I need a quarantine plan

[AnnaCassandra]

I just had what I'm fairly certain was brooklynella wipe out 3/4 of my tank, all I have left is a purple firefish and a yellow tang. I'm sad for my fish, sad for the $ we spent on them that's now gone and sad I didn't listen to my gut after the first fish loss and let the LFS talk me into a wait and see approach maybe I could have saved some of my fish.

I took a fairly lax approach to qt in the past, we only had a few fish and I had a back up tank for emergencies so I thought the risk was worth the reward (instant gratification). I don't want to go through this again, I don't want to put my fish through something like this again but I don't want to suck all the fun out of this hobby either. I need an approach that manages the risk better than I had been doing but mitigating any risk entirely with a 72 day quarantine for every coral frag I buy is not a realistic.

The two fish I have left are in qt and still receiving Seachem Paraguard treatment, they haven't shown any signs or symptoms of brook so I plan to continue the in tank treatment for 7 days. Should I follow this up with something else? prazi?cupramine? I'm not sure if I could get choroquine phosphate. when can I introduce these two back to the DT? The timeline for brook doesn't seem to be well recorded and it seems most people follow the better safe than sorry 72 day rule.

How do you quarantine new corals (it's possible that is was a coral that brought brook into my tank)? I don't really have sufficient lighting for a coral qt tank and I really can't afford another expensive fixture. I know they can survive a certain amount of time at low lighting levels, but how long?

For new fish I plan to do TTM with paraguard baths and possibly a dose of prazi, I imagine I can do the prazi and paraguard as steps in the TTM but what order?after TTM do you just observe for a few weeks before going in to DT?

 

[AnnaCassandra]

Anyone?

 

[scooter31707]

Here's mines for an example.

Upon arrival, the fish goes into a Formalin bath for 50 mins. After that they go into TTM, for 4 transfers. At the beginning of transfers 2 and 4, Prazi-Pro is dosed. After TTM, they go into another Formalin bath and they into the QT. About 3-4 days in, a dose of CP is added to the QT. After that they are observed anywhere from 6-9 weeks.

 

[Heuristic]

Here's mines for an example.

Upon arrival, the fish goes into a Formalin bath for 50 mins.

Where did you get your formalin from? and how did you mix it. I need to do a few TTM's with formalin baths to get rid of urinoma

 

[jda]

I temp float and put into a 58G QT tank. I get them eating and observe for disease so that I know what I am fighting. If I see some disease, then I start treatment immediately, otherwise, I wait until they are eating well to start. I find that this makes them nearly 100% to survive everything. Then, I treat with usually some hypo, but mostly observe. If I have clowns, I put a BTA in there for them when they are new.

The only exception to this is that all large angels get FW dip after being temp acclimated and are treated later for flukes again.

The other exception is that some reef fish like wrasses and some butterflies go directly into the display after eating and being observed for a month or two since they really suffer any kind of meds or hypo. This is just a risk that I take for having these kind of fish.

I am not one who believes that any tank is 100% parasite free and that any snail shell, coral, etc that is not QTed without fish for a few months will bring in enough ich and stuff. The fish need to be able to fight it off, IMO, so water parameter stability, good hiding places (not the "caves" that people make for them, but real isolated spaces behind the rock) and good food is just as important as any QT that they go through. I know that there is ich in my tanks even though I have not seen any in 10+ years.

 

[AnnaCassandra]

Does anyone QT their corals? Is there a dip that will help reduce the possibility of introducing fish parasites on corals? I'm not looking for 100% effectiveness, I know that's not possible, but there has to be some middle ground between the Russian roulette of straight into the tank and 72d fishless qt.

 

[jda]

Some do, but very few. It takes a full-reef setup that is usually BB and the 12 weeks fallow of fish and new additions - the fish is the easy part, the new additions are not.

If you get into the habit of removing frags from the plugs/rock and dipping in even Coral Rx or Bayer, then you will be way ahead of the game, but even the water in the polyps can have nasties in them, so not 100%.

 

[jda]

Also, this is really hard with inverts since they can often starve during the process. There is rarely enough algae in a coral QT to feed hermits and snails for twelve weeks since there are no fish to contribute to the bio load. Forget about it with a specialized feeder like harlequin shrimp or cucumbers.

 

[Heuristic]

And the thing about that, all of the corals/inverts etc have the potential to bring in Ich. All it takes is 1 drop from the tank that it's coming from or to have ich encrust on to one of the corals..

 

[ca1ore]

I think it's far more likely brook came in on a non quarantined fish. I've never had a case in almost 30 years of reefing so not even sure it can hitch in on a coral or not. I always dip new frags, but that's about it. All fish go through extensive QT though.

 

[Heuristic]

Brook, yes, but I was referring to ich.

 

[AnnaCassandra]

I think it's far more likely brook came in on a non quarantined fish. I've never had a case in almost 30 years of reefing so not even sure it can hitch in on a coral or not. I always dip new frags, but that's about it. All fish go through extensive QT though.

The only reason I thought it may have been the coral was that it was the most recent addition and I'd had the "newest" fish a month before symptoms showed up. I guess I'll never know what brought it in and that's my fault I didn't qt. I thought that if anything showed up I could get my fish out in time to save them. I didn't realize how hard it would be to get an effective treatment locally and I didn't realize how fast a disease could spread and wipe out everything. I've spent the last two years on forums reading about everything I could and everyone always talks about ich and qt-ing to prevent ich-- IF it had been ich, I would have had more time, I would have been able to get a treatment locally, I wouldn't have lost all but two of my fish. I'm not worried about ich (I mean I am to an extent that I'd rather avoid it if I can) I'm much more worried about brook and velvet.

Can I keep adding corals to the DT while my remaining fish are in qt? I've been using coral RX as a coral dip should I do something else or is this good enough?

 

[Heuristic]

Where did you get your formalin from? and how did you mix it. I need to do a few TTM's with formalin baths to get rid of urinoma

Does anyone have any input on this one?

 

[AnnaCassandra]

Does anyone have any input on this one?

In my bout with brook I learned (much too late) that Kordon rid-ich plus (usually available at most fish stores) contains 4.26% of formalin and 0.038% malachite green, though this is a lower concentration of formalin than the 37% most people use to create a formalin bath you can just add more to get the proper concentration-- I'm not sure what effect the addition of malachite green has and if you should reduce the concentration of formalin to accommodate this. If it has no effect then:
1 ml of Formalin (37 percent) to every gallon of treatment water; or
250 ppm Formalin in the treatment water; or
0.01 % Formaldehyde gas

since the kordon product has 4.26 percent Formaldehyde
37 ÷ 4.26 = 8.7 times more of the product so the bath would be made up of 8.7 ml of this product for each gallon of salt water to get the same 250ppm or 0.01% formaldehyde gas.

 

[ca1ore]

I'm not worried about ich (I mean I am to an extent that I'd rather avoid it if I can) I'm much more worried about brook and velvet.

That's a good point. I actually have ich in my main system but I still QT all fish because of the things like brook, velvet or uronemea that are much more problematic.