Beginners Guide to Acclimation and Quarantine

Bthomas · Feb 11, 2018

Brew12 said:
I did recommend 1.8ml. I don't agree with Fritz dosing recommendation. I had a long email exchange with them and they agree that they have no evidence their recommended dosing works and said they are doing testing to offer new guidance. If you look, they claim that the recommended copper dose is something like 0.25 to 0.30ppm copper. However, they also have told me that 1.25ml/g is 1.16ppm. Very frustrating. So I go off of the testing the Humblefish did saying that 1.5ppm to 2.oppm is the correct dose. That is where the 1.8ml/g comes from.

So 1.5-2 ppm is the therapeutic level that needs to be maintained correct?

So 1.8ml per gallon get us to 2ppm?

Why did u add 5ml to your 4 gallons of make up water instead of 7.2ml

Brew12 · Feb 11, 2018

Bthomas said:
So 1.5-2 ppm is the therapeutic level that needs to be maintained correct?

So 1.8ml per gallon get us to 2ppm?

Why did u add 5ml to your 4 gallons of make up water instead of 7.2ml

Because I didn't write the article correctly!

I need to change that.

And 2.1ml/g gets us to 2ppm. 1.8 would be the middle of the range.

Bthomas · Feb 11, 2018

Brew12 said:
Because I didn't write the article correctly!

I need to change that.

And 2.1ml/g gets us to 2ppm. 1.8 would be the middle of the range.

Lol ok I'm glad I wasn't confused for no reason.
So would you suggest sticking with 1.8ml per gallon to keep the tank in the middle of that range or should i get it as close to 2ppm as possible

Brew12 · Feb 11, 2018

Bthomas said:
Lol ok I'm glad I wasn't confused for no reason.
So would you suggest sticking with 1.8ml per gallon to keep the tank in the middle of that range or should i get it as close to 2ppm as possible

I like to get my initial dose to 2.1ml/g and then do any replacement water at 1.8ml/g just to be on the safe side.

Brew12 · Feb 11, 2018

Bthomas said:
Lol ok I'm glad I wasn't confused for no reason.
So would you suggest sticking with 1.8ml per gallon to keep the tank in the middle of that range or should i get it as close to 2ppm as possible

Here is a much more updated post I put together about Coppersafe dosing.
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/proper-dosing-of-coppersafe.309726/

Bthomas · Feb 11, 2018

Brew12 said:
Here is a much more updated post I put together about Coppersafe dosing.
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/proper-dosing-of-coppersafe.309726/

Yes that helped alot thank you.

What would u suggest i do for dosing since i dont know exactly how many gallons of water the tank is holding? Should i just take a guess and say there may be 16 gallons of water in my 20 gallon tank and dose according to that?
That would translate to about 5.5ml every morning and evening for 3 days
Or should i go lower in case theres not 16 gallons?

Brew12 · Feb 11, 2018

Bthomas said:
Yes that helped alot thank you.

What would u suggest i do for dosing since i dont know exactly how many gallons of water the tank is holding? Should i just take a guess and say there may be 16 gallons of water in my 20 gallon tank and dose according to that?
That would translate to about 5.5ml every morning and evening for 3 days
Or should i go lower in case theres not 16 gallons?

I would treat it as 20g and go with 1.8ml/g. You won't have 20g but that should get you close to the top of the range. If you go over by just a little you will be fine.
This is one reason I like making a reference at 1.6ml/g and 2.1ml/g. It give you a good idea where you are at in case your volume estimate is off. If you see you are on the high side before your last dose you can either leave it out or cut it back.

Bthomas · Feb 11, 2018

Brew12 said:
I would treat it as 20g and go with 1.8ml/g. You won't have 20g but that should get you close to the top of the range. If you go over by just a little you will be fine.
This is one reason I like making a reference at 1.6ml/g and 2.1ml/g. It give you a good idea where you are at in case your volume estimate is off. If you see you are on the high side before your last dose you can either leave it out or cut it back.

Sounds good. Thanks alot

Crimsonvice · Feb 13, 2018

@Brew12 I am planning on using a 10 gallon tank for QT as well. How many fish do you QT at a time in a 10 gallon tank? I am looking at picking up 2 or 3 medium tangs. Should I QT them each independently in such a small tank?

Brew12 · Feb 13, 2018

Crimsonvice said:
@Brew12 I am planning on using a 10 gallon tank for QT as well. How many fish do you QT at a time in a 10 gallon tank? I am looking at picking up 2 or 3 medium tangs. Should I QT them each independently in such a small tank?

It really depends on the species of fish. I've had up to 5 small anthias in my 10g QT.

A 10g tank is small even for a single medium tang. If I were doing 1 tang I would use a 20g unless the tang was very small. A recently ran 3 small yellow tangs (around 2 1/2") through my 20g. Any bigger than that and I would go up to a 40B.

Crimsonvice · Feb 13, 2018

Ok thanks!

Bthomas · Feb 15, 2018

So I've had some fish in quarantine for 4 days now (2 clowns and a royal gramma)
The clowns are doing great, eating good.
The gramma is still in hiding, he has only ventured out once or twice for food and then darted right back into his hiding spot.

Should i wait until hes out swimming around regularly and eating more before i start medicating?

Maritimer · Feb 15, 2018

Ideally, yes.

Not all worlds are perfect, though, and you may want to run a round of Prazi-Pro (generally fairly gentle) or begin to slowly ramp up copper (or are you using CP?) It sounds like the gramma's in good health, just being cautious in a new environment - rather a trait of grammas.

~Bruce

Bthomas · Feb 16, 2018

Maritimer said:
Ideally, yes.

Not all worlds are perfect, though, and you may want to run a round of Prazi-Pro (generally fairly gentle) or begin to slowly ramp up copper (or are you using CP?) It sounds like the gramma's in good health, just being cautious in a new environment - rather a trait of grammas.

~Bruce

I plan on doing 2 rounds of prazi and then coppersafe for 30 days.
I can try to give him a few more days i guess

Tristan H · Feb 17, 2018

Is a bio cube 32 a good choice for a quaritine tank?

Brew12 · Feb 18, 2018

Tristan H said:
Is a bio cube 32 a good choice for a quaritine tank?

I'm not sure. I'm sure it would work, just not sure how easy to clean it would be.

Addie_Coral · Feb 22, 2018

I appreciate this article. I liked the step by step process.

Bthomas · Feb 25, 2018

Do i need to worry about high nitrates in a quarantine? I'm running my first quarantine now with 2 clowns and a royal gramma, I may have been overfeeding as I was trying to get food to the gramma whose only shot was to wait till the clowns were full and now I have nitrates around 60ish. They've been through one round of prazi, just did water change today and was planning to dose prazi again tomorrow with another water change in a week then start copper treatment.
Should i postpone any medications and do a few more water changes to get nitrates down first?

Brew12 · Feb 25, 2018

Bthomas said:
Do i need to worry about high nitrates in a quarantine? I'm running my first quarantine now with 2 clowns and a royal gramma, I may have been overfeeding as I was trying to get food to the gramma whose only shot was to wait till the clowns were full and now I have nitrates around 60ish. They've been through one round of prazi, just did water change today and was planning to dose prazi again tomorrow with another water change in a week then start copper treatment.
Should i postpone any medications and do a few more water changes to get nitrates down first?

Nope, I wouldn't worry about it. Nitrates won't be a problem in QT until they get much higher than that.