Current Quarantine Protocol

[Plandauesq]

If the biofilter is already established there is no need to add more by adding Stability. If I have a tank that is going to be empty for more than a couple of months I’ll add food to it periodically.

Jay

Just to make sure I understand, once all fish have been taken out of the QT tank, is there anything necessary to do to the QT tank to keep it cycled and up and running?

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Just to make sure I understand, once all fish have been taken out of the QT tank, is there anything necessary to do to the QT tank to keep it cycled and up and running?

For a month or two - nothing. If the tank is going to be kept empty for longer, you can try adding bits of food to the tank to "feed" the bacteria. Some people keep a hardy fish in these tanks long term.

Jay

 

[BVF]

For a month or two - nothing. If the tank is going to be kept empty for longer, you can try adding bits of food to the tank to "feed" the bacteria. Some people keep a hardy fish in these tanks long term.

Jay

Thanks, I was wondering about that, now that I have a QT set up. What would you recommend as a hardy fish to keep in there long term? Thinking I’ll just keep mine going and actually enjoy it.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Thanks, I was wondering about that, now that I have a QT set up. What would you recommend as a hardy fish to keep in there long term? Thinking I’ll just keep mine going and actually enjoy it,

A lot of people use damselfish, but I don't like that - they are too mean. The issue is that you'll have that fish in the tank when you run your next quarantine cycle, so it really should be a more peaceful fish that you can put into your display.

Jay

 

[Plandauesq]

For a month or two - nothing. If the tank is going to be kept empty for longer, you can try adding bits of food to the tank to "feed" the bacteria. Some people keep a hardy fish in these tanks long term.

Jay

Thanks so much. What would you recommend to use as a hardy fish that would also not be a disruptive tank mate for a 60 gallon tank?

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Thanks so much. What would you recommend to use as a hardy fish that would also not be a disruptive tank mate for a 60 gallon tank?

Depends on what fish you have in the 60. One of the basslets would work; royal gramma, chalk bass, tobacco fish or a hamlet for larger tanks.

Jay

 

[Sleepingtiger]

Thank you so much for the write up Jay.

I am starting up a new tank build and doing a lot of research. How do I prevent hitchhikers via frags from locals and online suppliers.

 

[mike89t]

Thank you so much for the write up Jay.

I am starting up a new tank build and doing a lot of research. How do I prevent hitchhikers via frags from locals and online suppliers.

This thread has some info on that:

Biosecurity

Our aquarium animals are wholly dependent on the care we give them for their continued good health. Proper environmental care is of course paramount; good water quality, excellent diet, proper aquarium size, compatible inhabitants, etc. Obviously, controlling disease is also a major factor...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[nldemo]

2021 Quarantine Procedures

Jay Hemdal
David Scarborough



Protozoans (Cryptocaryon/ich, Amyloodinium/velvet) and Metazoan trematodes/flukes are the most common parasites found on newly acquired fish. A carefully managed quarantine process can effectively eliminate these parasites before adding the fish to your display tank.

Tank Requirements:

Tank must be large enough to comfortably handle the number and size of fish for up to 9 weeks.

• Tank should have a filtration system that has completed the nitrogen cycle. Canisters, HOB overflow filters, or appropriately sized sponge filters are acceptable.
• The filtration system must not use carbon or other absorbing/adsorbing filtrants (e.g. Polyfilter) that might absorb copper or medication. NO calcareous rock LIVE or DEAD
• Bare bottom should be used. A saucer with non-absorbing sand can be utilized for wrasses, gobies, blennies or other species which are overly stressed by the bare bottom. Painting the underside of the tank black can also help
• Heater/thermometer
• Removable structure, e.g. PVC pipe may be used to provide hiding places for the fish.
• Ambient light will often be adequate for the QT tank.
• A means to maintain oxygen levels should be available. Air stones and sponge filters are usually adequate.
• A lid should be used to prevent the fish from jumping out of the tank.
• Set salinity level and temperature to the same levels as in your Display Tank.

Days 1 – 3: Observation - let the fish settle in and determine proper diet.

• Set QT temperature to 80 degrees.
• Acclimate the new fish to the QT.
• Observe the fish for any symptoms which might influence the treatment(s) you should administer.
• Determine if the fish are eating adequately to proceed.

Day 4: Begin Copper Treatment

• Add Coppersafe to the QT to achieve a concentration of 2.50 ppm over the course of 24 hours. This can be done in two doses 12 hours apart or multiple smaller doses if you prefer. Coppersafe will not be effective until a concentration over 2.0 ppm is present. A target of 2.50 ppm will allow for fluctuations without the risk of falling below the 2.0 ppm threshold. Hanna Copper checker is the most accurate test to use.
• Never use ammonia removing products or other reducing agents (dechlor) when dosing copper. Most products bind copper with an amine to reduce toxicity to the fish. Reducing agents break that bond, releasing free copper that can harm the fish.
• Feed and top off tank water normally.

