QT vender that I trust VERY much.

I have no had any issues with biota fish so far.

 

[IvanL]

Yeah it sucked and then had to go follow for 3-4 months to make sure it was out of the system. Dr Reef also doesn’t charge until he is ready to ship. Which was nice.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Even when buying quarantined fish, assume it has something and do a short quarantine on your own (14-21 days).
How did you conclude velvet ( signs and symptoms).
Any pics when the fish were ill you can post?

 

[fishywishy]

I got fish from Dr. Reef, and four cardinals died, likely from a cardinal-specific disease. And the rest of the fish I got had flukes, and though the cardinals were supposed to be captive bred, they were actually wild-caught. Dr. Reef did send replacements and probably would have refunded me for the cardinals, which was nice. However, I paid $300 for fish that would’ve cost $100 max at a local store, only for them to have flukes. While I’ll be doing my own quarantine from now on, and won’t be buying from Dr. Reef again. They’re a decent option, but make sure to observe your fish for a while, I didn’t notice the flukes until a month or two later.

An observation quarantine would be a good idea for biota as well, but I highly doubt they would have anything.

If it’s been over 76 days it’s perfectly fine to add fish in there and remove corals now, there’s no reason to take down the tank.

 

[PharmrJohn]

I plan on getting QT'd fish and putting them in my own QT x4 weeks of observation. To me it's the way to go. But, as stated, make sure the QT protocol of the vendor is adequate. You can never be too safe when it comes to your DT.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

After losing my yellow nose gobies back in June I'm finally feeling ready to try new fish again. (I was treating the surviving goby for flukes/velvet in a hospital tank following plenty of excellent guidance from Jay and others on here; he'd made it 48 hours in full copper and was eating better and then jumped out of the tank overnight through 1/8" mesh. Landed 2" from a bucket of saltwater as well, to add insult to injury. I still have no clue how he managed that but needless to say I was devastated.)

I'm very nervous to try new stock after all the issues I've had but I don't want my poor possum wrasse to stay in isolation
The plan is to get pre-treated fish, or captive bred direct from biota or ORA - these should be safer options, yes?

Knowing the luck I've had though, any fish I get will still be going into observation quarantine for at least a couple weeks before I feel comfortable putting them in the display. Plus, this way they can settle and start feeding after shipping stress.

I want to make sure I'm understanding and managing the risks appropriately so I'd really like some guidance on that.
1) How safe are pre-treated fish from eg dr reef? I know everything has some risk but is this pretty guaranteed?
2) Likewise for Biota fish etc.
3) Would 2 weeks of observation be okay for pre-treated fishes or would longer be still recommended?

Lastly - and the part I'm most unsure about - I still have my old observational QT set up and running (that the diseased fish were pulled from), as there were some coral frags etc I was holding in isolation still. It's been well over 70 days since any fish were in that tank... Can I call the contents "safe" and either pull them for my display or put newly acquired fish in there to settle in?
I would prefer not to nuke that tank if I can help it as it's been set up for a couple years and has nice maturity, and I have some macros and frags that I want to keep. But I did have multiple disease issues in that tank so, is it too risky?

Thanks very much in advance for any thoughts! Maybe some day in the future I'll feel comfortable QT'ing my own fish again (following Jay's protocol from the very start of course!) but I think I need to get some "stress-free" fish behind me first

Here are my thoughts:

1) How safe are pre-treated fish from eg dr reef? I know everything has some risk but is this pretty guaranteed?
- I like to say that a standard quarantine protocol, like I suggest here, or one like Dr. Reef's is about 80% effective at stopping diseases. They are perhaps 95% effective against ich and velvet.
2) Likewise for Biota fish etc. - I think Biota fish are a bit better in that regard, since they have not been exposed to wild fish pathogens - as long as they have never been tanked with wild fish.
3) Would 2 weeks of observation be okay for pre-treated fishes or would longer be still recommended? 30 to 45 days is always safer, but 14 days is better than not holding fish at all..

