Condensed QT recommendations?

[buruskeee]

I’ve never quarantined a fish in 9 years in the hobby. Never had a single fish disease. I think a lot of it has to do with the health of a system and immunity of the fish community. But to each their own, and I know I’m playing with fire…

I’ve seen a couple people post this in a FB group as their advice they would try and convince to be the “best way” because of immunity/inoculation, one of which ended up getting his tank wiped out with velvet 4 months after I saw one of his posts.

Velvet is a death sentence - there’s no trying to build immunity to that, and it’s the primary reason hobbiest QT.

It truly is “Russian roulette” when it comes to velvet. No amount of prevention inspecting will protect your tank from that.

 

[Paul B]

Velvet is a death sentence - there’s no trying to build immunity to that, and it’s the primary reason hobbiest QT.

It truly is “Russian roulette” when it comes to velvet. No amount of prevention inspecting will protect your tank from that.

I don't actually believe this 100%. OK, not even 50%.
It is very possible to keep your fish immune to seemingly everything as my tank proves. Yes, I did smoke for a number of years and so far, don't have cancer that I know about, But I think the Agent Orange I am full of may be suppressing the cancer to give me something worse.

I feel and it's just my opinion, that if your set up your tank correctly, and feed correctly you can have an immune tank.

Feeding correctly is something that is rarely if ever done in this hobby. Feeding correctly to keep fish "immune" IMO, relies on getting living gut bacteria into your fish. That means not relying 100% on store bought foods like frozen. Gut bacteria controls the immune system of a fish and us.

My reef is 54 years old and I never quarantined anything, not even my 30+ year old fish. Nothing has ever died of a "communicable" disease in about 45 or so years and I add fish from everywhere including the sea.

I also believe, and I'm sure I am the only one, that quarantine and medication is counter productive and severly shortens the life span of fish and almost completely destroys the immune system. But for a new tank owned by a Noob, they may have to quarantine because you need an aged system and some experience to keep fish in the state of health needed for this natural system.

If our fish are not almost always dying of old age, we failed. Also all healthy, paired fish that can spawn in a tank, should be spawning as that is the best indicator of health as healthy fish constantly spawn, like every couple of weeks.

Velvet or any other disease is a non-issue for me so I must be very lucky. I may just go and ask Scarlett Johanson for her phone number.

 

[TheStrangler]

The healthiest looking fish in the bunch showed signs of gill flukes which was confirmed by a freshwater dip. To my understanding this isn't treated by copper and is rather treated by prazi which cannot be used at the same time as coppersafe. Is the thing to do in this case to move the fish into a separate QT without copper, treat for the flukes, and then return it to the copper QT? Or would that reset the whole copper treatment?

 

[exnisstech]

Velvet is a death sentence - there’s no trying to build immunity to that, and it’s the primary reason hobbiest QT.

It truly is “Russian roulette” when it comes to velvet. No amount of prevention inspecting will protect your tank from that.

I have to disagree with your last statement. If you do an observation only QT at normal salinity not low like many store use that suppresses disease it would allow you to see if a fish is bringing in disease. I keep new fish in observation only for 30+ days at 1.025 before adding them to the DT. I've introduced velvet before and it took less than a week before I started loosing fish. The fish that brought it in came from a lfs that unknown to me before purchase kept thier salinity at 1.015. I currently have two fish in observation QT. They do so much better than in a sterile tank with pcv pipe.

 

[buruskeee]

If you do an observation only QT at normal salinity not low like many store use that suppresses disease it would allow you to see if a fish is bringing in disease. I keep new fish in observation only for 30+ days at 1.025 before adding them to the DT. I've introduced velvet before and it took less than a week before I started loosing fish.

Ahh so you agree with me - fish don’t build immunity to velvet. 30 day observational QT is still a form of QT, because as you just confirmed, once you introduce velvet in the tank, it’s game over.

As I said before, I can screenshot someone who had the same “I’ve had this tank for 20 years and never QT - just feed them well” preaching comments to folks in my FB group 2 years ago, and just a few months ago his tank got wiped out by velvet.

 

[exnisstech]

Ahh so you agree with me - fish don’t build immunity to velvet. 30 day observational QT is still a form of QT, because as you just confirmed, once you introduce velvet in the tank, it’s game over.

As I said before, I can screenshot someone who had the same “I’ve had this tank for 20 years and never QT - just feed them well” preaching comments to folks in my FB group 2 years ago, and just a few months ago his tank got wiped out by velvet.

Of course fish do not build immunity to velvet and I never insinuated that they did. I'm just stating that 30+ days in observation is sufficient to rule out the new fish carrying the disease .
Your statement "No amount of prevention inspecting will protect your tank from that." is what I disagree with. IMO a 30 day inspection period will protect my DT from having velvet introduced. Is observation a form of QT? Sure I won't argue that but around here if only QT is mentioned and observation only not mentioned most people are going to assume it's a medicated QT. I'm just stating that a medicated QT with copper is not necessary to prevent the introduction of velvet to the DT. Thats all

 

[buruskeee]

Your statement "No amount of prevention inspecting will protect your tank from that." is what I disagree with

Ahh, sorry for the confusion, that was in response to someone saying they inspect how they eat at the LFS to determine a healthy specimen to avoid the need to do ANY type of QT.

You’re still doing some level of QT (by definition) as it’s being held before entering the tank.

I was saying dumping random fish in your tank, no matter how well you inspected it at the LFS, is Russian roulette with Velvet as other fish in the water supply at the LFS could be spreading velvet before the fish being selected shows signs.

 

[exnisstech]

Ahh, sorry for the confusion, that was in response to someone saying they inspect how they eat at the LFS to determine a healthy specimen to avoid the need to do ANY type of QT.

You’re still doing some level of QT (by definition) as it’s being held before entering the tank.

I was saying dumping random fish in your tank, no matter how well you inspected it at the LFS, is Russian roulette with Velvet as other fish in the water supply at the LFS could be spreading velvet before the fish being selected shows signs.

Well heck I guess I should be the one apologizing lol.

 

[buruskeee]

Well heck I guess I should be the one apologizing lol.

It wasn’t very obvious, I quoted only one part of what was said, which was said over multiple ongoing posts to that point.

I believe in a broad sense we’re in agreement.