Fallow Period

[Eric1493]

Unfortunately, I lost my clown pair to brook yesterday. I read that a 6-week fallow period would starve off the parasite, but does this change with temp? Could I crank it to 86 and be done in a month? Or are there other options like bleaching the tank or using dechlorinated water? Thanks in advance.

 

[mitch91175]

Unfortunately, I lost my clown pair to brook yesterday. I read that a 6-week fallow period would starve off the parasite, but does this change with temp? Could I crank it to 86 and be done in a month? Or are there other options like bleaching the tank or using dechlorinated water? Thanks in advance.

If no inverts you can treat Brook in tank. If not then there’s a thread for fallow period for Brook. But if going fallow you might as well go the whole 76 days.

Check out http://humble.fish

 

[Eric1493]

If no inverts you can treat Brook in tank. If not then there’s a thread for fallow period for Brook. But if going fallow you might as well go the whole 76 days.

Check out http://humble.fish

What do you mean by treating brook in-tank? I used metro and a ruby reef rally bath, but it seemed that they were already to far gone.

 

[WiscoFishNut]

Sorry to hear about your clowns

 

[mitch91175]

What do you mean by treating brook in-tank? I used metro and a ruby reef rally bath, but it seemed that they were already to far gone.

If you would have caught it fast enough you could have likely saved them. Check out that link and familiarize yourself with what diseases look like and how fish respond when sick.

Have majority of the medications on hand so you can react. Depending on how you are planning to run your tank will determine treatment. If a fish is going into my main reef, I prefer already minimum conditioned but QTed even better. If going in my FOWLR, if doesn’t already look sick, goes straight into the system. Doing this definitely will introduce disease but for me the FOWLR system is the QT and hospital tank.

 

[Eric1493]

Sorry to hear about your clowns

Thank you. While losing them was tough, I feel like I gained experience in dealing with disease, so hopefully next time there won't be a similar outcome.

 

[Eric1493]

If you would have caught it fast enough you could have likely saved them. Check out that link and familiarize yourself with what diseases look like and how fish respond when sick.

Have majority of the medications on hand so you can react. Depending on how you are planning to run your tank will determine treatment. If a fish is going into my main reef, I prefer already minimum conditioned but QTed even better. If going in my FOWLR, if doesn’t already look sick, goes straight into the system. Doing this definitely will introduce disease but for me the FOWLR system in the QT and hospital tank.

I will definitely re-read. Thank you for the advice!

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

Unfortunately, I lost my clown pair to brook yesterday. I read that a 6-week fallow period would starve off the parasite, but does this change with temp? Could I crank it to 86 and be done in a month? Or are there other options like bleaching the tank or using dechlorinated water? Thanks in advance.

Brook is tough to treat; you have to be fast, the fish have to be in good condition, you need just the right treatment, and have some luck as well.

Raising the temp won't help much, if at all, unless you go high enough to be fatal to various pathogens. Bleaching works at 400 ppm, but you would essentially be starting over, and that takes time as well. Freshwater is easier to do than bleach (no rinsing) but not as effective at getting into the interstices of the LR. I'd leave the tank fallow. If you are going to mix fish and inverts, then perhaps you could acquire some shrimp, etc. to give yourself something to watch during that time?

Jay

 

[mitch91175]

A few years ago I had a velvet/ich outbreak in my reef and went fallow, but couldn't stand looking at my reef the entire 76 days without fish in it. I'm not saying to do this, but something that I did that allowed me to put my fish in much sooner was run ozone/UV/oxydator all at the same time with no fish in the tank. They all went back into the system less than 30 days and now they are fat pigs. Not saying ich free, but haven't seen anything resembling it on them since; and I have a Powder Blue in there.

For QT I just purchased a 150g rubbermaid horse trough and put them in copper/hypo (1.009) then moved them back into the display.

 

[Eric1493]

Brook is tough to treat; you have to be fast, the fish have to be in good condition, you need just the right treatment, and have some luck as well.

Raising the temp won't help much, if at all, unless you go high enough to be fatal to various pathogens. Bleaching works at 400 ppm, but you would essentially be starting over, and that takes time as well. Freshwater is easier to do than bleach (no rinsing) but not as effective at getting into the interstices of the LR. I'd leave the tank fallow. If you are going to mix fish and inverts, then perhaps you could acquire some shrimp, etc. to give yourself something to watch during that time?

Jay

I'll just go fallow then. I don't mind waiting, I just want to redo this right to prevent further outbreaks. Thank you for the advice!

 

[Eric1493]

A few years ago I had a velvet/ich outbreak in my reef and went fallow, but couldn't stand looking at my reef the entire 76 days without fish in it. I'm not saying to do this, but something that I did that allowed me to put my fish in much sooner was run ozone/UV/oxydator all at the same time with no fish in the tank. They all went back into the system less than 30 days and now they are fat pigs. Not saying ich free, but haven't seen anything resembling it on them since; and I have a Powder Blue in there.

For QT I just purchased a 150g rubbermaid horse trough and put them in copper/hypo (1.009) then moved them back into the display.

I don't think that's a viable option for me, I don't know how to use any of those things and I have a 20 gallon with HOB equipment. I will look into getting something like the horse trough though, that seems like a good way to quarantine. Thank you again for your advice!

 

[mitch91175]

Something that you can do to look for external parasites on your fish is use a blue flashlight and look for abnormal looking things on the fish body. Nothing scientific but you can spot somethings that way; specially on lighter colored fish.