Quarantine: Am I doing it wrong?

[ibrat82]

I recently got an orchid dottyback and 2 blue green chromis. They aplay died after 3 weeks in quarantine when moved to the display tank.

The dottyback got ich or velvet within 48 hours of being in the DT it died and so did one of the chromis. The second died in qt after being moved back and being treated with cupramine. My 2 clowns that were in the DT for 2 months and now in a separate qt with cupramine seem to be doing OK. They never showed signs of ich or velvet.

When I get a new fish and put them in qt should I be medicating the qt even if they don't have anything? Or should I just observe? What I don't get is how quick the dottyback and chromis got ich and how quick they died. They showed absolutely no signs of disease in qt. They were fine!

 

[MondoBongo]

3 weeks is an insufficient time in QT to eradicate ich, unless you're doing Tank Transfer Method (TTM).

i have started using TTM as my protocol, followed by another couple weeks in a "grow out" system.

prior to using TTM, i would leave the fish in a fully cycled QT tank for at least 72 days and observe. i did not treat prophylactically because i prefer not to attempt to treat unless i can confirm the illness. medications can be tough on fish, and difficult to keep in the correct concentrations, so for me, it made more sense to do long term observation and then move to a hospital tank if a disease was present.

admittedly, that strategy also has its own potential pitfalls, such as an active ich infestation being present, but not visible, e.g. in the gill tissue where it is not easily observed.

ultimately it's your call to mediate prophetically or not. there are good arguments on either side, and it can also depend on the fish. for example, dragonets do not tolerate copper based medications as well as clownfish do [citation needed], and therefore should not be treated with them. so it can be a case by case basis.

 

[ca1ore]

Based on your description, one of two things happened. Either as noted 3 weeks is insufficient and there was asymptomatic disease on the new fish, or the fish were clean and you have asymptomatic disease in the display. The former is more likely, though the latter is certainly possible.

 

[thegrun]

Your display tank has ich, it needs to sit without fish for 72 days or any fish you place back into the display tank are likely to come down with ich. I suspect that that has been your problem all along.