What are the signs a fish thru QT, medicated or not is clean?
Fish, just like people, need immune systems. QT thru ttm is good. Bombing them with meds and other things are not. It is weakening the very thing they need, an immune system to help them fight. I don’t go to the store and buy every pill in the aisle in case I get a cold or headache. I rely on healthy eating and environment to help. If a cold comes on, then time to hit that aisle.
If the fish comes in with signs of illness them QT is in order. Just like at an emergency room it should be triaged. If the signs are minor try reducing stress and bumping up healthy feeding. If it is a case of fish 911, then hit the meds. Not every symptom calls for a nuclear strike.
To sum up, can you guarantee me if I QT and treat, or even just QT I will avoid illness. If so I will QT everything. If not, I will stay with the method I have used for 35 years. Try to purchase healthy fish if able, reduce the stress and allow them to acclimate to the environment and feed, feed, feed.
THIS ^^^
The prophylactic method of treating for anything and everything with Copper, CP, Formalin, Antibiotics, Prazi, Metro, etc to me seems overkill. I would think it would cause the immune system to be weakened at the very least, to possibly being severely damaged for life.
I like your analogy to being sick... to take it even further its like if I hear a friend is getting sick so I suggest he go on chemotherapy, an array of antibiotics, appendix surgery, pulling their wisdom teeth, etc. I agree with your point on this 100%. In his book, "The Conscientious Marine Aquarist," Bob Fenner doesn’t advise prophylactic treatment with meds. He prefers observation and then disease specific treatment.
Honestly, at this point, I'm not even sure what the proper way to QT is. Recent experience has shown that 1.75ppm may not longer be proper. When do we treat with antibiotics? It used to be that you would do that later in the treatment but then fish deaths due to Uronema have driven us to using Metroplex earlier in the process. The people who I feel are the most experienced and well qualified at performing prophylactic QT have all had substantial fish deaths recently. The goal post on how to get sensitive fish through QT is constantly moving. I have no idea how to define a proper QT process outside of a healthy fish coming through the back end.
I personally believe this leaves us with a few options and things to consider. We basically have 3 possibilities on what people are willing to do with their fish, corals, inverts, etc. For the purpose of my post, I'm going to focus on fish though...
Option 1.
No QT, no observation, no dip, just straight in the tank after acclimation (float for temp, drip, etc). Requires little to no talk for this current topic, but is a common practice among many hobbyists. It's what I did for my first several years of fish keeping.
Option 2.
Dip before going into the tank. Dip in either fresh water, a methylene blue, formalin, Rally, Hydroplex, Safety Stop, etc.
-What method is most effective?
-What method is most reliable?
-Are they effective at all and worth?
-Is it worth the added stress?
-Is this something worth investing more time and research in to find other substances that are effective?
Option 3.
QT. The option most readily accepted as the best.
To me QT should really be broken down into 4 separate possibilities as well.
QT Option 1.
Observation only QT. Treatments are only done as needed. Treatments end up being disease specific, and most likely one of the 3 below.
QT Option 2.
Prophylactically treating everything in QT
WITH ZERO MEDS, regardless of if they appear healthy or not with. Prophylactic Treatment can be either immediate or after a short resting period.
TTM, and Fresh Water Dips/baths are the only options that come to mind for me. This is all based on the premise of outrunning the parasites known life cycles, and killing/harming them with the fresh water dips. If Transfers are done every 24-46 hours along with fresh water dips every 2-3 days (when transfering anyway) then this should theoretically work for Ich, Velvet, and most likely also Flukes, Brook, and Black Ich.
If Uronema marinum, Fungi, bacteria, other protozoa, Flukes, Internal parasites, and/or intestinal worms become an issue then the usage of meds such as those listed in
QT Option 3 and
QT Option 4 become needed.
The only other method I can think of that might work with this and would probably be good to use in combo would be siphoning the bottom via daily water changes. Anthony Calfo mentions this in his "Book of Coral Propagation."
Also in a conversation I recently had with him about this and a variation of TTM that I came up with using Daily Transfers and multiple dips and baths to cover basically every pest I could imagine (Basically QT Option 3). He said the following:
Anthony Calfo: "The best way to quarantine a fish without using harsh chemicals and preventing it velvet and numerous other pest organisms is to
Simply Siphon the bottom of the bear glass quarantine tank everyday for 8 consecutive days. That will break the life cycle of a long list of organisms. Very little water has to be removed. It's not about the water of course. It's about what has fallen to the bottom of the glass floor and is microscopic. A small siphon snaked across the bottom pulling just a gallon or three per day is stunningly effective. I learned that almost 40 years ago from a freshwater fish breeder who insisted that certain chemicals put some species of fishes off their breeding cycle. So obvious have been trying to avoid using chemicals of course for a long time. In my experience it is extremely extremely effective.
