Do you REALLY quarantine your coral for Ich?

[Cthulukelele]

How is your tank coming along ? I have a friend who’s had a tank set up who NEVER quarantines a single animal in his tank. From what he told me, he lost a couple fishes in the beginning but now never loses a single one.

He is extremely hands off on his reef and from my perspective, neglects his reef. Somehow, his reef is full pf coralline and happy fish. His tank seems to be very stable, although his numbers have been tested to be out of range

I did have a decent crash about 2 years after this post to an over week long power outage though. Things are good now and there's more info in my build thread

 

[Angel_V_the_reefer]

I imagine for the most part that is enough for most people to achieve those results.

My problem is that I keep meeting and speaking to far too many people who have sworn by less that 'best practice' QT protocols or ich management or russian roulette or snake oil and claimed long term success without incident or death, only to be wiped out and never seen again. They rarely come back for the good of other reefers and say, "you know what? I got it wrong. Don't do that".

My frustration comes with the intellectual dishonesty or at best, ignorance posing as expert opinion that we see so much of on this topic (not a reference to you). There's a guy on Youtube right now who's sponsored, only had a tank for nearing on two years, has never lost a fish and therefore is encouraging others not to QT or treat prophylactically and spreading opinions like, Ich is like a cold.

I know few people will go to the extent that I might to manage the risk of ich or other diseases and that many of them might be just fine. I also know few go to the extent that they claim they do.

This^^ I don't believe most people are honest on here.

on the topic of QT, I think QT works and is great to recent possible issues, but I also believe that there has to be more to keeping a healthy and stable tank than QT every coral.

There's always talk about prevention, but how about controlling the issues rather?

 

[Angel_V_the_reefer]

Also, in a QT tank, lets say one of your frags has aiptasia. the process for removal would be, well, removing the pest, and observing it doesnt come back, can't the same be done on a frag rack in your DT?

if not, that would indicate the cellular make up of the hitch hiker can spread through the water column, thus the same can happen in you QT, thus meaning every coral has been 'infected'. Am I wrong?

 

[gbroadbridge]

Really interested in people's experiences here.

Do you give your corals the 76 week quarantine fallow treatment? Have you ever suspected a frag brought Ich to your tank in the tomont stage? If you don't quarantine coral for Ich, do you have a method to manage the risk?

I'm seriously considering my options. Having lost fish to Ich and on my second fallow attempt I'm wondering what it really takes and what an acceptable level of risk might be.

I QT everything wet

 

[Paul B]

I personally never quarantine anything.

 

[gbroadbridge]

I personally never quarantine anything.

In your tank it doesn't matter

 

[Reef Devils]

Really interested in people's experiences here.

Do you give your corals the 76 week quarantine fallow treatment? Have you ever suspected a frag brought Ich to your tank in the tomont stage? If you don't quarantine coral for Ich, do you have a method to manage the risk?

I'm seriously considering my options. Having lost fish to Ich and on my second fallow attempt I'm wondering what it really takes and what an acceptable level of risk might be.

I just dip my corals and scrub them really good. It works great and I have not had any problems

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

Just came across the sticky - https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/coral-invert-quarantine-time-frames.334584/

I have seen two youtube videos in the past week effectively calling QT a waste of time and in some cases more harmful than ich. I was particularly annoyed that neither person had experienced fish losses due to ich and were still offering this advice along with a bunch of inaccurate, anecdotal and unscientific info.

I just can't justify this line of thinking.

Edit: sorry, I see I just responded to a post from 2019....

Ugh, that chart is really inaccurate. It is all based on the assumption that ich is the only issue that people face and that ich tomonts only adhere to certain surfaces. It is based on extrapolation from Peter Burgesses' PhD thesis. Dr. Burgess performed some early work with Cryptocaryon, along with Colorni, that has not passed the test of time.

First of all, Cryptocaryon (ich) is only one of four major contagious diseases that a proper quarantine needs to screen for. Neobenedenia flukes have adhesive eggs that will stick to ALL surfaces, and it has been demonstrated that even one egg can start an infection. Then, some of the time frames don't make sense: starfish and sea urchins just need to be rinsed, yet another echinoderm, the Sea Cucumber requires a 45 to 76 day isolation period?

In some cases, macroalgae and invertebrates are arriving from fishless systems - if so, the time they spent there can be added to the fallow period.

Jay