How do you QT (quarantine)?

[siege]

TSIA - what processes/procedures do you use when QT'ing new additions (of any kind) to your tank? Any special treatments you use consistently with good results?

How long do you quarantine for? Hours? Days? Weeks?

What do you use for a QT tank? Do you keep anything besides the fish in it? How do you keep from stressing fish isolated for extended periods?

 

[ichthyoid]

Prophylactic treatment with chloroquine phosphate. This is for ectoparasite infection (cryptocaryon especially), but not tolerated well by all species. So read this v first!

Chloroquine Phosphate

Chloroquine Phosphate (updated 9-06-2023) What It Treats: Marine Ich (Cryptocaryon irritans), Marine Velvet Disease (Amyloodinium ocellatum), Brooklynella hostilis and Uronema marinum. Please Note: Chloroquine is unlikely to eliminate internal (or intracellular) Uronema. How To Buy...

humble.fish

Some would recommend a separate tank/new water, prophylactic treatment with antibiotic(s), possibly with a fungal treatment regimen.

FWIW, I have used these in combination -
Maracyn + Maracyn 2 + Maracyn Oxy provides the triple effect against gram positive + gram negative bacterial infection, and + fungal infection, all at once. These can prevent a super infection following the above ectoparasite treatment regimen.

Alternatives involve isolation, with or without UV. I’m a fan of UV, personally. Just not during medication as it tends to destroy the chemicals being used.

This is a short overview and there is a lot more to it. Starting out, you can also buy specimens pretreated online which may be a better way to go, until you learn more. It costs more up front, but usually saves a lot of heart ache and expense further on!

Also, learn about and adopt hygienic protocols for isolating your system from others systems. When buying specimens or rock or even used equipment become aware that they can all potentially become vectors for pathogenic infection from another infected source, regardless of how careful you are otherwise!

Just my $0.02

 

[siege]

Prophylactic treatment with chloroquine phosphate. This is for ectoparasite infection (cryptocaryon especially), but not tolerated well by all species. So read this v first!

Chloroquine Phosphate

Chloroquine Phosphate (updated 9-06-2023) What It Treats: Marine Ich (Cryptocaryon irritans), Marine Velvet Disease (Amyloodinium ocellatum), Brooklynella hostilis and Uronema marinum. Please Note: Chloroquine is unlikely to eliminate internal (or intracellular) Uronema. How To Buy...

humble.fish

Some would recommend a separate tank/new water, prophylactic treatment with antibiotic(s), possibly with a fungal treatment regimen.

FWIW, I have used these in combination -
Maracyn + Maracyn 2 + Maracyn Oxy provides the triple effect against gram positive + gram negative bacterial infection, and + fungal infection, all at once. These can prevent a super infection following the above ectoparasite treatment regimen.

Alternatives involve isolation, with or without UV. I’m a fan of UV, personally. Just not during medication as it tends to destroy the chemicals being used.

This is a short overview and there is a lot more to it. Starting out, you can also buy specimens pretreated online which may be a better way to go, until you learn more. It costs more up front, but usually saves a lot of heart ache and expense further on!

Also, learn about and adopt hygienic protocols for isolating your system from others systems. When buying specimens or rock or even used equipment become aware that they can all potentially become vectors for pathogenic infection from another infected source, regardless of how careful you are otherwise!

Just my $0.02

Thank you! This is just the sort of experience-based advice I was looking for.

My prior reef, we had no real QT tank - I knew it was wrong, I didn't have options. I have gotten away with no real QT in my freshwater tank, but it's not the same investment, and I do exercise some caution. I also almost never add anything to it.

I KNOW I need to QT my reef however, and that I ought to do so no matter how trusted the source of livestock.

UV: presumably I don't want to suspend the 60w, 405nm UV lamp I use for curing 3d resin prints above the QT tank, and would be better to buy a purpose-built light? Or else find a way to keep it only to a select portion of the tank that the fish/coral itself is not in? Thanks to the resin printing, I at least also have a fair quantity of 90% isopropyl on hand Still, I imagine this also goes a long way to killing any unwanted algae spores that might have hitchhiked along, as well as anything still at or near the microscopic level.

Duly noted on the Maracyn for fish, as well as that one may be able to get pre-treated specimens. Still, I think I have a pretty extensive enough list of stock I want to acquire that I should probably be prepared to do so on my own.

How about corals - I've seen references to Coral Dip?