I am saying a quiet calm QT tank (A low to medium flow quiet quarantine tank. That allows larval parasitic organisms to sink and concentrate in that vector of the tank floor for easy extraction.) where tomites and other larval pests drop to the bottom of the glass every day gets siphoned systematically (slow but systematic siphoning of the entire floor) removes the overwhelming majority of pests and gets pathogen numbers down to the low natural levels (like in the wild) that a fish's natural immunity can fend off the rest. Just a daily siphon for 8+ days. QT still needs to be 2 weeks bare minimum to see if other illnesses (viruses, bacterial infections) get expressed. IMO 4 weeks is the true bare minimum for QT.
Siphoning alone is more then adequate. Remember, you're not trying to get every single parasitic organism. You couldn't. You can't sterilize the tank, you can sterilize the fish, there will always be Remnant populations of pathogens. Your goal is to just get the numbers down so low that the natural immunity of your fishes fends off the rest.
That said, fastidious and compulsive people or fans of diatom filtering have dabbled with all sorts of modifications addressing the issue in your question. Without covering all them, other than saying the extra effort is beyond the point of diminishing returns, if it makes you feel better I have no problem with it. It could be as low-tech as cable tying a toothbrush or the like to the tip end of the siphon. Slightly forward. Use any other better idea, brush, algae scraper Etc that you can think of to scrape just in front of a running siphon. That's not a lot of effort and you will capture more organisms. But again, just a thorough siphoning of the bottom each day for 8 or more days is massively effective. Anything you do beyond that you have to justify. For personal use great. But in for-profit profit endeavors, it's not worth it."
QT Option 3.
Prophylactically treating everything in QT
WITH Non-Toxic/Mild MEDS and other remedies, regardless of if they appear healthy or not with. Prophylactic Treatment can be either immediate or after a short resting period.
TTM, and Fresh Water Dips/baths with the use of Methylene Blue, Antiseptics like Acriflavine (such as Ruby Reef Rally), Methylene Blue, Probiotics, and Vitamins/Herbal Remedies are options that come to mind. Again, is all based on the premise of outrunning the parasites known life cycles, and killing/harming them with the fresh water dips and/or mild meds and other remedies. If Transfers are done every 24-46 hours along with fresh water and/or medicated dips/baths every 2-3 days (when transfering anyway) then this should theoretically work for Ich, Velvet, and most likely also Flukes, Brooklynella, and Black Ich.
The mild meds such as Acriflavine (Rally), and Methylene Blue would help work against those 5 parasites plus some other issues like Fungi, bacteria, other protozoa, and possibly helping for Uronema marinum.
If Flukes, Internal parasites, bacterial issues, and/or intestinal worms become an issue then the usage of Metro, Prazi, and Antibiotics become an option for treatment. This is obviously a last resort option.
QT Option 4.
Prophylactically treating everything in QT
WITH TOXIC MEDS, regardless of if they appear healthy or not with. Prophylactic Treatment can be either immediate or after a short resting period.
Copper, CP, Praziquantel, Metronidazole, Formalin, Acriflavine (Rally), Methylene Blue, etc and with this I'll even include AntiBiotics are used in some combo prophylactically and done to ensure totaly elimination of any/all parasites and diseases.
This option does have the potential issues mentioned so far in this thread, such as damaged immune system, possible disease resistance to meds, and potential others.
To me, QT Option 4 is what is currently used and most often suggested.
Well right now my main display is completely free of those four parasites that I listed as far as I know and that's the result of a preventative treatment quarantine system specifically geared to eliminate those four parasites. I've had multiple stressing events happen including power outages, over-aggressive new additions, Etc that I think would have caused any number of outbreaks had they been present over the years, and I've dealt with bacterial infections before as well albeit not as a result of my preventative treatment typically the fish just came in with one already present from Shipping stress , truthfully I've never worried much about bacterial infections just because most of the time when I've dealt with them they've been limited to the fish that's infected I've never once had them spread even to other fish in the same quarantine tank but maybe I'm just lucky. So the conclusion that I've reached years ago and still hold to is keeping those parasites out of your system is good enough I have no need for a sterile aquarium and my opinion on that is never going to change primarily because I doubt if that's even possible in a home environment. But keeping out the four biggest infectious killers of fish saltwater home aquarium that's entirely possible and well worth the time and effort to do and well worth the rewards that you get from it which is a happy healthy tank and fish that live much longer than they would have in the wild statistically anyway.
I agree, going for a truly sterile aquarium is unrealistic, and probably not the goal of 99% of reefers. However going for an aquarium that is free from Ich, Velvet, Brook, Flukes, and Black Ich is a reasonable goal and a good idea that will allow inhabitants that we want to live, a chance to thrive.
