Artificial coral insert

[benwilson3301]

I have a 93 gal fowlr with an artificial coral insert. I bought the insert for its ease of keeping so if I ever had an outbreak it could easily be treated. This tank is about one year old. It has a refugium with 50# of live rock. I am also running a large UV filter. I didn't QT because I was told that's basically what I set up. After a year I put in a spiney box puffer who after a month displayed ich. I traeted with Paraguard per my lfs. It helped at first but came back with a vengeance. I battled for a few weeks, dosing paraguard and feeding with Selecon. It continued to go down hill. I am dropping my salinity to 1.009, currently Im down to 1.011. I have done a 10% water change per day for a while now and am getting close. By tonight I'll be at 1.009. My other water perimeters are perfect, ph, kh, nitrate, etc. Temp 77 and stable. I currently house a snowflake eel 10", spiney box puffer 4", foxface 4", lionfish 3", and harlequin tusk 6".

Now to my question... with out inverts why can't I treat my Display tank like a QT? Why would I need to leave a DT fallow? Couldn't I treat the DT with hypo for 4-6 weeks to erraticate any parisites? What am I missing?

I previously had a 90 reef with a separate qt that ran with no incident for 10 years. I wanted something that looked like a reef tank that housed non reef safe fish.

Ben

 

[Breadman03]

The idea of a QT is to treat incoming livestock before putting into your established tank. The idea is to protect your established livestock from new diseases. Can you treat your entire tank every time you have a breakout? Sure, but it will be more of a hassle than keeping a 10-20 gallon tank, heater, powerhead, and a couple pieces of PVC around to treat a new fish.

 

[snorvich]

The idea of a QT is to treat incoming livestock before putting into your established tank. The idea is to protect your established livestock from new diseases. Can you treat your entire tank every time you have a breakout? Sure, but it will be more of a hassle than keeping a 10-20 gallon tank, heater, powerhead, and a couple pieces of PVC around to treat a new fish.

I agree. There are a variety of issues why that strategy is not a good one. For absolute eradication, the SG must be tightly and accurately controlled. Many people have difficulty with this and the treatment fails. Also, the treatment period and the fallow period must be 72 days for guaranteed eradication. Still, one, in theory, could do that. However, what are you going to do with the parasites (e.g. velvet, brook, uronema) which are not treatable with hyposalinity?

 

[Zane24]

Plus you will not be able to treat any medication with the live rock in your refugium. Live rock will suck up the medication making it extremely difficult to keep at the therapeutic levels. Every time it goes under you have to start the clock back to 0. Plus certain medicines will kill the bio in your tank which could constantly cause cycles.

 

[benwilson3301]

So let's say this works hypothetically... If they come out the other end disease free and I don't add another fish to the system, even if they were stressed, theoretically would there be any possibility of disease? Ich or otherwise? It would be like putting a person in a bubble.

 

[snorvich]

Assuming it is executed correctly for 72 days (which is a huge assumption) it would eradicate ich. It will have no effect on other parasites. Not a good strategy, sorry.