You can use that method for at least white spot without any copper treatment at all.
During the last 10 years, I have helped a friend that import fishes from different Indonesia companies, One Philippine company and one Sri Lanka company. I did a fast calculation that it must been around 20 000 fishes passing through our hands. The only treatment method he uses is a very strong UV filtration system of professional grade.
IMO – the fishes from these companies according to quality and health of the them has been improved during the last 10 years. I know that these companies deliver to US too. Very seldom a DOA over 2-3 % and very seldom any health or parasite problems. I do not think I have seen velvet even once and white spot – if it will be - it is normally limited to Power Blue or “Doris”. Some species is more difficult to have to eat or show more stress related health problem compared with others, but illness caused by microorganisms has been very rare during these years.
Therefore – I do not believe that the health problem you guys seem to have come from the exporting countries. I do not know anything about the whole sale companies in the US – or LFS – but in Europe there is also whole sellers that´s not my first choice – but also those that I do not hesitate a minute to take fish directly from and put in my aquaria without QT.
@Diesel – I do not know the situation in whole Europe – only in my own country – but one of the wholesalers that I do not want to buy my fish from is situated in your home country as I know.
Most of diseases among fishes are stress related and I understand that even inside US – there is long transports – often > 24 hour in the bag. With this type of transports ammonia levels building up in the transport bag is of major concern. The normal acclimation protocol – drip or gradual acclimation – can be a stressful/deadly tool in those cases (being in the bag for > 24 hour). The best method in this case (fish in plastic bag > 24 hours) is something like this.
Prepare a receiving tank with water from your QT or your aquarium. Use CO2 and lower the pH to just under 7.
Open the box – let light come into the fishes for ½ hour. Work in low light but as must be able to observe the fishes.
If there is temperature difference – after ½ hour - transfer the bags to the new tank and let it temperate for a while.
If the fishes showing signs of lethargy in one or more bags – repack these bags. Open up – press out the old gas – fill up with new oxygen if you have – otherwise with fresh oxygen rich air – but do not bubble it into the bag – just repack in a normal way. Let the repacked bags be for around 1 hour.
After temperature acclimation (if needed) transfer the fishes directly to the low pH receiving aquaria without any water from the bags.
After that all fishes is transferred to the low pH receiving aquaria – start aeration of the low pH aquaria. This will slowly rise the pH and the next day you can transfer your fish to your QT or to your aquaria.
During the whole process – work slow – do not stress the fish – do not feed before you have transferred your fish into QT or DT.
Another method is to use an ammonia blocking agent in the bag – but as I understand – you can´t use that if there is copper in the transport water or in your receiving tank.
I always transfer my fish to my refugium (very much of pods there) and let them stay there for a week or two before transfer to my DT. Observe – I do it with fish that I know its healthy and in a country that are rather free of different illness. I do not say that QT is wrong – at least if you do not use prophylactic methods.
What I´ll try to say is that maybe the method to use prophylactic´s has been so widely used in the US that resistant population of some microorganisms has evolved. There is also other problems with using drugs to treat fishes (with drugs I also count in cupper). To be effective – drugs must be toxic in one or another way and it is only the dosage that judge if it will kill or treat our fishes. If it is a toxic substance – it must be (even if it is in low concentrations) made harmless (detoxification) by the fish and be transported out from the body or be bound in the fat of the fish (read chlorine organics).
The detoxification process happens mostly in the liver in an enzyme system (enzyme cascade) called the MFO system and especially the P-450 enzyme system. In a cascade of processes – the toxic substance gradually will be change to the end product - a more tolerated substance or an ineffective. But this system is a cascade of enzymatic processes – every enzyme creating metabolites that will be processed in the next step. This temporary metabolite can be more toxic than the original substance – therefore is important that the process can work without any breaks. A famous compound - just stopping this process in a certain step with a toxic substance – is antabuse (disulfiram). It stops the breakdown of alcohol in a certain step – leaving a metabolite that you do not feel very well with. And there are people that does not have a good enzymatic breakdown process for alcohol in their MFO – these get drunk fast and for a long period.
And – more to come – the MFO system is an evolutionary system – the enzymes in the P-450 system can be changed to co-enzymes in order to take care of substances it has never seen before. These substances are named inducer and there is a lot of them. The problem with them is that the co-enzyme produced of them can be fatal for the normal treatment of endogenous substances – they can attack wrong part of the molecule – hence create dangerous metabolites of endogenous substances. A lot of chlorine organics is well known to act in this way.
Among drugs acting on the P-450 enzyme system (in one or another way) are (no surprise for me) Chloroquine, metronidazole, erythromycin and fluconazole – all in normal us in the US but forbidden for use without a description of a veterinary in Sweden. I also think that all of these can create resistant population of different microorganisms – however not sure on all four.
With the chlorine organics – there is another troubling fact. These substances are soluble in fat – Fat is the primary energy source for fishes and store fat as reserves. This means that they also store things that are solved in fat. Total chlorine content in fishes can be high. What do you use the energy reserves to? Exact – when you have use for energy and do not get it through your food. Transport, stress and other factors will use energy – energy comes from the fat – fat disappear, and the solved chlorine organics comes out in the blood system again. There is some evidences that a M-74 (a known illness among Baltic salmons) is caused by this release of organic chlorines in the bloodstream. High levels of antioxidants seems to counteract this.
About the use of copper at low concentrations – there is a lot of literature – Just Google “
sublethal exposure of copper fish”
This post become long and complicated - therefore some words about another circumstance that make the use of pre-treatment for salt water species a little bit more complicated
. A saltwater fish drinks a lot but pee very little – if all. The normal transfer path for substances that has been processed by the detoxification system (they have become more soluble in water) are through the kidneys and the pee. The salt water species do not pee as much as freshwater species – this means that the residues of different compounds will be in the fish body much longer and the rate of detoxification can be altered.
I will not more than mention the problems with introducing a already weakened fish to a new bacterial and parasite environment. The sickness can be induced from your home aquaria too!
Back to the original question
Facts show –
At the collector station/export facilities there can be use of both copper, chloroquine and other drugs.
At the wholesaler – the same situation
At the LFS – the same situation
At home - ?
This means that the poor fish in 30 to 60 days can been treated with low level of copper the whole time and been out for 3 treatments of the same drug (and you do not know the concentrations) – this before it arrives to your home – and you are starting a new cycle of treatment without any signs of diseases?
If there are signs of disease – treat – no doubt – but do not fix anything that´s not broken.
Somewhere this spiral must end - best has been if it end already at the wholesalers.
Sincerely Lasse
things in Europe have changed over the years.
