Best Quarantine for fish?

[aykwm]

So after my recent velvet wipeout I read more about quarantining in order to prevent this from happening again and trying my best not to allow any disease to slip through the quarantine stage. I want to to ask you about this quarantine method and if it is effective enough to eliminate most if not all deadly disease. Any additions or improvement to it are appreciated. I know its labor intensive and might not be worth it for everyone, but after seeing all my fish die suddenly and it didn't give me enough time to react Im willing to spend all the time and money I can afford to ensure the tank is free from all parasites. So here we go:

-Fish acclimated
-10 min Ruby Reef Hydroplex Bath
-TTM: Daily (for days 1-9) Every other day (for days 9-15) (will remove marine velvet and ich)
-Dose PraziPro: Day 4, Day 11 (will remove flukes)
-1 hour Ruby Reef Rally Bath: Day 4, Day 13 (will remove brook)
-Seachem Paraguard: Day 5-10 (or possibly throughout the QT process Day 1-15, but not sure if it can be mixed with prazipro, or possibly 1-15 except days when prazipro is dosed)
-In addition to that, the fish will be fed with seachem Metroplex and Kanaplex medicated food using Focus and Garlic guard to ensure no internal parasites exist
-Finally, Days 15-21 observation before going through DT

My only fear so far is that will fish die from stress through all this? Some say fish are less stressed from TTM than copper or cp, and what I'm aiming for is to try and ensure the fish is healthy and free of diseases without using harsh chemicals.
Also can this method be applied to all the fish? As some fishes are sensitive to copper, while other are sensitive to cp, what about the medications listed here, any fish that is sensitive that comes to mind?

As mentioned any modification or addition/removal to the quarantine procedure is highly appreciate it, and if I'm missing any disease please let me know.

Thanks again

 

[Ocelaris]

I think that's a little over kill. Tank transfer method is pretty rigorous, and I'd stick with that 3 day transfer schedule.

Here's my routine.

Week 1, just observe and get them feeding, usually high quality foods including live black worms and some brine shrimp. Brine shrimp aren't that nutritious, but it elicits a feeding response. Black worms are the best food, but takes a while to get fish to eat them. In between I feed frozen mysis.

The first week is the most important, if they're not eating well you should wait until they do. If everyone is out and about then I proceed with ttm.

During ttm I do prazipro. After ttm if everyone is still fine I wait another week or two. Often I will do api general cure which is a combination of prazi and metrodozanol.

If I see any fungus or shyness I sometimes will also do kanaplex.

I think the key is getting them fat and happy over anything else. I have a big hang on back filter, but with the feeding regime I still have to do water changes every few days.

I always have an ammonia badge in the tank, as that's my biggest challenge.

I have done baths in formalin, but that's pretty harsh, so have stopped that practice.

With this round of quarantine I have sand sleeping wrasses, so I'm going with coppersafe instead of ttm. Ttm is a real pain, so if copper works I may go that route in the future.

Hope that helps.

 

[aykwm]

I think that's a little over kill. Tank transfer method is pretty rigorous, and I'd stick with that 3 day transfer schedule.

Here's my routine.

Week 1, just observe and get them feeding, usually high quality foods including live black worms and some brine shrimp. Brine shrimp aren't that nutritious, but it elicits a feeding response. Black worms are the best food, but takes a while to get fish to eat them. In between I feed frozen mysis.

The first week is the most important, if they're not eating well you should wait until they do. If everyone is out and about then I proceed with ttm.

During ttm I do prazipro. After ttm if everyone is still fine I wait another week or two. Often I will do api general cure which is a combination of prazi and metrodozanol.

If I see any fungus or shyness I sometimes will also do kanaplex.

I think the key is getting them fat and happy over anything else. I have a big hang on back filter, but with the feeding regime I still have to do water changes every few days.

I always have an ammonia badge in the tank, as that's my biggest challenge.

Hope that helps.

I agree with you about feeding part, when I get my fish from the LFS I always make sure they are eating so I don't think its a problem for me, especially because the LFS is 5 min away, so the transport part won't stress them that much that they will stop eating. Regarding the TTM, I did it that way to eliminate velvet. My velvet wipeout was caused by a wrasse that showed no sign of velvet even after the wipeout, and thats how it slipped through, so TTM Daily 1-9 days will ensure velvet is gone. API General cure I believe is similar to Seachem paragaurd. I agree with you its an overkill, but do you believe that the above procedures are enough to eliminate 99% of the common diseases in the reef tank?

 

[Ocelaris]

Paraguard isn't the same as general cure. metrodozanol is a dewormer and prazi is for flukes and some parasites. Paraguard looks like a dip? I've never heard of it.

I'm not really an expert, so I'll wait for others to chime in.

 

[aykwm]

Paraguard isn't the same as general cure. metrodozanol is a dewormer and prazi is for flukes and some parasites. Paraguard looks like a dip? I've never heard of it.

I'm not really an expert, so I'll wait for others to chime in.

Seachem states that it treats a wide range of infections like parasitic, fungal, bacterial, and viral. You are supposed to dose it daily. It claims to treat ich, velvet, flukes, ... more info here http://www.seachem.com/paraguard.php
I didn't try it yet but Ive heard good review about it as a preventative medication that treats wide variety of diseases thats why I believe its similar to general cure.

 

[Ocelaris]

General cure, despite its name isn't that general, it only treats flukes and worms. Maybe others can chime in, but I wouldn't trust anything that claims to do it all personally. There are a few known baddies that you have to watch out for, and I target those.

I've always had great improvements with prazi, and metrodozanol, so those are my go to. If I had chloroquine phosphate I would probably do that instead of copper. But ttm is ideal if you want to put sweat equity into the fish health.

 

[melypr1985]

I would nix everything except the TTM and Prazipro. Anything else can be done on an as-needed basis. You don't want to expose the fish to medicines that it doesn't need. Paraguard may be useful in some minor infections and in freshwater, but it's pretty much useless IME. For what that's worth.

 

[domination2580]

I agree with you about feeding part, when I get my fish from the LFS I always make sure they are eating so I don't think its a problem for me, especially because the LFS is 5 min away, so the transport part won't stress them that much that they will stop eating. Regarding the TTM, I did it that way to eliminate velvet. My velvet wipeout was caused by a wrasse that showed no sign of velvet even after the wipeout, and thats how it slipped through, so TTM Daily 1-9 days will ensure velvet is gone. API General cure I believe is similar to Seachem paragaurd. I agree with you its an overkill, but do you believe that the above procedures are enough to eliminate 99% of the common diseases in the reef tank?

I may be wrong but if I recall ttm will not cure velvet. Ich, yes, velvet no...@melypr1985

 

[melypr1985]

I may be wrong but if I recall ttm will not cure velvet. Ich, yes, velvet no...@melypr1985

You are correct. There has been theory and talk about creating a TTM schedule that would cure velvet which includes- I think- daily transfers, though this hasn't been tested and is still only theory at this point.