"ICH FREE TANK" Quest Begins

[Triggerfish]

Now what about non-fish that is QT'd? ie. live rock, inverts, etc.

good question and was going to follow-up concerning that.

i would say 1 month should be adequate if a cyst is attached to the rock, invert. give time to blow off and then die due to lack of suitable host. you just would not be able to quarantine with fish.

sort of whacked that you would have to quarantine a 1" acro frag for a month due to a possible ich cycst.

 

[leebca]

Check out (again):
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-10/sp/feature/index.htm

 

[tjay]

the only fish that I had with white spots died within 12 hours of going into hypo after a short fresh water dip. ( it was short because the fish was dying )
There were only two fish in the QT after removing the dead fish. (yellow eyed tang) this was the fish that was purchased with ich and contaminated the tank.
The remaining fish a yellow tang and a blue damsel, never showed white spots. Only scratching and lathargic behavior.
So they were in there a week while I got the salinity and water params stable. I started counting 4 weeks from after that week. That period actually ended today. So by next week they will have been in the QT with no signs of ich for 7 weeks.
So your saying I should wait another month now before returning them to the tank?

Now the fallow period of 7 weeks, is that enough in your opinion?

 

[leebca]

Now you raise the salinity over the next 7-10 days. Then, you hold the fish for at least 3 more weeks in quarantine to be sure they are disease free.

The display tank, in my opinion must lay fallow for 8 weeks. 7 isn't wrong; 6 is a little light; 8 is nearly 100% sure it is MI free.

 

[tjay]

got ya
thanks
Hey at this point, I have a lot of time invested. Dont want to stumble now

 

[markcasto]

I am wondering at this point just how much people are prepared to trust there local fish stores who tell them that the fish they are paying for have gone through quarintine.I know I could not and would not trust any of them in my area no matter how careful they are its just to risky.

 

[cduran02]

Its not cost effective for the LFS to QT all their stock, if they did, you would be paying almost triple what you pay now for fish.

 

[tjay]

I disagree with that. Here is why. As hobbyist we spend a lot of money. I bought the ich laden fish from a local fish shop and that fish had to have been sick when I bought it.
We went back to the store and told the guy and he gave us the same song and dance about no local fish shop standing behind their fish. Well he lost a good paying customer for life. So how much did it cost him not to QT, or if he is not going to QT how much did it cost him not to offer some assistance for selling a sick fish. A credit or some concern about selling us a contaminated fish would have corrected our relationship. Now think about the online reseller's. Some of them offer 14 day guarantees.
Now If I am a fish buyer, why would I do business with local shops when I can get better protection from buying sick fish using online vendors. LFS's are going to loose business to online services if they do not protect their market share.
We making most of our future fish purchases from one of the online vendors that use net caught fish and offer a 14 day guarantee. We have a local shop that handles decent corals and will do business with them.
How cost effective is it to run your customer base away by forcing them to choose Russian roulette to a two week fighting chance????

 

[plaz]

I agree. We only buy fish from LiveAquaria and MarineCenter now because of that (and try to only do it when the weather is good across the nation).

 

[cduran02]

Think about it this way, when an LFS gets a shipment of fish, do you think it is cost effective to QT those fish for 6 to 8 weeks? Thats 6 to 8 weeks of electricity being used for pumps. 6 to 8 weeks making water changes. 6 to 8 weeks of feeding. 6 to 8 weeks with no income from that stock of fish.

Thats not cost effective at all. Even though they lost you as a customer, there are plenty of other un-informed customers going in to buy more fish. The online stores on the other hand have a more informed customer base, therefore they need to gaurantee there fish or else they could loose a large portion of sales.

 

[leebca]

One, not-so-good assumption.

The online stores don't necessarily quarantine their fishes.

Although 14 day guarantee is unusual, some just guarantee their arrival; some just guarantee two or three days after their arrival. Those online stores are still playing a game with time. A diseased fish will not show its disease until after the guarantee is up and if it does, they can afford to replace the fish.

