qt/treatmentr for dragonette

[jtaylor1101]

so I had a bad run with a mystery disease in my 75g reef. I left the tank fallow for two months and have been treating all incoming fish with cupramine and prazapro and quarantining for two weeks. adding no more than two at a time.

my question is this; I want to add a dragonette to the tank but I have read that they cant handle copper. How should I treat them in a qt/hospital tank. I prefer to treat them because I don't want to take a chance of adding anything to the tank and I don't trust the quarantine/ just observe process.

 

[ThRoewer]

Not sure if copper is an issue with dragonets (I ditched it 35 years ago as a treatment), but feeding likely will be. Best is to have a special QT for them where you can feed live foods. Since they are fairly resistant against skin parasites I would not give them prophylactic treatments, especially not with copper.

BTW cupramine or all copper medications are really only good for treating Cryptocaryon and not much else. It may suppress Amyloodinium enough so it doesn't show but it may come back a month or two later.
Also 2 weeks of quarantine is only slightly better than dumping new fish straight into your tank.
A proper quarantine should be at least 6 to 8 weeks

 

[jtaylor1101]

I appreciate the advise. I'm not concerned with feeding him I got that covered raising Copepoda and amphipods. He eats brine too. My concern is what to treat him with if not copper. If a fish can have a disease and not show symptoms what does it matter how long you quarantine him for if you don't treat him.

 

[ThRoewer]

Copper is only good as treatment against Cryptocaryon and that parasite can be more reliably taken off fish by the tank transfer method or Chloroquine Phosphate (CP).

All other protozoan parasites (Amyloodinium, Brooklynella, Uronema, Trichodina,...) are not at all or not reliably eradicated by copper. CP or some other anti-protozoan medications may be more efficient.

As for the length of quarantine, some diseases will not show right away but after 6 to 8 weeks they likely have if a fish is infected with them.

Also, the real threat are not the diseases that are easily cured and eradicated but rather those protozoan (Uronema marinum), virus and bacterial infections that can not be eradicated from a system without a full sterilization and starting over.
And when it comes to bacteria or viruses, there are some crazy scary out there. Most "mystery diseases" are some of those. Iridoviruses and megalocytiviruses are the worst. Other nasty things like Vibro or Mycobacteria are very hard to cure and even transferable to humans!

After 8 weeks an infected fish will very likely be showing symptoms or be dead, saving you a lot of grief later. 2 weeks is like doing nothing.

 

[jtaylor1101]

Ok that makes sense. By that logic wouldn't it make sense to treat every fish then? The treatment I have been doing is actually cup. For 7 days. Prazapro for 7 after letting them settle and eat for a few days first. So I guess I haven't been "quarantining" them at all really.