Days 5 – 34: Continue Copper Treatment

• Monitor copper ppm regularly. If fluctuations do not occur, you can skip day(s), but if the concentration falls below 2.0 ppm, you will need to restart the 30-day count for the copper treatment.
• Monitor water quality parameters as you would for your display tank.
• If the copper or ammonia levels ever exceed guidelines, be prepared to administer water changes to correct the problem.

Day 35: Copper Done

• Begin copper removal through water changes.
• Zeolites such as Cuprisorb may be used to hasten the removal process.
• Carbon is usually too slow or ineffective at removing copper and should not be relied upon without adequate monitoring.

Day 36: Praziquantel Treatment #1

• Confirm copper has been removed adequately to drop the concentration to less than 1 ppm. Copper and Prazi should not be administered simultaneously.
• Add Prazipro to the QT per the instructions on the label.
• Ensure the additional oxygenation source is working. This treatment will potentially reduce the oxygen levels within the QT to critical levels without additional air flow.

Day 41, Day 48: Praziquantel Treatment #2, #3

• Add Prazipro to the QT per the instructions on the label, 7 days apart.

Day 62: New Fish QT complete

• Observe fish for 2 weeks after last prazi dose. Note: many public aquariums do not move fish out of quarantine unless they are in the middle of a full copper treatment. This vastly reduces the risk from Cryptocaryon or Amyloodinium. To use that method, substitute a copper treatment for this 2 week observation period, and move the fish out around day 10.
• Conduct a 5-minute fresh water dip if the fish is of a species particularly susceptible to Neobenedenia flukes. If flukes are detected, reduce QT salinity to 50% and hold for an additional 35 days.
• Confirm salinity and temperature of QT and DT are the same, add fish to DT.

Hi Jay,
What are the best filtering options for hospital tanks, since carbon and rock is out? I see you listed some options .. but what are people , yourself included , actually using?

 

[LeftyReefer]

I use HOB filters with a bag of Seachem Matrix in my QT tank.

The Matrix works well for this since it doesn't absorb any medications like real rock or sand can.
I've never had it affect the level of copper (or any med) while i've been using it.

And it seems to work good too. Once I get it set up, ammonia never seems to be an issue in my QT tank.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Hi Jay,
What are the best filtering options for hospital tanks, since carbon and rock is out? I see you listed some options .. but what are people , yourself included , actually using?

For small tanks, I run a pre-inoculated sponge filter and a HOB with just inert media for mechanical filtration. I always run some aeration as well.
Jay

 

[Miami Reef]

Can the length of copper treatment be cut to ~2 weeks if the fish is then transferred to a new sterile QT?

Metroplex isn’t needed in addition to praziquantel? Isn’t there some internal stuff that metro gets but prazi doesn’t?

Yes. You can use ANY copper and transfer the fish out in a sterile tank after 14 days. Ensure the tank is 10 feet apart.

I really don’t know why @Jay Hemdal said you can’t do this. It’s been proven to work and even Humblefish (disease expert) highly recommends this over a standard 30 day treatment.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Yes. You can use ANY copper and transfer the fish out in a sterile tank after 14 days. Ensure the tank is 10 feet apart.

I really don’t know why @Jay Hemdal said you can’t do this. It’s been proven to work and even Humblefish (disease expert) highly recommends this over a standard 30 day treatment.

Sorry, that isn’t correct. 14 days is too short of a treatment when using coppersafe or copper power. I have moved fish out of ionic copper sulfate/citric acid 14 days after the last symptoms were seen, but only when pressed due to logistics. For those two organically bound copper products it is just too soon. I use them due to their low toxicity, but that also means they are slow to kill protozoans.

Jay

 

[Miami Reef]

Sorry, that isn’t correct. 14 days is too short of a treatment when using coppersafe or copper power. I have moved fish out of ionic copper sulfate/citric acid 14 days after the last symptoms were seen, but only when pressed due to logistics. For those two organically bound copper products it is just too soon. I use them due to their low toxicity, but that also means they are slow to kill protozoans.

Jay

It takes 14 days for ich/velvet trophonts to fall off fish. If copper is therapeutic, they cannot latch back onto the fish. It’s honestly common sense at this point. I’ll have to get research papers, because I know you won’t take my word for it.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

It takes 14 days for ich/velvet trophonts to fall off fish. If copper is therapeutic, they cannot latch back onto the fish. It’s honestly common sense at this point. I’ll have to get research papers, because I know you won’t take my word for it.

