How Do You QT Dragonettes?

[Reef Frog]

I am trying a Ruby Red Dragonette (RRD) for the second time. I have a small (~3/4 inch) fish that I bought today on delivery day so he never went into the LFS stock tanks. It seems fairly plump compared to the one the LFS has had in stock for several weeks.

He came in 1.017 water & went into QT with the same salinity after a 1/2 hour temp acclimation. Bare bottom 10G QT, 78F temp, seeded filter pad and several fist sized pieces of cured LR from my frag tank. There is also a new 1 inch Canary Blenny in there with him. I offered a little squirt of frozen cyclopseeze and it looks like the Blenny responded but not the RRD.

My (perceived) problem may be food in the QT. As a pod eater I'm worried if he has enough to eat in there. Benthic pods are so hard to see. I even wonder if they'll eat at all on bare glass..

"¢ And that makes me think I may want to put him in the display tank early, but am not sure. Maybe into the DT a week or two if he looks disease free? Or should I stick to the standard QT period?

Feeding Ideas While the RRD is in Quarantine

"¢ Maybe I should see if he will take some live adult brine shrimp or Tigger pods (I want to culture some Tiggers anyway). But since these live foods mostly swim in the water column I'm not sure the RRD will go for them.

"¢ I could suck up sediment from the frag tank (no fish) and put it in the QT in the hope there are some copepods in the mulm.

"¢ I could put some sand from the DT in the QT. It's 6 years old and I introduced a fresh culture of life Tisbe loss in it 7-10 days ago.

"¢ I don't have a chaeto refufium but I could buy some & put a ball of it in the QT in the hope that will provide some cooepods.

Do you guys think any of these QT feeding strategies would work for a full 4 week QT? Or is that likely to starve it. Or would I be better off doing an abbreviated QT period for this fish?

How or did you QT your RRD, Mandarin or Scooter 'Blenny'? Or if you skipped it or did a short QT, how did it work out?

Any pointers, tips or tricks to keep this fish successfully?

 

[Myles]

I keep an established tank with mobile inverts ,sand, rock, and corals that I removed from the display tank but no fish. The tank is fed regularly so is always ready for a fish. I use this for mandarins and for fish that I worry might nip at coral before putting them in the main display. Obviously this is not a proper quarantine ie no meds but works better than just throwing a fish into the display. I usually keep them in this tank for 2 months just to make sure everything is ok. Never had a problem.
Myles

 

[MondoBongo]

i didn't qt my mandarin, i sort of didn't qt my scooter either.

now my standard disclaimer is that i would never advocate not quarantining something wet, but that in certain cases you may need to take a calculated risk. that's up to the individual though.

my first QT setup was a 20 long that i just left cycled and running. i was concerned about my mandarin, who was reasonably large when i got her, being able to find enough food in there, so i just put her right in the display. thankfully that worked out.

more recently, about 4 months ago, i saw a scooter at the lfs, brought her home, and put her right in the 20 long, where as any other new additions usually go through TTM now, before getting to the 20 long as a "holding/grow out" system. so that's what i mean when i say i sort of didn't qt her.

now, as for your situation, i would do all of those things, and a couple more. hatch some baby brine, they're super easy and dragonets usually will take them without fuss.

think about ordering some white worms. i got mine from angels plus. all my fish go nuts over them, but especially my dragons:

http://www.angelsplus.com/FoodLiveCultures.htm

you can also try black worms, usually easier to get from a decent lfs. they die real quick though in saltwater, so i prefer the white worms.

i would absolutely use the sediment, sand, and chaeto.

then keep a close eye. if you've got some rocks in there already, and can add more sand and algae, then watch to make sure he's not losing weight, and looks healthy. if you have any concerns, or he seems to be losing weight, then it might be time to call it and get him in the big pool.

for what it is worth, i've found it harder to visually judge the condition of my scooter versus my mandarin. the mandarin plumps up like a little technicolor sausage when she's well fed, but the scooter has always looked "sharper" to me in the body lines. he should remain bright, alert, and responsive, with a good feeding frequency and a more staccato type of movement, as compared to a mandarin.

in regards to the size, that makes it a bit easier to keep the food levels high, but gives you less of a margin of error. he should grow fairly quickly though. my scooter has almost doubled in size in a very short amount of time.

