To QT or not to QT?

[lovelylinda]

If they can catch the beautiful powder blue in Rob's shop, I'm buying him. Should I QT him? Musicbabe has my 35 gallon. There's quite a bit of LR in it. The tang has been in the cube in Rob's shop for months, and is very healthy. All of my fish are great. I'm kind of torn. I QT'd Musicbabe's purple tang for 2 months- treated him for ich, and when he went home, he got ich again! So he and all her other fish went into hyposaline. Now they are all back in her main tank.

 

[Satori]

All my fish went back in the main tank yesterday afternoon. Now that I have a QT tank (I'm going to leave it running), everything new will be QT'd. If there are no visible problems with a new fish, then I think 2-3 weeks in QT are sufficient. It's just for observation. If there are problems, that's enough time to show up.

 

[McCrary]

I don't see the need to QT the fish. When you QT a fish it can often lead to stress. Acclimate for an hour and then put him in the display tank. I have never had a problem with ich when my water quality was good and the environment was free of stress.

 

[Satori]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8065646#post8065646 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by TurboSnail8898
I don't see the need to QT the fish. When you QT a fish it can often lead to stress. Acclimate for an hour and then put him in the display tank. I have never had a problem with ich when my water quality was good and the environment was free of stress.

I've been lucky so far, but a new fish might have a disease that hasn't shown itself yet. It's alot easier to QT for a couple weeks and see if anything develops than to try to catch it out of a reef tank.

I don't think stress is really an issue. As far as the fish is concerned, a new tank is a new tank.

 

[kjbudsberg]

I respectfully disagree with TurboSnail8898. I think that quarantining new specimens allows the fish to acclimate to its new home with less stress. In particular, I am thinking of competition for food and "new tankmate" aggression. When it is time to introduce into your main tank, it will be well fed, parasite free, and used to your water. Just my thoughts.

 

[McCrary]

The water in a QT tank is often of much less quality than that of the display tank. The fish is also in good health and won't be transported for long periods of time as it is already in tucson. Both parasites and pathogens are of concern with the PBT, but as the fish seems to have been in good health (and in captivity) for the last few months it shouldn't be a problem to simply add him to the display. IMO/IME QT for PBT's doesn't seem to be as successful as simply getting them to the best water quality as quickly as possible.

 

[owsi]

I have never QT'ed (you have to make up your own mind if you think QT is needed, I am not saying not to QT), just as I feel lengthy acclimations do more harm then good. Know your LFS, if they are honest, ask them when it came in as well as the other fish in the tank, is it on a muilti tank circulation, any sick or new fish on the system. Fish on system look OK, droppings look good or clear, white or mucused. Eat good, scratching or discoloration, bad fins. Never let your greed for wanting that fish overcome your gut feeling. Tangs are ich magnets, IMO if your tank stress's the tangs will ich out, but thats just my opinion not based on science, just observation. And most important know your LFS water quality, SG, pH and general cleanliness. If you are a Reefer running at 1.025 and LFS runs at 1.018 you will have to take longer to acclimate, same goes if pH is off more then .05. But I do a lot of things such as quick set ups with out cycling, considered by many as bad practice, so take this with a grain of salt

 

[SWSaltwater]

Normally I would say QT is always the way to go, but based on my experience with the very fragile powder blue I do not think it makes a difference. Unless you plan to hypo the QT to keep the ich off it won't make a difference. I tried it all ways with the same mortality. Plus they will likely stress again with the QT to main tank transition. The reason that powder in the shop looks great is due to putting him in to a well established tank with a lot of hair algae to pick at. IMO based on observation the constant supply of greens helps them overcome the stress. I would have plenty of seaweed selects or macro available to feed him for the first few weeks. As long as they keep eating they usually overcome the inevitable parasites after shipping. Some cleaner shrimp and cleaner wrasse will help as well.

I also soak the flake food in Garlic to keep down internal parasites plus the fish seem to like the taste.

Rob

 

[clkwrk]

I agree normaly yes QT but with a Powder blue I wouldn't recommend it they are too prone to stress and it will stress in a small tank . I have raised mine from a lil guy and have had mine near 4 years . He got ick for the first time a year ago after a reaquascaping . Due to a previous loss of 7 fish in a qt overnight while treating for ick I decide I would nevr treat my PBT if he got it .

Anyways a week later and it was gone .

I also knowingly added a rare fish to my tank that had a few spots of ick. Within a week they were gone . I know that was gutsy but I feel a healthy system with healthy fish will fight off the parasite. How eles do they rid themselfs in the wild?

 

[Freed]

All I can say to all this is OMG!!

 

[lovelylinda]

Well, this tang has been in Rob's tank (not on main system) for many months and is very fat and healthy. I'm thinking he'll stress out more in the QT- I know my current fish are very healthy, and water parameters are perfect. He'll have a small Kole tang to contend with, much smaller than him. I just went through this with musicbabe, did a full QT on her tang for her, and when he hit her tank, he got ich.

 

[McCrary]

Your PBT will get ich. Mine did in a 110 with just my Regal to contend with, but he should get over it the next day and it was always just a single spot on a fin or something.