Hey guys, first heres a little backstory, i have a 75 gallon mixed reef that i recently just lost all my fish due to ich, it was entirely my fault because i thought i could get away without quarantining. so needless to say i went out the other day and bought a 10 gallon quarantine tank but was wondering if that will be big enough to house a small copperband butterfly fish from liveaquaria.com (2-2.5") for the 3 months i have to let my display tank go without fish. also what have you guys done to have success with quarantining them (size tank, feeding, treatments,etc.). he will be the only fish to go into my tank after the 3 months have passed with no fish.
Quarantine Size For CopperBand Butterfly fish
- Thread starter Mikedawg8898
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I have mine (4”) in a 29 gallon QT. IMO - A 10 gallon tank would not be big enough to house this fish for any period of time. A 20-30 gallon is the smallest I would do. Make sure you have the QT cycled before the fish comes in. They are very messy eaters and a lot of the food gets left over so make sure you siphon it out. Mine ate frozen bloodworms and masstick out of the bag. Others have used live blackworms to get them to feed. Do tons of water changes and monitor ammonia closely. As far as treatments go I usually wait until they are eating for a few days and then run prazipro for 72hrs. After the fish has been through prazi I move onto copper or CP for 30 days. Make sure the fish is eating before running praziquantel as it may suppress apetite.
I used a 20 gallon tank. They are clumsy eaters when feeding from the water column. They have horrible depth perception and always miss food. Also, when they get excited (cause they know they're getting fed) they'll start shaking. It was scary since I was medicating them. I thought I killed him.
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I would use something like a 29 gallon. Look for them on Craigslist if your budget is tight, it only needs to hold water so things like scratches aren't that big of an issue. Be sure to put stuff like pipe fittings in there for it to have something to hide/sleep in. Definitely recommend cycling it first with something like seachem stability or uncle tim's as mentioned before.
Thanks guys, luckily petco has their dollar per gallon sale so I’ll go out today and buy either a 20 gallon long or a 29 gallon tank. When cycling a quarantine tank, do you guys use bottle Bacteria like Bio-Spira? I’ve heard only good things about bio spira and it’s ability to cycle aquariums quickly.
I also heard live brine shrimp is another food to get them eating, anyone have any experience with feeding that as well on top of what was already mentioned earlier?
I use Dr. Tims and precylced marine pure balls in a aquaclear HOB. Haven’t had any ammonia problems.
I got some rocks from a local reefer that were covered in feather dusters. She ate them all in less than a day.
Sounds good! I'm going to see what i can get today down at the lfs. i got tons of father dusters in my reef that i know itll have a blast with once i go through the 3 month fallow period
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