Jay

 

[IvanL]

Even when buying quarantined fish, assume it has something and do a short quarantine on your own (14-21 days).
How did you conclude velvet ( signs and symptoms).
Any pics when the fish were ill you can post?

Started with 2 chromis being added from an LFS same time. 3 days later one was breathing heavy next day hippo covered in sugar looking spots all over. Day later rest of fish breathing heavy and covered in white sugary spots cloudy eyes breathing heavy, and excessive slime…and with about 72 hours all fish dead or laying on sand dying. The ones I was able to move in time to and medicate didn’t make it more than 2-3 hours. Deleted all photos as it was the most traumatic experience with some tears involved. Lost Hawaiian yellow tang, reef beauty, and pair of blood orange clowns I had for 6 years. They made it through 3 tank changes. Rest of team was blue hippo, powder blue, chromis, foxface, two wrasses, and two gobbies.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Started with 2 chromis being added from an LFS same time. 3 days later one was breathing heavy next day hippo covered in sugar looking spots all over. Day later rest of fish breathing heavy and covered in white sugary spots cloudy eyes breathing heavy, and excessive slime…and with about 72 hours all fish dead or laying on sand dying. The ones I was able to move in time to and medicate didn’t make it more than 2-3 hours. Deleted all photos as it was the most traumatic experience with some tears involved. Lost Hawaiian yellow tang, reef beauty, and pair of blood orange clowns I had for 6 years. They made it through 3 tank changes. Rest of team was blue hippo, powder blue, chromis, foxface, two wrasses, and two gobbies.

Sugar appearance is often ich as velvet will be more of a dust appearance, fish gasping at surface, swimming in path of water flow, loss of appetite and elevated breathing..... even cludy eyes.

 

[IvanL]

Since then everything goes into a QT tank with prazipro and watching for about two weeks. Any strange signs, and copper comes in for full on treatment. I haven’t had any issues since or had fish come diseased. Prazi has been just something I do that’s not harsh on fish for just in case on parasites.

 

[IvanL]

Sugar appearance is often ich as velvet will be more of a dust appearance, fish gasping at surface, swimming in path of water flow, loss of appetite and elevated breathing..... even cludy eyes.

Had ich before and that was manageable. This looked like powder sugar. Much different then ich and gills were going 1000 miles an hour with fish laying sideways in a day. Nothing like I ever seen before. Especially heavy slime covering body.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

I would either buy from a vendor who sells QT fish, or qt your fish for around 4 weeks then put them into your DT

 

[saltcats]

Biota actually just restocked the fish I've been wanting today so I've placed an order through them - feels like a pretty safe option hopefully! Never ordered fish online before so I'm a bit nervous about shipping but I'm sure Biota has plenty of experience

Now I have a week to decide exactly which tank I want to use for holding new arrivals and make sure everything is shipshape for them to come in!

 

[saltcats]

Even when buying quarantined fish, assume it has something and do a short quarantine on your own (14-21 days).
How did you conclude velvet ( signs and symptoms).
Any pics when the fish were ill you can post?

Hi - re my previous possible velvet see here - https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/possible-velvet.1056757/
Before that I had 2 cases of what was most likely flukes (medicated both times, lost 1 fish but the other made an apparent recovery). These could definitely all be separate instances (new fish or coral was added to the tank preceding each occurence) but is there something that could linger in there?

No fish have been in that tank since before June 11 (133 days ago), and nothing added in that time either. Temp has been probably over 80 most of that time (runs hot in the summer!).

Is it pretty guaranteed this is safe at this point? I really don't want to infect my new fish with anything residual but I would love to re-use this setup for the newcomers since it's well established rock and there's a ton of pods etc for everyone to snack on.

Otherwise my plan is to grab a couple chunks of rock out of my display's sump and supplement with new dry rock but that doesn't sound nearly as good.