Quarantining an existing reef

[BrettDS]

Quarantining an existing reef

I actually just went through this process in my 220 and finally got the last two fish out this afternoon. What worked for most of my fish was to wait until night... keep the room lights off and wait an hour or two after the tank lights go off so it's totally black and the fish are asleep, then turn the tank lights on full blast. The fish will still be groggy from sleep and blinded by the lights so they won't see the net coming.

After spending more than two hours with a net and a trap and catching nothing at all I tried this and was able to get 8 of my fish within about 10 or 15 minutes.

The only ones it didn't work for were my wrasse, who sleeps under the sand and didn't come out when the lights were on, and my blue hippo tang and firefish who sleep wedged in little crevices in the rocks and didn't come out when the lights were on either.

 

[Mrs. Music]

I hate my coral beauty. Haven't fed my tank in a long time
I've caught every fish besides the coral beauty and one Bangi. I set the aquamedic and caught everyone. I have resorted to turning the trap facing the rock. I put food in it and crabs come out the woodwork for the bait. The beauty will swim around the opening waiting for food. I feed my coral reef roofs tonight. Watch the corals respond. Look down and guess who is picking inside the trap. Manage to pull the line and he darts out before it closes. So I figure that would be it for several more days. Reset the trap and he comes right back in. Second time a no go. I really don't want to take my tank down to catch it. As for the Bangi, I can flush him out with the nets. Just haven't tried hard due to waiting g for this coral beauty.

Good luck! been there. It is worth it. Brett has some great advise about the lights. also using nets and netting to block off area of the tank works great too.

 

[Grayhead]

I actually just went through this process in my 220 and finally got the last two fish out this afternoon. What worked for most of my fish was to wait until night... keep the room lights off and wait an hour or two after the tank lights go off so it's totally black and the fish are asleep, then turn the tank lights on full blast. The fish will still be groggy from sleep and blinded by the lights so they won't see the net coming.

After spending more than two hours with a net and a trap and catching nothing at all I tried this and was able to get 8 of my fish within about 10 or 15 minutes.

The only ones it didn't work for were my wrasse, who sleeps under the sand and didn't come out when the lights were on, and my blue hippo tang and firefish who sleep wedged in little crevices in the rocks and didn't come out when the lights were on either.

My trouble is the beauty stays inside the rockwork. Never in open space

 

[BrettDS]

Quarantining an existing reef

My trouble is the beauty stays inside the rockwork. Never in open space

Might still be worth trying. I don't have any angels, but most of my tangs sleep in the rocks, but when the lights came on they came out and started swimming around a bit, or if they weren't buried in the rocks I could kind of nudge them out with my hand or another net and then get them.

It didn't work with my blue hippo tang though. She sleeps wedged in a tiny crevice and had no interest in coming out when the lights were turned on suddenly.

The way I caught her and my wrasse was by getting some nylon net at hobby lobby and covering half my rockwork while the tang and the wrasse were on the other side of the tank.

After a bit they swam over to investigate the netted side and I was able to catch them pretty quickly because they couldn't just dart into the rocks to hide.

Good luck

 

[Grayhead]

Guess who is in my holding tank now.

Bangi is the lone wolf in.my tank, till tomorrow

 

[BrettDS]

Guess who is in my holding tank now.

Bangi is the lone wolf in.my tank, till tomorrow

Congrats. How did you get him?

For what it's worth, I was able to snag my bangai cardinal at night with the lights on technique.

 

[Grayhead]

I plan on catching the last fish that way.

As for the beauty, basically starved him to it. It has been 2 weeks since I feed the tank. The only food he managed was bits that escaped the aquamedic. I noticed last night he was braving the trap door. When I filled the chamber today, he swam right in. The bangai will look at the trap, but never really messed with it. So tomorrow should be the day. Just thankful I dont have to tear my display down for one fish


I'm also giving g the aquamedic 4 out of 5 stars.

