About the Quarantine process

[xLennie]

Dear friends,

I hope you are well.


I have my sponge filter cycled and ready to use in a quarantine setup. I would like to ask a few questions regarding the medicated QT procedure. I am normally an observational QT guy, but saltwater is expensive, and I am fairly new, so I am not experienced enough to visually detect and apply target treatment if needed. So I guess going for a basic medicated QT routine might be a better idea for me, as I am not aware of many diseases and how their symptoms appear in the SW world to "observe".


I cannot find a good copper medicine here. Seachem's Cupramine is the only good one I had access to, and now they are out of the stock for ages. And ordering it from Amazon US is veeery pricey.

I have two products on hand. Nitrofurazone and malachite green+formaldehyde combination and both are mentioned as suitable to use for marine on the product bottle.

My Questions are as follows;
1) What would be the QT procedure you guys would suggest based on these products?

2) Does nitrofurazone kill beneficial bacteria or stall the cycle noticably?

3) IS nitrofurazone and malachite green+formaldehyde combo is good enough to cover majority of the diseases? Is copper really neccessary? I have seen the application of Formalin, but I dont commonly see malachite green here. Is there a reason why maalchite green+formaldehyde is not a common treatment here?

4) Would using reef salt mess with formaldehyde+malachite green or nitrofurazone dose? I remember seeing BRStv suggesting not to use reef salt as it may fluctuate the doses of copper based medicine.

5) From what I know, the usage of copper based medicine should be calculated well based on the water parameters. In one tank it can be useless, in another it can be deadly. Without a checker or test, is it even safe to dose copper based medicine anyway?

6) I don't see people deworming their fish in SW Quarantine. Are fish not as prone to intestinal worms as freshwater fish? It is not an uncommon event to have fish carrying intestinal worms in freshwater world, and especially considering many fish are wildcaught and are omnivores/carnivores, isn't it a concern here? I haven't seen people quarantining with levamisole or praziquantel. Is this not a concern here, or they don't really work in SW?

I would like to hear your suggestions and answers.

Thanks in advance,
Lennie

Edit: I saw that HumbleFish QT procedure has deworming included. I guess it is a personal choice then.

How to Quarantine

 

[reefing102]

I was just about to tag @HumbleFish and @Dr. Reef to see their reccomendations. But looks like you found humbles recommendations

 

[xLennie]

I was just about to tag @HumbleFish and @Dr. Reef to see their reccomendations. But looks like you found humbles recommendations

Thanks Shane

I read it throughly, and the article has many medicines mentioned, including copper one. BRStv also had fairly similar procedure recommended in the below-mentioned videos:

It would be still good to know how safe I am just with nitrofurozone and malachine green+formaldehyde and related questions.

 

[leebca]

Dear friends,

I hope you are well.


I have my sponge filter cycled and ready to use in a quarantine setup. I would like to ask a few questions regarding the medicated QT procedure. I am normally an observational QT guy, but saltwater is expensive, and I am fairly new, so I am not experienced enough to visually detect and apply target treatment if needed. So I guess going for a basic medicated QT routine might be a better idea for me, as I am not aware of many diseases and how their symptoms appear in the SW world to "observe".


I cannot find a good copper medicine here. Seachem's Cupramine is the only good one I had access to, and now they are out of the stock for ages. And ordering it from Amazon US is veeery pricey.

I have two products on hand. Nitrofurazone and malachite green+formaldehyde combination and both are mentioned as suitable to use for marine on the product bottle.

My Questions are as follows;
1) What would be the QT procedure you guys would suggest based on these products?

2) Does nitrofurazone kill beneficial bacteria or stall the cycle noticably?

3) IS nitrofurazone and malachite green+formaldehyde combo is good enough to cover majority of the diseases? Is copper really neccessary? I have seen the application of Formalin, but I dont commonly see malachite green here. Is there a reason why maalchite green+formaldehyde is not a common treatment here?

4) Would using reef salt mess with formaldehyde+malachite green or nitrofurazone dose? I remember seeing BRStv suggesting not to use sea salt as it may fluctuate the doses of copper based medicine.

5) From what I know, the usage of copper based medicine should be calculated well based on the water parameters. In one tank it can be useless, in another it can be deadly. Without a checker or test, is it even safe to dose copper based medicine anyway?

