Question about necessary quarantine period.

[BrewinProf]

Hello, I'm getting back into the hobby after many years and have a question about quarantine that's been bothering me for a while. Based on the published life cycle of ich, the trophont stage (when the parasite is attached to the fish) should be a period of 3-8 days. Assuming the fish is moved into the quarantine tank that has always had an adequate amount of copper (2- 2.5 ppm of Copper Power for instance) and the parasite is vulnerable to copper during the free swimming stages (immediately before and after the trophont stage) why is is necessary to QT for 30+ days? If the fish comes into the QT infected, and can't get reinfected while in QT (because copper will kill the free swimming parasite), one trophont cycle of 3-8 days should be enough to eradicate the parasite. What am I missing here?

 

[Dread Pirate Dave]

Welcome to R2R!

That's a good question. I would guess that the 30+ days is to cover all bases for other parasites?

 

[Rappa]

That is a good question actually... I'll be following to see what the Big Boy's have to say about it!

 

[vetteguy53081]

Hello, I'm getting back into the hobby after many years and have a question about quarantine that's been bothering me for a while. Based on the published life cycle of ich, the trophont stage (when the parasite is attached to the fish) should be a period of 3-8 days. Assuming the fish is moved into the quarantine tank that has always had an adequate amount of copper (2- 2.5 ppm of Copper Power for instance) and the parasite is vulnerable to copper during the free swimming stages (immediately before and after the trophont stage) why is is necessary to QT for 30+ days? If the fish comes into the QT infected, and can't get reinfected while in QT (because copper will kill the free swimming parasite), one trophont cycle of 3-8 days should be enough to eradicate the parasite. What am I missing here?

You want to go with potentaial diseases and life cycles. Treat with coppersafe a full 30 days and monitor fish. Thereafter to eliminate worms and flukes apply praziPro dosing at 80% of recommended and apply initial dosage known as an interval for 8 days, do a water change and do one more 8 day dose interval
Use airstone with prazi as it does reduce both oxygen and appetite. If running a skimmer, leave cup off first 24 hrs as skimmer will go nuts from the glycol solution in Prazi

 

[Rappa]

You want to go with potentaial diseases and life cycles. Treat with coppersafe a full 30 days and monitor fish. Thereafter to eliminate worms and flukes apply praziPro dosing at 80% of recommended and apply initial dosage known as an interval for 8 days, do a water change and do one more 8 day dose interval
Use airstone with prazi as it does reduce both oxygen and appetite. If running a skimmer, leave cup off first 24 hrs as skimmer will go nuts from the glycol solution in Prazi

Ok, so if I understand your answer... If the fish is showing Ich 100%, then you are not only quarantining to kill ONLY the Ich, but you have to assume that the fish will have other potential diseases going on as well. And this is why you would QT 30+ days...

Is that correct? Otherwise, would OP be also correct in his assumption that if he were ONLY trying to rid the fish of ICH, would a 10 day copper treatment rid the fish of the Ich and potential spread of it in a display tank?

 

[vetteguy53081]

Ok, so if I understand your answer... If the fish is showing Ich 100%, then you are not only quarantining to kill ONLY the Ich, but you have to assume that the fish will have other potential diseases going on as well. And this is why you would QT 30+ days...

Is that correct? Otherwise, would OP be also correct in his assumption that if he were ONLY trying to rid the fish of ICH, would a 10 day copper treatment rid the fish of the Ich and potential spread of it in a display tank?

Ten days is not enough as a given disease can take hold of a fish thereafter. You want to both treat and prevent potential diseases with this regimen

 

[threebuoys]

The problem is that the actual length of each life cycle phase is not cast in stone. The trophont stage can last 3 to 9 days. The protomont stage happens more quickly, less than a day. The tomont stage where incubation occurs can last from 3 to 72 days, although is our temperature controlled aquariums this stage is much shorter . The tomites then become theronts which is the only stage where the parasite can be killed. Whlle the theront stage only lasts a couple of days, the variablily of the other stages is the problem. The more Trophonts that occur results in all of the phases occuring simuiltaneously as the population in an untreated tank continues to grow. Often, the population growth occurs before the disease is actually detected.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Hello, I'm getting back into the hobby after many years and have a question about quarantine that's been bothering me for a while. Based on the published life cycle of ich, the trophont stage (when the parasite is attached to the fish) should be a period of 3-8 days. Assuming the fish is moved into the quarantine tank that has always had an adequate amount of copper (2- 2.5 ppm of Copper Power for instance) and the parasite is vulnerable to copper during the free swimming stages (immediately before and after the trophont stage) why is is necessary to QT for 30+ days? If the fish comes into the QT infected, and can't get reinfected while in QT (because copper will kill the free swimming parasite), one trophont cycle of 3-8 days should be enough to eradicate the parasite. What am I missing here?

Welcome to Reef2Reef!

The life cycle of Cryptocaryon is not as cut and dry as some people would have you believe. Additionally, I suggest people use either coppersafe or copper power. These products are mild, but take longer to work. It is the tomont (resting stage) that has a huge amount of variability - releasing theronts (free swimmers) over a potentially long period of time.

