Fish Diseases Being Transmitted Via Inverts

[yalpal]

Hi Everyone,

I am finally finishing an upgrade build. Long story short, my old tank crashed, and I gave my remaining corals and inverts to a buddy to hold for me. He has an awesome setup, but does not QT... I'm a big fan of quarantining everything that goes into my tank. Once I get everything back from him, what's the best way to assure that nothing gets transmitted into my brand new display? I have three quarantine tanks that I can use. I know for a fact that his tank has Ich, and I suspect some type of internal parasites as well.

Thanks for the help!

 

[Newsmyrna80]

Quarantine all corals and inverts for 90 days to be safe. There is no dip that will kill ich or any other parasite off corals.

 

[yalpal]

Quarantine all corals and inverts for 90 days to be safe. There is no dip that will kill ich or any other parasite off corals.

Thank you. Those are along the lines of what I was thinking, not exactly what I was hoping to hear though haha :lol2:

 

[Halo_003]

IMO: (since you said you have 3 tanks), I'd use one to hold inverts and corals, and the other two I'd use to do a preventive TTM. It has no ill effect on the fish unlike copper and you can do it proactively.

Edit: woops, reread and saw you aren't getting fish. But yes I agree, go with 72-90 days of QT for anything you get, and don't put a fish in with them. (obviously)

 

[Spar]

But yes I agree, go with 72-90 days of QT for anything you get, and don't put a fish in with them. (obviously)

+1 and what I do!

 

[DasCamel]

Found out the hard way, introduced Brook into my tank from a Petco Nem/corals. They aren't the natural reproductive host, but they can definitively tag along.

Yes, Petco tank was nasty....

 

[HumbleFish]

Found out the hard way, introduced Brook into my tank from a Petco Nem/corals. They aren't the natural reproductive host, but they can definitively tag along.

Yes, Petco tank was nasty....

My local Petco has been carrying some cool snails lately, but I am afraid to buy even with a coral/invert QT. Last time I was in there it looked like all their fish were about to perish from Velvet (or a really bad case of Ich).

 

[DasCamel]

My local Petco has been carrying some cool snails lately, but I am afraid to buy even with a coral/invert QT. Last time I was in there it looked like all their fish were about to perish from Velvet (or a really bad case of Ich).

I got greedy with a great haddoni for 40, in retrospect bad idea. In the process of trapping all the fish.

Need to figure out an online source for a clean up crew that isn't exposed to fish.

Not ready to TT snails, lol.

 

[yalpal]

Need to figure out an online source for a clean up crew that isn't exposed to fish.

Not ready to TT snails, lol.

Yeah that's my current dilemma. It's time for me to add my cleanup crew and I don't know how I'll quarantine them for 72-90 days! Anyone have any suggestions?

 

[HumbleFish]

Yeah that's my current dilemma. It's time for me to add my cleanup crew and I don't know how I'll quarantine them for 72-90 days! Anyone have any suggestions?

As far as I know reefcleaners only sells snails/inverts, and no fish. But they are probably collected out of the ocean and sold quickly, so there's still the possibility of a fish parasite hitchhiker. Perhaps contact them, express your concern and see what they say. John @ reefcleaners is a very helpful, customer oriented kinda guy.

 

[yalpal]

As far as I know reefcleaners only sells snails/inverts, and no fish. But they are probably collected out of the ocean and sold quickly, so there's still the possibility of a fish parasite hitchhiker. Perhaps contact them, express your concern and see what they say. John @ reefcleaners is a very helpful, customer oriented kinda guy.

Good idea, thank you. My main concern is that doing something like TT for inverts or corals will be essentially pointless, right?

 

[HumbleFish]

Good idea, thank you. My main concern is that doing something like TT for inverts or corals will be essentially pointless, right?

Basically, yes. You can QT them in a fishless frag tank (or similar), but it takes 72 days of isolation to get close to 100% chance of eradication. Same as going fallow.

 

[Spar]

Good idea, thank you. My main concern is that doing something like TT for inverts or corals will be essentially pointless, right?

The reason you can't TT non-fish (inverts/corals/rock) is that it is a different Ich life cycle stage that you are dealing with. For reference the stages are:
a) Trophont / when attached to the fish / 3 to 7 days attached to the fish
b) Protomont / crawls on substrate / 2 to 18 hours
c) Tomont / begins to encyst on a hard surface / Hardens in 8-12 hours
d) Tomites / while a cyst, it splits into daughter parasites / 3 to 72 days inside cyst, however most 4 to 8 days
e) Theronts / new parasites hatched from the cyst / 24 hours to find a fish host or die

The TT method is specifically aiming at the Protomont, Tomont and primarily the Tomite stages, where there is an estimated minimum 82 hour window that we know the parasite is not only not infectious, but is also NOT on the fish.

In this window, however, the parasite can very likely be on the hard surface of an invert or rock, hardening and then emerging somewhere between 3 and 72 days later as an infectious stage of the parasite life cycle. Any fish in the water column at this point will be infected.

That said, we have to QT the non-fish for that period of time just in case a Protomont, Tomont or Tomite is carried over on that object/creature.

 

[Newsmyrna80]

Yeah that's my current dilemma. It's time for me to add my cleanup crew and I don't know how I'll quarantine them for 72-90 days! Anyone have any suggestions?

I put a piece of LR in the QT for them to inhabit and feed occasionally. You could also throw in some main tank sand. Both the sand and LR will alleviate cycling/ammonia.