How would you quarantine mandarin

[seahorsedreams]

Would love to here the different ways y'all quarantine a mandarin that will only eat live foods.

Thanks.

 

[DrBDC]

I wouldn't. You "could" take pieces of live rock and rotate through the qt each day I guess. But then that rock can't go back to the display until after the 6 weeks of QT time and then only if all goes well. The plus side to qt problems is they are not prone to ich and are scaleless. I've never seen ich on one and I'm not sure they can get it. I'm sure there are some diseases they can get though. You could also buy pods in a bottle but they would eat more than a bottle a day. I've never understood why people buy that when there are more on a lb of good live rock.

 

[eckrynock]

Don't. Buy a healthy, fat specimen from someone reputable to begin with, do a short fw dip if you want and place them directly in the main tank.

 

[sunfish11]

I also would not quarantine this particular fish.

 

[Navyblue]

Ideally I'd quarantine it with a bunch of liverocks for a week just for monitoring purpose. But most likely I'd just dip it with Seachem's Paraguard (my usual new fish procedure) and plop it in.

 

[jbittner]

I would not quarintine (they do not get ich) and I would also not FWD a scaleless creature (would do nothing). Then again I have only had mine a few months.

 

[miatawnt2b]

Quarrantine everything! Ich is not the only thing you need to worry about with new fish. Fish can have worms, viral, and/or bacterial infections that you do not want getting into your reef tank.

I'll probably get blasted for saying this, but I would quarrantine the fish with Cupramine (just got done quarrantining a skunk clown and an engineer goby with cupramine... no ill effects) Follow teh directions on the bottle, and quarrantine in a BB tank with PVC decoration only.

target feed the manderian daily with live brine and cyclopeze. This would be a good time to see if you can't get him to eat prepared food.

you can hypo him as well. I don't use this method as I don't have a refractometer to measure accurately enough the salinity.

-J

 

[Sk8r]

I wouldn't, and didn't. If you feel due to the store you got him from, that you must, order live pods online [reefnutrition.com] ---can be at your door in 2 days---and drop feed him. He won't starve in 2 days. Cost about 60.00 if you can't find it locally. Or buy a wad of cheato from your lfs if it's a healthy place, and there will be pods in that. Just don't let the cheato loose in your main tank: ich is easier to deal with.

 

[n8rad]

Agreed, dont quarantine him. Reed this article if you havent already. http://www.melevsreef.com/mandarin_care.html

 

[seahorsedreams]

Thanks everyone for taking to time to respond.

I'm really looking for suggestions of how to QT a mandarin not really whether or not I should side step the process because of the challenges involved with this particular species.

Will a mandarin that is not converted to frozen take to enriched live brine readily?

Do most people have access to Live adult brine?

I'm one of the lucky ones that has a 6 year old frozen eating mandarin. I am trying to come up with relatively easy suggestions to offer to people on how to QT these guys successfully. But I realize it has to be somewhat easier and cheaper than daily dosing of live pods for people to want to embrace the task.

I really trust the LFSs in my area but I don't trust the ocean the fish came from and don't really feel that a particular stores practices, good or bad, should influence the decision to QT or not.

Ich isn't the only nasty I would be trying to avoid by implementing a QT. It's also a safe environment for the fish to recoup from it's recent "life style changes" while being very observable. They could hide in the rockwork in a display tank for days.... it's difficult to assess them that way. Also it is a great opportunity to try and convert them to frozen.

On the same token I would like to keep it as simple as possible in order to encourage compliance.

Does that make sense?

Renee

 

[Sk8r]

It took my live pod-eating mandarin 11 months to figure out frozen mysis were edible, and this mainly because she's a fairly wellfed greedy pig. A desperate starving mandarin won't figure this out in time. Once their bellies go hollow from want of food, imho, they're dead: they've started digesting their own tissue, and cannot be fed after that, because the hunger trigger has turned off. THis is why 'sympathy buying' of mandarins usually has no good outcome.

 

[seahorsedreams]

Yes, buying a nice healthy fish is the only way to go.

 

[bureau13]

Btw, Mandarins can and do get ich...they just tend to get it less than most other fish. So if you're not quarantining, I would say your chances of bringing ich into your tank are less than with other fish, but certainly not 0.

Personally, I put mine in a tank with a ball of chaeto, and watched him for a while. When he didn't get ich, I put him in my display (plenty of live rock, pods, etc) and he disappeared for good within a week.

I'm off mandarins for a while :-|

 

[miatawnt2b]

I do understand the reasoning behind the folks who say don't quarrantine, but trust me, there is a chance that you will intro ich, internal parasites, bacteria, fungus, viruses into your reef.

I'm done getting burned by ich. As per Anthony Calfo, who is much more knowledgable than I am about reef systems, "Quarrantine everything wet." I do, and I have an ich/disease free reef tank.

-J

 

[kappaknight]

You don't need to QT this fish. Mandarins have a slime coat over their body that defends them from disease. If your fish is healthy, they should be fine.

 

[chris.hampton]

I think putting a ball of chaeto in the qt with it and changing it every couple of days, most people who want this fish will have a fuge with chaeto in it anyway, would be the bast way

 

[seahorsedreams]

Yes, mandarins have a slime coat that makes them a little more resistant to some of the common ectoparasites and what not..... but they are certainly not a 100% pathogen free by design only.