Tank Transfer Method, TTM, where the fish are moved to a sterile tank every 3 days, avoids the formation of tomonts, and the trophonts drop off. TTM has other drawbacks, I stopped using it in the late 1980’s, but it does work.

 

[BrewinProf]

Thanks to everyone for your comments...

It does make sense to me that a longer QT period could be necessary for other diseases that have a longer life cycle than ich but I still don't see how it is necessary for ich. The variability of the tomont stage shouldn't matter because once released (whether it be after 3 days or 72 days or anytime in between) the theronts would be killed by the copper before reinfecting the fish. If it truly does take multiple cycles for copper to work then the only explanations I can come up with are 1) copper is not 100% effective on all theronts, or 2) there is much more variability in the trophont stage so that small numbers of the parasite can be hiding on the fish for weeks rather than for 3-8 days. I'm assuming people have tried to do less than a 30 day QT in copper and it was ineffective?

 

[threebuoys]

Thanks to everyone for your comments...

It does make sense to me that a longer QT period could be necessary for other diseases that have a longer life cycle than ich but I still don't see how it is necessary for ich. The variability of the tomont stage shouldn't matter because once released (whether it be after 3 days or 72 days or anytime in between) the theronts would be killed by the copper before reinfecting the fish. If it truly does take multiple cycles for copper to work then the only explanation I can come up with is that the copper is not 100% effective on all theronts. Alternatively, perhaps there is much more variability in the trophont stage so that small numbers of the parasite can be hiding on the fish for weeks rather than for 3-8 days. I'm assuming people have tried to do less than a 30 day QT in copper and it was ineffective?

So, essentially what you are saying here is the QT period needs to be 72 days in order for the tomonts to complete that stage, not 3 - 8 days.?(The parasite could take anywhere from 5 days to 77 days to complete the cycle). We believe the 72 day tomont stage is highly exaggerated for our systems, but it could certainly take longer than 8 days. If the copper concentration is eliminated at 8 days, odds are low that the life cycle has been stopped.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Thanks to everyone for your comments...

It does make sense to me that a longer QT period could be necessary for other diseases that have a longer life cycle than ich but I still don't see how it is necessary for ich. The variability of the tomont stage shouldn't matter because once released (whether it be after 3 days or 72 days or anytime in between) the theronts would be killed by the copper before reinfecting the fish. If it truly does take multiple cycles for copper to work then the only explanations I can come up with are 1) copper is not 100% effective on all theronts, or 2) there is much more variability in the trophont stage so that small numbers of the parasite can be hiding on the fish for weeks rather than for 3-8 days. I'm assuming people have tried to do less than a 30 day QT in copper and it was ineffective?

Coppersafe / Copper Power may not always be 100% effective at killing all theronts, so that extends the treatment time. This is evidenced by using coppersafe to control a heavy ich infections - it can take longer than 8 days to effect a cure in those cases, so some theronts must be getting through.

I still don't quite understand your question; the trophont stage is pretty short (3-8 days) but the tomont stage is the one that causes the issues, if you remove the copper too soon, viable tomonts will release theronts after that and the fish can get reinfected. There are some "blended techniques" where you run a fish in full copper for 14 days and then move it to a sterile tank. The idea with that is that any viable tomonts will remain in the first tank. Tomonts are sneaky though - anything wet moving from tank to tank has the potential to move tomonts.

 

[BrewinProf]

Coppersafe / Copper Power may not always be 100% effective at killing all theronts, so that extends the treatment time. This is evidenced by using coppersafe to control a heavy ich infections - it can take longer than 8 days to effect a cure in those cases, so some theronts must be getting through.

I still don't quite understand your question; the trophont stage is pretty short (3-8 days) but the tomont stage is the one that causes the issues, if you remove the copper too soon, viable tomonts will release theronts after that and the fish can get reinfected. There are some "blended techniques" where you run a fish in full copper for 14 days and then move it to a sterile tank. The idea with that is that any viable tomonts will remain in the first tank. Tomonts are sneaky though - anything wet moving from tank to tank has the potential to move tomonts.

Ah! So it's possible that the tomonts can hitch a ride on the fish, even if the fish aren't infected? I had envisioned the tomonts as being stuck on the aquarium substrate. So if they can be introduced to the DT with the fish then I can see how it is necessary to wait until all the tomonts have hatched before the fish are moved to the DT. Thanks for the clarification!

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Ah! So it's possible that the tomonts can hitch a ride on the fish, even if the fish aren't infected? I had envisioned the tomonts as being stuck on the aquarium substrate. So if they can be introduced to the DT with the fish then I can see how it is necessary to wait until all the tomonts have hatched before the fish are moved to the DT. Thanks for the clarification!

Yes - correct, tomonts can get carried over on anything "wet", they mostly are on the substrate, but not always.

 

[Rappa]

Yes - correct, tomonts can get carried over on anything "wet", they mostly are on the substrate, but not always.

So that's as basic as the net that you use to scoop the fish, or whatever you use to remove the fish from the tank. Anything entering that water (including our own hands), can carry tomants into another tank to infect said tank... I have a net and some other equipment that is for copper only and never touch my display tank system, no matter what.