That isn’t how copper works. It only kills the free swimming theronts. The trophonts and tomonts are unaffected. You need to maintain the copper beyond the time those two life stages are present. Thirty days is the sweet spot for this.

Jay

 

[Miami Reef]

That isn’t how copper works. It only kills the free swimming theronts. The trophonts and tomonts are unaffected. You need to maintain the copper beyond the time those two life stages are present. Thirty days is the sweet spot for this.

Jay

I never said copper would kill the trophonts. I said all the trophonts would naturally fall off the fish within 14 days. If copper is therapeutic for that time period, no more ich can latch back onto fish (because any free swimmer will die in copper). Transferring the fish to a sterile tank after 14 days (without lowering the therapeutic copper prior) has the same effect as doing to same treatment for 30 days.

Basically there’s 3 ich life stages: egg, hunting, and feeding stage.

egg stage is on the substrate, hunting stage is in the water column, and feeding is when the ich is inside the fish and feeding on them.

Copper doesn’t kill any egg nor feeding stages as the ich is protected (Via egg/fish’s body).

Copper kills the hunting stage when ich is vulnerable in the water column with no protection.

Also remember that ich has a known life cycle. It takes 14 days for the feeding stage to fall off the fish to turn into eggs.

with that in mind. Therapeutic copper will kill any hunting ich. The 14 day period is solely to wait for all the feeding ich to fall off. The copper is basically a shield to protect fish from getting reinfected. Fish are clear from ich after getting transferred out.

I repeat. Do not lower the copper concentration before the transfer. Why not? Because there are still eggs on the bottom! If you lower it they will be able to swim and infect your fish. Then your DT will become infected!

 

[DrZoidburg]

@Miami Reef Is that saying you have 2 tanks with copper in them>? Or is it just 1 tank 14 days copper to sterile?

 

[Jay Hemdal]

I never said copper would kill the trophonts. I said all the trophonts would naturally fall off the fish within 14 days. If copper is therapeutic for that time period, no more ich can latch back onto fish (because any free swimmer will die in copper). Transferring the fish to a sterile tank after 14 days (without lowering the therapeutic copper prior) has the same effect as doing to same treatment for 30 days.

Basically there’s 3 ich life stages: egg, hunting, and feeding stage.

egg stage is on the substrate, hunting stage is in the water column, and feeding is when the ich is inside the fish and feeding on them.

Copper doesn’t kill any egg nor feeding stages as the ich is protected (Via egg/fish’s body).

Copper kills the hunting stage when ich is vulnerable in the water column with no protection.

Also remember that ich has a known life cycle. It takes 14 days for the feeding stage to fall off the fish to turn into eggs.

with that in mind. Therapeutic copper will kill any hunting ich. The 14 day period is solely to wait for all the feeding ich to fall off. The copper is basically a shield to protect fish from getting reinfected. Fish are clear from ich after getting transferred out.

I repeat. Do not lower the copper concentration before the transfer. Why not? Because there are still eggs on the bottom! If you lower it they will be able to swim and infect your fish. Then your DT will become infected!

I have a reference for you - Noga 2010. For copper sulfate/citric acid = 14-21 days. So that is the bare minimum. As I said, I've done that many times 14 days after the last symptoms were seen. I stopped using those copper/citric acid mixtures many years ago due to toxicity and needing to test 2x/day. Noga does not discuss treatment time ethanolamine bound coppers, but as I said, we all know those take longer to effect a cure - thus 30 days.

People tend to think the life cycle of these parasites is cut in stone - everything happens like clockwork; 12 hours for this, 3 days for that, 76 days for this. It simply is not as clear cut as that. You must build in some slack in order to deal with the outliers. The outliers are there because amine-based coppers are less toxic, to both the fish and the parasite.

There is an alternative that works: 14 days of copper past the date of last symptoms, then remove the copper, treat with prazi for two weeks (should be doing that anyway) and then, if no protozoans break, redose the copper and pull the fish out of the tank after 48 hours, while still in the copper. Some public aquariums do this when they are under a deadline to get fish on exhibit. It basically knock 14 days off the quarantine time.

Jay

 

[DrZoidburg]

Yep that's what I was getting at ^ more than one strain. Also 14 days not guaranteed some stay on fish 18+. Not to mention say 30 ich spots for example. What about the ones you don't see that is not covered white cause fish immune response. Those in different life stage would not drop off of fish at same time.

 

[Miami Reef]

@Miami Reef Is that saying you have 2 tanks with copper in them>? Or is it just 1 tank 14 days copper to sterile?

I have 2 separate tanks. 1 copper and 1 sterile.