quarantine tank - no sign of parasite. medicate or not?

johar

New member
hello, i have 3 chromies , 1 blenny and a mandarin in the quarantine tank. they've been in the tank for 25 days. the temp in the QT is 28c (82.4f) .. i've thought the chromes had some ich at first , but then when i checked them, their fins are fine, since im running a bubble diffuser in it and two filters "no skimmer" .. im planning to leave one behind in the Qt to keep it cycled and i might drop some cheito in there.. i haven't used any type of chemical or medication .. but what do you guys think? should i go ahead and use copramine ? i also have prazipro .. so far the fish are eating healthy. the fins are clean.. no sign of ich outbreak. should i go ahead and treat them for a week? im afraid that the medication would cause more stress
 
It's unlikely that the mandarin will tolerate copper - so Cupramine is a no-go. Prazi wouldn't be a bad idea and should be handled well by all the fish you mentioned. The problem with small fish, like the ones you have in QT, is it's sometimes hard to see Ich on them. That's why I usually use TT on all new small fish.
 
+1 on the prazi pro. Very safe and well tolerated, so there's little down side.

As for the treat/observe question, if you choose to observe, you're assuming that the 'stress of moving' will cause any disease that may be present to flare up and become evident - Possible, but not guaranteed. And not worth risking infecting your entire DT, IMO.

Treatment now is easy. Treatment once you have an outbreak in your DT is a royal PITA.

Many people have used cupramine with mandarins without issues. If you do use cupramine (on any fish,) go slow with the dosing and check the levels often. The dosing instructions on the bottle are too aggressive and may raise the levels too high too quickly.
 
Thanks for the reply guys.. Yes i think the dosages are really aggressive when i had itch in my main tank and moved all the fish to qt.. I've seen them do weird things like literally shaking their heads n doing really funny movements. As for the ich not being seen you're right i still don't want to risk another outbreak Specially when I'm positive that all the fish in the local fish store have it n the idiot tells me that "it goes away with water change". When they hear that i have a quarantine tank and I'm not in a hurry to buy a fish every one in the shop including customers give me that look.. Anyways.. Wouldn't increasing the heat help with itch out break? I've also done a really weird experiment.. I let the no3 level go up to 100 ppm for 2 days to see if the itch would outbreak.. The no3 level is back to 20ppm but if you guys think that is not enough to be sure there's no itch in qt. Then I'll start the treatment..

The question now is.. How should i dose it? 5ml everyday? Until i reached the concentration?
Would cupramine kill cheito too?

Thanks
 
Treatment now is easy. Treatment once you have an outbreak in your DT is a royal PITA.

+1

You don't want to have to tear down your DT if you get an outbreak, trust me.

There is a calculator that one of the members put together for Cupramine: http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2284605. I take the result and divide by 5 to give me my daily dosage amount. You should ramp the concentration slowly. The manufacturer's directions are too aggressive IMO & IME. I usually treat at 0.40 mg/l; most fish tolerate that level well. Not sure what you can do about your dragonet, though. Maybe others will chime in with suggestions.
 
thank you deinonych , that calculator is really helpful, specially when i have no idea how to dosage it, like you said, i dont wanna live the same experience of going through again, i had to take out all the LR , and catch the fish one by one, and i lost half of them. not fun..

if i knew that i would treat them, i wouldn't have waited 25 days in QT .. but oh well, now i know :) i'll probably do one more last water change before the treatment . i think its better to put the no3 back to zero and feed them little by little every other day to keep the concentration going.

thanks again.
 
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