 

[Silly clownfish]

I am happy to share my experience with QT of a mandarin, but It is by no means a recommendation.

I got my first mandarin in early July of this year and QTed her in a 30g frag tank ( bare bottom with some small chunks of LR, had been running for months. I started her with live brine to make sure she was eating something, but I wanted to train her to eat frozen food, so I fed thawed rotifers or cyclops several times a day (I primarily work from home). I also was hatching brine shrimp, startin a new batch about every other day. Mid- afternoon and evening she would get a good dose of live, fresh brine. My theory was give her the less apetizing thing first then give her what I knew she would eat to keep her fed. The you can have desert after you eat your veggies approach.

She definitely picked at the frozen, prefering cyclops over rotifers, but not with much enthusiam. She did learn what the turkey baster was, but sometimes if had good stuff (brine), other times broing frozen food.

She held her weight, but the multiple feedings was a tough schedule since I could not always be around. At 3 weeks she was looking good, but still high maintenance for food. So I took a chance and moved her to the DT. She was hunting for pods almost immediately and has not stopped since. She shows no reaction when I feed the rest of the crew.

For any other fish I do TTM followed by several weeks of observation, for a total of 6-8 weeks. I decided to take a calculated risk weighting the mandarin's best interest against the rest of my fish.

I also started culturing tisbe pods around the time I got her and if I were to do it over, I would start culturing about a month before getting the mandarin and use them to extend the QT. it would have defeated the point of trying to train her to eat frozen, but that really did not work for me. She decided that frozen food is only to be eaten in dsparation. And I have found that most fish will learn eating habits from their tank mates. In fact shortly after I got my rabbitfish, I noticed my clown watch the new guy tearing into hair algae and the clown gave it a try. She pretty quickly decided that the new guy was weird and hair algae was not tasty ��

I was fortunate and suffered no ill effects from a 3week Quarantine, but That doesn't mean you will have the same luck.

Kim

 

[theMatrix]

I thought the slimey skin kind of prevented most disease on drags?

But a fresh dip wouldn't hurt.

 

[ThRoewer]

Normally dragonets will slime ectoparasites off before they can attach, but if the infection rate is too high that protection mechanism can fail. Though you would see it as the fish looks like dissolving.

But dragonets are not immune against internal bacterial, viral or fungal infections.
They also can have intestinal parasites, but don't seem to be very prone to them.

 

[snorvich]

While dragonets are resistant to some parasites, they are not immune so quarantine is desirable. However a fresh water dip will accomplish nothing.

 

[Reef Frog]

I want to thank everybody for the great responses. I had some really good information to consider.

I must admit my preparation for a pod eater was not ideal. The best bet would have been a pod-populated QT for sure. I relied on transferring sand, rock & some Chaeto & hoping I had sufficient Copepods. The LFS was out of stock on Brine eggs and Tiggers but should have some in tomorrow, so at least I'll be able to see if those will be accepted, therefore giving me a better chance of success with the "Keep it in QT" option.

It's been almost 10 days, and my fish hunts a little but spends a good deal of time under the rocks, at least during the day. I have to say the RRDs at the LFS are more active hunters than my fish, although that's based on about 3 minutes of observation at the LFS. Maybe it was a mistake buying it bagged by the wholesaler, before it hit the LFS tank. I've been successful with this before & always figured it was a plus avoiding exposure to crowded stock tanks when possible. But the flip side is that you can't see normal swimming behavior and eating.

As Mondo noted, it's darn difficult to judge the weight on these fishing , especially a little guy like I have. Because of the skin pattern, it is also tough for me to spot any ectoparasites.

Today my QT salinity level has reached that of my display, so it's decision time. I can't be sure how much he's getting to eat now so it's very tempting to take a calculated risk by dropping him in the big pool as somebody said. Especially if brine shrimp & Tiggers don't work out. I will be able to examine the fish more closely with a magnifying glass before possible transfer, maybe even a digital pic I can enlarge, but am aware that offers no guarantees.

Hmm, decisions decisions.