When doing the Maracyn thing, how long are you keeping them isolated before introduction to the main tank?

 

[chaples55]

Prophylactic treatment with chloroquine phosphate. This is for ectoparasite infection (cryptocaryon especially), but not tolerated well by all species. So read this v first!

Chloroquine Phosphate

Chloroquine Phosphate (updated 9-06-2023) What It Treats: Marine Ich (Cryptocaryon irritans), Marine Velvet Disease (Amyloodinium ocellatum), Brooklynella hostilis and Uronema marinum. Please Note: Chloroquine is unlikely to eliminate internal (or intracellular) Uronema. How To Buy...

humble.fish

Some would recommend a separate tank/new water, prophylactic treatment with antibiotic(s), possibly with a fungal treatment regimen.

FWIW, I have used these in combination -
Maracyn + Maracyn 2 + Maracyn Oxy provides the triple effect against gram positive + gram negative bacterial infection, and + fungal infection, all at once. These can prevent a super infection following the above ectoparasite treatment regimen.

Alternatives involve isolation, with or without UV. I’m a fan of UV, personally. Just not during medication as it tends to destroy the chemicals being used.

This is a short overview and there is a lot more to it. Starting out, you can also buy specimens pretreated online which may be a better way to go, until you learn more. It costs more up front, but usually saves a lot of heart ache and expense further on!

Also, learn about and adopt hygienic protocols for isolating your system from others systems. When buying specimens or rock or even used equipment become aware that they can all potentially become vectors for pathogenic infection from another infected source, regardless of how careful you are otherwise!

Just my $0.02

Where do you get your chloroquine phosphate?

 

[chaples55]

I also follow Humblefish's guides for quarantining, but I use copper instead of chloroquine. (Fritz Coppersafe is my preferred form). I increase the copper over ~3-4 days and do 14 days at therapeutic levels followed by a tank transfer. At the same time, I do 2 doses of Prazi 7 days apart. Sometimes metronidazole too but not always.

Been doing this for ~4 years now and have never had any disease in my display tank. I was slow to start copper in QT one time and lost that batch of fish to Velvet. Sad, but better than losing the whole display!

 

[chaples55]

UV: presumably I don't want to suspend the 60w, 405nm UV lamp I use for curing 3d resin prints above the QT tank, and would be better to buy a purpose-built light?

Needs to be UV-C (~254nm) to be effective. It needs to be enclosed because it will kill anything exposed to it for too long (including fish/corals) and it's bad for your eyes.

 

[ecoreefguy]

Go to Home Depot to buy the shelve racks. Buy some 28 gallons. I like to get up 1 as just an observation tank with a UV and some pvc rings. Keep them in her for 4 weeks to see if anything pops up. During this time you can ween picky fish to prepare foods if needed
The second tank is my copper treated tank. Only fish with issues and NEED to go in here should go in here. I don’t automatically start copper treatment. It’s pretty harsh on them. Toss them back into the viewing tank after 3 weeks and hood for another 4 weeks.
It sounds like a lot but it only takes 1 bad fish to kill thousands of investment

 

[ichthyoid]

Where do you get your chloroquine phosphate?

Here, last time I bought it, expensive but it works against ectoparasites. Just follow the Humblefish guideline in link above. Better tolerated by most species and more effective than copper.
*AVOID using on sensitive species!

https://store.nationalfishpharm.com/shop/chloroquine-phosphate/

 

[ichthyoid]

Fwiw,
I have used several forms of quinine based products over the years, including quinine sulfate, quinacrine hydrochloride and chloroquine sulfate. The last one is better tolerated and effective, on species which are not sensitive to it. This is kind of like when some people have a peanut allergy, due to genetic factors. Specific species tend to be sensitive. So, do your homework first and verify if it is safe before using it on a particular specimen. Not just because it worked for a similar species. If you are not sure ask first.

What It Treats: Marine Ich (Cryptocaryon irritans), Marine Velvet Disease (Amyloodinium ocellatum), Brooklynella hostilisand Uronema marinum. Please Note: Chloroquine is unlikely to eliminate internal (or intracellular) Uronema.

Ich and velvet are names for freshwater diseases and have carried over to the marine hobby out of ignorance or convenience. It is confusing and an Inaccurate description to use them, imho. The diseases above are some of the most lethal known to our hobby, with cryptocaryon being the most common by far. Brooklynella also called Clownfish disease and Uronema are highly virulent and rapidly fatal. Eliminating these, prior to putting a fish into your display, WILL help prevent killing every fish in there. If you’re in this hobby long enough, you will hear about or see it yourselves.