 

[Grayhead]

Well, I'm a little bummed. Can't catch the Bangai. Tried lights out and chasing it our the rock. Going to end up destroying my display.
One hippo jumped out the holding tank.
Lost my leopard wrasse today
All my fish look super stressed. I have had them in copper for a week. 1/2 recommended dose. Added a1/4 more. Everyone eating fine up until today. I initially thought it was because I forgot to turn the light out night before last. My foxface is all sorts of funky colors. Set up an auto water change on the holding tank this afternoon. Changing out 3 gallons a day till I get the copper diluted again. If they keep it up, I will most likely give up on this. I am really beginning to think the reason people loose fish during this process is because of stress. It's pitiful to see them like this when they were perfectly happy in my display.

 

[BrettDS]

That's too bad, and I can understand your discouragement. I'm currently in the middle of the TTM to try to get rid of ich in the fish from my 220. If you have trouble with copper you might want to consider this.

It's definitely a *lot* of work. I've done two transfers so far and it means making 60G of salt water each time and then emptying another 60G after the transition. I'm using two 5 gallon buckets for the smaller fish and two 37G totes for the bigger fish. I have about 25G of water in each of the totes and 5G in each bucket. I've just been using treated tap water to make the water.

I've got two transfers left for one 5G bucket and 37G tote and three left for the other set (the second group is the group that took longer to catch in the DT), however the fish are looking much better. I had one clown and one tang that were in pretty bad shape and I wasn't sure either were going to make it, but they both have recovered and are doing quite well.

My foxface also turns all splotchy and weirdly colored when he's scared and has been spending more time that way, but he still seems to be doing ok. I've reduced feeding a bit to try to minimize ammonia buildup, but all the fish still have their appetites.

Good luck with your journey

 

[Grayhead]

Well, complete failure on my part.
I managed to take my remaining tank inhabitants who were perfectly fine and kill them off.
Hippo- jumped(my fault)
Leopard, died after 2 weeks in.
Foxface made it, barely
Swallowtail, was on its side breathing heavy. Back in the display happy as can be
Rusty angel dead this morning.
Yellow tang...Same as above
Kole tang barely hanging on when I left this morning. Put back in. The display
Clown same as above
Coral beauty, was sluggish but still swimming

I had completed copper treatment. Had ramped it up over the 3 weeks and ramped it back down.
Was starting to prepare for TTM. My holding/observation tank has not completed its cycle yet. So I'm basically screwed at this point.
My file fish is a trooper. I think he is the most hearty of the lot.

From here on out, TTM for any new inhabitants and an observation period. I have learned a valuable lesson thru this. Chemicals and stress kill fish.

The only thing I did was change the filter on my hang on the back.
From here out, I'll just deal with what the display has. I couldn't watch my few remaining fish die.

 

[Mishri]

That's a shame you lost those fish.. I always recommend against copper.. some people claim they have no problems with it, but it is tough on the fish and there are enough methods of treatment that are effective to use instead. I just don't see a reason to use it.


-Your tank still likely has ich in it. It an survive for about 70 days without fish in the system... so doing TTM now would be pointless as the only thing it works on is ich. You can live with ich, many people do.. but other diseases you'll want to watch out for. that can wipe out your tank... as you've encountered before... I personally don't believe in doing TTM unless you know the only disease they have is ich... my go to treatment is Chloroquin Phosphate, treats a lot of parasites (such as velvet) that are known to wipe out tanks..


edit: i suppose TTM isn't completely useless.. as some strains of ich seem to be more vicious than others and more resilient to various treatments (such as they have found hypo resistant strains)

 

[Grayhead]

Well, I removed all live rock from my display last night. Set live rock on a bunch of towels. Managed to knock many orals off. Total time out of water- 1 hour. Caught all my fish. Now to reorganize my display. Corals seem fine . Fish now going thru ttm. Finally have a 40 breeder with about 50 lbs of live rock ready to dump them in after ttm is over.

 

[Grayhead]

I have a serpent star that came with my tbs rock. He is crawling around, but half his head is missing. Wonder what could be. He seems to be moving fine. Just feel bad for it almost put it in my fuge.

 

[Heuristic]

Finally have a 40 breeder with about 50 lbs of live rock ready to dump them in after ttm is over.

How do you know the live rock doesn't have ich cysts? You very well could just be giving it to them all back after TTM.


