Emergency QT -- Seeding with live rock??

[Vincero]

I noticed that my clowns started getting the classic symptoms of marine ich.

So, I set up an emergency QT (approx 10 gal) and isolated them in there. I am treating with cupramine and so far they're looking better, even after a couple of days.

The problem is, beyond bacteria in a bottle and rock from my DT, I don't have anything to seed the tank with. I'm vaccuming daily to clean up uneaten food/poop, but this isn't going to be sustainable for how long the clowns will stay in there. (76 days to wait out the fallow period).

I'm getting mixed advice about what the best thing is to do in order to establish a bacterial colony and not kill my fish in the process. The guy at my LFS is telling me to pull out a fist sized piece from my display and put it into the QT. I'm concerned about any hidden die off causing an ammonia spike. In theory the rock should handle it?

There's also the issue of rock absorbing the copper. I'm not too worried about this... At least I can measure for this and adjust accordingly -- especially because it looks like the clowns will be in there for a while. After I'm confident that they've been treated at thereputic levels for 2+ weeks I can strip the copper from the water as best as possible.

Thoughts about seeding the tank?!

 

[Vincero]

I have the Seachem Alert badge and it seems to be yellow, changing to the first shade of green, suggesting slight ammonia.

 

[Tastee]

Seeding with live rock works well, but ideally you should not put the LR back into your tank. You could also use Marine Pure or Matrix, which will hold more bacteria than LR.

I personally seed my QT with pieces of PolyFilter I keep in my Sump - just a small square is enough to hold a lot of bacteria and kick things off. The Poly Filter is also a good indicator of contaminants. You must take the PolyFilter out if you are going to add Copper however or it will remove it from the water column.


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[Vincero]

Thanks -- my friend offered be some polyfilter but is the dirt on it an issue? Sounds like a similar conundrum to adding the live rock. Copper will kill what's on it, leading to a possible ammonia spike?

 

[Tastee]

The "˜dirt' in the Poly Filter is just organics. It will already have broken down in the original tank so what is left is really pretty inert and full of bacteria. Certainly not a problem to put in a tank.

When my son set up a new FW tank the first thing he did was come around to me and swap out some of my ceramic noodles in my FW tank for new Matrix. It's exactly the same principle in SW tanks. It's the "˜dirt' you want.


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[ThRoewer]

For a quarantine tank I usually use a handful of Chaetomorpha or Caulerpa. The advantage of algae is that they can take up ammonia directly. Though that doesn't work for a hospital tank in which you use copper or anything else that kills algae.

How to proceed with a hospital tank depends on how long you gonna have to treat the fish. Cryptocaryon treatment takes no more than 2 weeks if you use TTM as your primary treatment. You can use copper in addition. With TTM you don't have to worry about ammonia since you are doing 100% water changes before ammonia can accumulate to toxic levels.

And during the time you do the TTM treatment you can get another QT cycling in which you hold the treated fish for observation.

BTW, for putting clownfish or other small fish through TTM you can use 5 gallon buckets instead of tanks.

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[Vincero]

Ok thanks, I've put some seeded floss in my tank.

 

[Vincero]

For a quarantine tank I usually use a handful of Chaetomorpha or Caulerpa. The advantage of algae is that they can take up ammonia directly. Though that doesn't work for a hospital tank in which you use copper or anything else that kills algae.

How to proceed with a hospital tank depends on how long you gonna have to treat the fish. Cryptocaryon treatment takes no more than 2 weeks if you use TTM as your primary treatment. You can use copper in addition. With TTM you don't have to worry about ammonia since you are doing 100% water changes before ammonia can accumulate to toxic levels.

And during the time you do the TTM treatment you can get another QT cycling in which you hold the treated fish for observation.

BTW, for putting clownfish or other small fish through TTM you can use 5 gallon buckets instead of tanks.

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I was considering the TTM, but space was ultimately the problem. So, all I have is a hospital tank and my display tank. Although not ideal, I'm trying to do the best with what I've got.

I have a small filter, two airstones, some ceramic media in a bag, some (hopefully) seeded filter floss from a friend, and airline tubing for regular vacuuming. Just trying to get the tank to a stage where the biological filtration is stable and I can relax a little more about ammonia.

 

[Oldreeferman]

If it were me id place a large HOB filter on that 10gal QT ( for a max size filter media) & lower the flow on it, then allow the filter media bag to get the bacteria growth going and when cleaning the filter media rinse the bag in used DT water & replace the charcoal once a week but............... keep using the same filter bag so the bacteria is intact as well as any porus media that comes with it usually a foam pad. Your going to have to add nitrifying bacteria to this sys till it reads o ppm on ammonia if fish are already in the tank instead of ammonia to feed the bacteria,..........that means constant water changes until the ammonia reads 0 still tho, you will have to contend with nitrites next so the bacteria on the media is all importaint & water changes to keep stability is all you can do since the QT was not setup & acclimated in advance. Its what id do if the fish were worth the effort at this point.
You can use Seachem Prime daily to detoxify the ammonia, nitrite & nitrate for the time being until the bacteria catch up which may take a few weeks but your clowns will a lot happier with good parameters.. Im saying all this because you say the TTM is not an option, this will work if you dont mind monitoring daily.