UV can help a lot, with managing parasites. It may not eliminate it entirely. So, whether you do or don’t treat them, I suggest investing in a properly sized UV sterilizer. On that note, bigger is not better, just follow Aqua UV’s sizing table, it’s pretty accurate and they’ve been in the game a long time. Though I am of the opinion that the cryptocaryon irradiance requirement is almost certainly overkill (pun intended). If you wish to discuss this I will refer you to a thread that is pinned here somewhere, which goes into great detail -

https://aquaultraviolet.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/UV-Charts-Salt-and-Fresh-Water-Web.pdf

 

[msporleder]

By the way if you want to avoid doing a full QT on your own HF also has approved vendors:

Forum list

A diverse reefing community working together for healthy fish and all things reefing.

humble.fish

You can also do a less medicated tank transfer method https://humble.fish/community/threads/tank-transfer-method-all-versions.6800/

And then treat specific symptoms with the heavy stuff if symptoms comes up.

 

[siege]

I would like to do everything I can to avoid losses - and most especially parasites - right from the get-go, and keep it that way.

I can at least get a spare heater and an airstone in a bucket or a tote bin, but I don't even really have a properly good place for a dedicated QT tank yet - much less two of them! - especially as it should be as far from my DT as possible - the only really decent place for anything like a set of shelves, etc., would still have the QT tanks in my office, maybe 10' away from my DT.

I guess I need to take Steve up on the free buckets, and plan on saving the ones my salt comes in, too, should I ever need to do one of these transfer arrangements... and from what I'm reading, y'all are saying everything gets QT'd for 13-14 days, and you medicate everything thus, period, paragraph, end-of-story? Chloroquine first, then maracyn+maracyn2+maracyn oxy?
And, noted regarding it needing specifically to be UV-C... I should have known that, d'oh

What It Treats: Marine Ich (Cryptocaryon irritans), Marine Velvet Disease (Amyloodinium ocellatum), Brooklynella hostilisand Uronema marinum. Please Note: Chloroquine is unlikely to eliminate internal (or intracellular) Uronema.

I actually wound up reading up on these last night after following your first link: apocalypse_now-the_horror.gif

Also, at the price of the cholorquine. Uff da.

I'm going to have to do some more reading...

I think perhaps I might need to go with that list of HF's approved sellers for the first few fish, if they're not terribly more expensive.

 

[msporleder]

regarding "everything" check out this chart for how long you have to isolate snails

Coral/Invert Quarantine Time Frames

Coral/Invert Quarantine Time Frames IMPORTANT UPDATE: Raising aquarium temperature to 27C/80.6F can shorten the coral/invert isolation period to 6 weeks: New Ich Fallow Period Preface: The purpose of this article is to outline time periods required to properly quarantine (QT) marine corals &...

humble.fish

 

[chaples55]

Honestly I would not attempt to treat/quarantine fish in buckets. First of all it's not really enough space for most fish for the bare minimum 2 week treatment period. More importantly, it greatly hinders your ability to properly observe the fish which is a critical aspect of conditioning and quarantining fish. You need to be able to see if and how much a fish is eating, how they're swimming, how they're breathing, if they have any visible parasites, etc. My go-to is an aqueon 20g long which provides a nice amount of horizontal swimming space without being an overly large volume of water to treat.

So yeah, I would say if you can't do a proper QT tank and you don't want to live dangerously, go with pre-quarantined fish.

 

[Steve Burton]

I use a 20 long with cycled matrix in a hob filter. If no visible problems, I make sure they are eating really well for at least a week before starting medications. I use Prazipro for a week, do a couple large water changes over a dew days, then start bringing copper up slowly over several days. Either Coppersafe at 2.5ppm or Copper Power at 2.0ppm, for three weeks. More water changes then one more round of Prazipro for a week. I monitor copper the whole time, never letting it drop below therapeutic levels. I also monitor ammonia, not usually a problem with plenty of well cycled media, but if it ever shows up I do water changes with pre-medicated water. i also soak food with Selcon vitamins the entire time.
Edit: I also have a few rocks and PVC fittings strictly for the QT tank, for the fish to be comfortable.
Edit: I run heavy aeration with a couple airstones once medications is started, too, absolutely necessary with Prazipro.