I'm done copper dosing, if my tank ends up getting ich again from a coral or something I will either TTM my fish and hold them in a holding tank after or just live with ich. I still QT my fish, but not really so much for ich but for far more serious bacteria/parasites. I just saved everyone in my tank from urinoma because I put my chromis in QT

 

[Grayhead]

The rock was dry for 6 months before I put it in the 40 breeder. It has fully cycled since my first attempt at this.
I had trouble catching all my fish the first go around. Once I started losing fish, I dumped them back in the display. Saw Nick on another fish this week and pulled the trigger on re.oving them and removed all rock and coral from the display. Tough feat. Now it ttm for me.

 

[Heuristic]

The rock was dry for 6 months before I put it in the 40 breeder. It has fully cycled since my first attempt at this.
I had trouble catching all my fish the first go around. Once I started losing fish, I dumped them back in the display. Saw Nick on another fish this week and pulled the trigger on re.oving them and removed all rock and coral from the display. Tough feat. Now it ttm for me.

Oh, then it is considered dead rock at that point, not live rock. That's how I got confused.

What made you remove all the rock and coral from the DT? Are you tossing them?

 

[meeandcharlie]

Sorry for the loss of your fish. I'll try and make this short. For the first time I am dealing with the marine ich (MI) parasite. Seems so common now. Briefly. set up a 90 DT 1/17 with already cycled rock. So not long after set up I could add critters. I added hearty small fish after 6 wk quarantine and prazi tx. Slowly added 8 fish to DT. None showed signs of MI. No TTM or other tx except prazi. I purchase my last fish addition at LFS around beginning of March, yellow tang. Research shows tangs are MI magnets. So for this fish I TTM, and quarantine a couple weeks (probably not long enough) After a couple weeks in DT I am seeing white 'salt grain specks' under blue LED's, and he/she is flashing. No other fish shows any signs of the parasite. One of two things come to mind, human error and somehow I messed up the TTM of the tang and carried the parasite over (this can be done), or because I did not prophetically treat my other fish they brought it into tank and are just more resistant.
So to eradicate the parasite I am now doing TTM on 9 fish-with 3 holding containers (7-10 gal). This time I decided not to reuse/transfer anything from container to container. The last transfer will be to 3 20L tanks for the duration of the summer while the DT sets fallow (3 fish per tank). I might wait out 4-5 months IDK, ugh! Is it easy? Nope. Will it last forever, nope. So I just decided to do it. This parasite is like a poor dog suffering from a massive flea infection sucking on them, especially for fish that are more prone. Also, in part the temps have saved me here as I am not using heaters- just containers, small air pumps with stones (all tubing is tossed after transfer), pvc and thermometers-also tossed to contamination pile but not thrown away, so I don't have to transfer anything. I will make my last transfer Sat morning about 4am. Been a long week and a half pulling my hair out! I don't know about you but I will be CAREFULLY TTM any future fish! Not just observing.
I wish you the best and check in to see how things go for you.

 

[Heuristic]

When doing TTM you should always toss or bleach anything that comes in contact with the water.

 

[meeandcharlie]

Also all 9 fish are doing great. Strong, maybe 'angry/lost', but eating and swimming.

 

[meeandcharlie]

When doing TTM you should always toss or bleach anything that comes in contact with the water.

I am at this point. I am no expert. But for me all things related to a 'contaminated' ick tank/transfer goes to a bleach solution, power sprayed, then out to the deck or patio for at least 2 weeks in the sun to dry. Drying, as far as I research is very important. Studies say 24 hrs, I do 2 weeks in the sun, never letting an item get wet during decontamination. I may be a tad paranoid?
For my last transfer to the 20L tanks I have purchased new rock. Amazon has Caribsea 10 lbs for 25 bucks Prime. I bought a box for each tank. This will go in the final tanks. I will still have to do aggressive water changes, but the fish will be more at ease (I think) And well, if the ick somehow transfers not a complete loss, I can dry it out for a few months and always use it.
For my watchman goby I am hoping to add some sand soon, he was just never happy until he had sand. He will have a long stay in the holding tank