6) I don't see people deworming their fish in SW Quarantine. Are fish not as prone to intestinal worms as freshwater fish? It is not an uncommon event to have fish carrying intestinal worms in freshwater world, and especially considering many fish are wildcaught and are omnivores/carnivores, isn't it a concern here? I haven't seen people quarantining with levamisole or praziquantel. Is this not a concern here, or they don't really work in SW?

I would like to hear your suggestions and answers.

Thanks in advance,
Lennie

Edit: I saw that HumbleFish QT procedure has deworming included. I guess it is a personal choice then.

How to Quarantine

I understand the difficulty with using fish medications outside of North America. Still, using the best medications, despite pricing is something I would encourage. Time, effort, diligence and money is spent setting up and maintaining a proper marine aquarium, I well know, but including the best medications is part of the strategy.

To address your questions, the best I can. . .

1. Nitrofurazone is effective against bacteria, both Gram Negative and Gram Positive. Not helpful vs. parasites. Malachite Green with Formaldehyde is a popular pond fish treatment. It can be used on Marine fish, but not particularly effective. I would not use either in a QT process for marine fish.

2. Yes. It can.

3. No. Yes. The reason is my answer to 1.

4. I don't know. My answer is tied to the answer to 1.

5. Checking the concentration of copper is essential. Copper kills marine fish in the too high concentration; it is ineffective in the too low concentration. Holding it to a specific range is essential. Download then read, the Copper Treatment Procedure document.

 

[xLennie]

I understand the difficulty with using fish medications outside of North America. Still, using the best medications, despite pricing is something I would encourage. Time, effort, diligence and money is spent setting up and maintaining a proper marine aquarium, I well know, but including the best medications is part of the strategy.

To address your questions, the best I can. . .

1. Nitrofurazone is effective against bacteria, both Gram Negative and Gram Positive. Not helpful vs. parasites. Malachite Green with Formaldehyde is a popular pond fish treatment. It can be used on Marine fish, but not particularly effective. I would not use either in a QT process for marine fish.

2. Yes. It can.

3. No. Yes. The reason is my answer to 1.

4. I don't know. My answer is tied to the answer to 1.

5. Checking the concentration of copper is essential. Copper kills marine fish in the too high concentration; it is ineffective in the too low concentration. Holding it to a specific range is essential. Download then read, the Copper Treatment Procedure document.

Hello,

Thanks for the message Lee.

We use malachite green and formaldehyde (like Hikari Ich-x or Sera Costapur) commonly for many diseases in fw, including freshwater ich. Sera costapur F also mentions it being usable against marine ich. To quote:
"
Water conditioner against Ichthyophthirius multifiliis (pathogen causing white spot disease) and other single celled skin parasites such as Ichthyobodo necator, Chilodonella, Trichodina, Brooklynella and Cryptocaryon irritans (the latter ones in marine water) as well as against infections by fungi (mycoses).
The aquarium should be darkened during treatment. For use in fresh and marine water.

Attention: cartilaginous fish (Chondrichthyes) and invertebrates do not tolerate the treatment!"
sera costapur | sera

If I am not mistaken, it is also usable for epistylis and velvet too. I came across this:
Formalin

Even if I order Cupramine from the Amazon US, I don't have access to Hanna checker. The document you mentioned also says it is a must. So I guess it is pointless and/or too risky to try a copper based medicine without knowing the exact dose.

My best bet is to use malachite green+formaldehyde and nitrofurazone. If you say these are pointless, then I better not QT and stress the fish for nothing


About the malachite green, I came across @HumbleFish 's comment about malachite green
hey some one can help me with Diy dose of malachite green and methylene blue together for treat bath for fish ? thanks for advanced

So, if it is risky, I don't even have formaldehyde alone! I only have nitrofurazone....

 

[HumbleFish]

If you are wanting to do a full prophylactic QT, using Cupramine as the base treatment, it will look something like this:

• Treat using Cupramine @ 0.5-0.6 ppm for 30 days. This should eliminate ich & velvet. Raise the copper level slowly i.e. take 4-5 days to reach 0.5.
  
  
• While the fish is in copper, dose either formalin or metronidazole alongside. Formalin is the best option, especially for eradicating Uronema. Metro is better at eliminating Brooklynella than Uronema.
  
  
• Post copper treatment, deworm the fish with a prazi based product: Praziquantel
  
  You can technically mix prazi with copper, but given you are already using formalin or metro w/copper it would be best to wait. So you aren't dumping too many meds on the fish all at once.