You have to read the guarantees closely. Some just say they will arrive alive; others say they will arrive alive and stay alive. But how many guarantees say their fish will be or remain disease-free during that guarantee?

What curan02 is writing about the LFS applies to the majority of online fish suppliers too, to some extent.

It's 'read the fine print' game. Even if you have a claim, there may be conditions (like shipping the dead fish back by over-night express) which could put brakes on claims.

 

[markcasto]

I know one supplyer who is very careful with his live stock and uses quarintine for all his fish but despite this I still would not trust his good practice enough to put any fish in my tank with out the 6 week QT practice we are aiming at here.However I would prefer to buy fish from him knowing that they have been screened for any illness before going on sale.I get so sick of seeing fish stores that put profit over the animals care.

 

[tjay]

Please understand I am not saying we should not do our own QT no matter what the source is.
I just Know from my dealings with LFS's that they are doing exactly that, dealing with the masses and don't care if they sell you a fish that dies. From the experience that I had, not only do they not care but they will tell you you are nuts to QT.
I prefer to deal with sources that KNOW they are dealing with a more informed customer base.
I also prefer to deal with businesses that understand when they sell defective or damaged goods that they makes some effort to keep a customer.
I understand that a couple of the online vendors that Sponsor here have gone out of their way to make wrongs rights. That is all I would expect. I am going to QT no matter where it comes from. But if you sell me a fish that dies in QT within days of ich, man that is not right.

 

[markcasto]

I think a big part of the problem is that when you first start off in this hobby using QT is not high enough on your list of things to do.Its only when you face the problem for the first time that you wake up and smell the coffee so to speak.

It would be good if our local fish stores spoke more of using a QT tank to the beginners but I cant see it happining myself.Like most things in life we learn the hard way.

Lets hope many people will read this thread and learn from the information we are sharing here.

 

[leebca]

It's easy to figure out why they don't mention anything about a QT. They sold you on the idea of a marine aquarium. You're probably spending a few hundred $$. So, are they going to say, 'BTW you need another $50 or so to setup a QT and have to wait weeks before you put fish in your display because we usually sell sick fish.' NOT.

 

[tjay]

lol, true
so what does that say about LFS's or I suppose any for that matter. We have spoken with two online shops and plan to try them both. They give the 14 day live thing and both seemed supported by posts here.

 

[Triggerfish]

i prefer to buy my livestock locally. if you buy healthy looking stock and have success with a certain shop, then there ya go.
place orders through them.

on another note: i picked up a ton of stuff this weekend from a local dude who is leaving the hobby after only 1.5 yrs.
35+#'s of nice purple LR, with some sponges,shrooms,zoos and one has a lrge feather worm for 40 bucks.
bunch of full test kits(incl 4 salifert), reef additives, reef book the one by calfo/fenner,,2 lrg gsp rocks, 9 head candy cane, multi fingered green digi on lrge rock, some dry base rock, spare filter,,,bunch of other misc stuff. gave him $135 for everything including rock.
would be about a grand at an LFS.

got all the rock cycling in a 10g with small ph and 50/50 65w pc light. looks pretty cool actually..
now i really have no money..well,,i had no money before..now i have less.:rolleye1:

 

[tjay]

Dang how many tanks do you have going now?

 

[Triggerfish]

i didn't end up moving my maroon today as planned. so i am using the 10g to QT the rock, so only 3 tanks going now.
im not going to move the maroon out of the 55,,just will leave him in there until i'm ready to bring him out of hypo in a separate tank,,another week.

pic of the 10g loaded front to back

 

[markcasto]

Triggerfish-I did the same and saved myself a fortune buying second hand stock but be warned the rock had bubble algae on it and more bristle worms then I wanted there were also some unwanted snails and nudibrances in there.And the old test kits I got from this lot where not accurate the nitrate test kit read zero the water from the old tank was 52ppm when i tested it with a fresh test kit.Looks like your going to have to QT all that new stock as well have fun!