For those that don't quarantine fish or corals.....mitigation?

[siggy]

Please, that poll is just a way to make it easier to receive "healthier" fish to avoid home quarintine. If you base everyone off a thread poll then your sorely mistaken. Why is it that people are looked down on if they don't follow the masses and quarintine? I'm sorry @bluprntguy good husbandry is different. Why is that members with your logic only think people are responsible if they only quarintine? Yet if people loose fish in quarintine then it's ok but someone is irresponsible if they lost a fish in their display and didn't quarintine. The same response always happens, "you could've avoided that fish death if you had a quarintine setup". If you want to quarintine then go ahead, nobody is stopping you. Try to have an open mind for how others want to run there tanks as I don't bash members if they want to quarintine even though I do not. To answer your question, I don't help out in disease threads due to having limited knowledge of disease as we never had to deal with it in over 10 years and I don't quarintine. Hmmmm.

That ^^^ touches on a few things. I dont QT but I have statrded to dip Fish just to do something before adding them, I lost most of my fish to velvet so I understand those who insist on QT. But to keep this in perspective is #1. Most can barley afford a salt water tank and to QT is requiring them to own TWO. Most inexpensive QT on the cheap is a Cadillac Reef to others. #2. Is Time. When Velvet showed itself I had to scramble to get something set up and running, tare up the display to catch the fish. buy the time I got them in it was too late. Then running a QT for new fish takes time away from the display and other obligations. Then #3 is My biggest hurdle, The Wife. She is not thrilled that I have a tank and the time & $$$ I spend on it, So a qt in her eyes is 2 tanks. Needless to say I am very cautious to what go's in.

 

[Brew12]

If your point is that more people on reef2reef don’t bother to quarantine than do quarantine, then I think that you also need to own all the posts in the disease forum of sick and dying fish. Over the past month or so I’ve seen at least three posts about complete tank wipeouts from people putting diseased fish in their tanks without quarantining. Add to that the daily posts asking for help for dying fish in display tanks because they didn’t quarantine.

Does that mean that people who recommend quarantine need to own the huge number of posts about fish dying while in QT? There have also been plenty of tanks wiped out by people who thought they were properly using QT. Who owns those?

Why is it that the people on here that advocate for responsible husbandry practices like quarantining are also the only ones trying to help people in the disease forum while the people advocating for “plop and drop” and no quarantine are nowhere to be found when people need help recovering from the disasters that diseases create in our captive systems?

Very few people advocate "plop and drop". There are also many parts of responsible husbandry and it isn't just "QT and treat everything".

Although I haven't seen any information in the last few years, the Seattle Aquarium is a good example to look at. They used to QT and prophylactically treat everything that came in. Despite their best efforts, something got through and they lost many fish. Realizing they could never eradicate the parasite from their systems they shifted practices. Now (or at least as of a few years ago) they do observation only and treat the fish they don't think can survive without treatment. Since they have shifted to this practice, their mortality rate has dropped significantly.

What should the goal be? A parasite free display or fewer total fish deaths? If we can find a way to keep fish healthier without chemotherapeutic treatments while reducing mortality rates, shouldn't that be the end goal?

 

[HawaiianReef]

I've been in the hobby for only a couple years. I haven't had an issue with disease yet... yet.
That being said, I am going to qt Everything. I'm already qt'ing corals that had a outbreak of red flatworms. I dipped once and waited, just to see what happens. In about 3 weeks, the flatworms came back. They are going to be dipped for the full 4 weeks now with an added 3 weeks of observation.
One thing I don't hear much about is QTing the CUC. After all we do to keep pests and parasitic organisms from enetering our systems, I dont hear much people explaining their methods of QTing the CUC. I'm not sure what meds can be used. So I'm just going fallow to keep out the parasites. But it would be nice to know I've gotten rid of pests as well.
And then there's the method of keeping the fish's immune system strong by Not QTing and letting an ich outbreak happen. I don't think Im qualified at that level of fish keeping right now. So I'm going to QT everything. But I'd like to achieve this someday. It sounds more natural and just makes too much sense.

 

[Paul Sands]

I don’t like @Lasse either.. and I have been here a short time too...

To be clear, I don’t dislike Lasse. He made a gross generalization that wasn’t true. I poin

I guess I should have been more clear. I’m talking about the tank transfer method. It rids a fish of ich by breaking the lifecycle. You simply transfer the fish to a sterile tank every three days for two weeks. Nothing could be easier.

As for everything else, as opposed to spending money on a UV filter, I bought a nice frag tank. All new corals, snails, hermits go in there for observation and to wait out the lifecycle of problematic diseases. Again, it’s really simple.

Again, i’d file all these things under the “not hard” portion of the hobby.

 

[HawaiianReef]

That ^^^ touches on a few things. I dont QT but I have statrded to dip Fish just to do something before adding them, I lost most of my fish to velvet so I understand those who insist on QT. But to keep this in perspective is #1. Most can barley afford a salt water tank and to QT is requiring them to own TWO. Most inexpensive QT on the cheap is a Cadillac Reef to others. #2. Is Time. When Velvet showed itself I had to scramble to get something set up and running, tare up the display to catch the fish. buy the time I got them in it was too late. Then running a QT for new fish takes time away from the display and other obligations. Then #3 is My biggest hurdle, The Wife. She is not thrilled that I have a tank and the time & $$$ I spend on it, So a qt in her eyes is 2 tanks. Needless to say I am very cautious to what go's in.

I think most people who don't QT are looking at where they buy their livestock. If the lfs is QTing already, whats the problem in just acclimating before they're introduced into the DT?

 

[Paul Sands]

Very few people advocate "plop and drop". There are also many parts of responsible husbandry and it isn't just "QT and treat everything".

Weird. Scroll back through this thread and I see many “plop and drop” posts. In fact there is even a meme. I don’t see you responding to them and disagreeing with that approach, but you are quick to come on and disagree with anyone that suggests all fish should be quarantined.

Also, I’ve not advocated for “treat everything” approach and I actually don’t see a single post in this thread that suggests anything event remotely close to that. There is a wealth of options in between “not quarantining at all” and “treat everything. And yes, i’d Label most things in that range as “responsible”

 

[Brew12]

Weird. Scroll back through this thread and I see many “plop and drop” posts. In fact there is even a meme. I don’t see you responding to them and disagreeing with that approach, but you are quick to come on and disagree with anyone that suggests all fish should be quarantined.

Where did I disagree with suggesting all fish shouldn't be QT'd? Every fish in my system has been through either copper or CP. What I disagreed with was with saying that someone who recommends something other than a full QT treatment should be responsible for every fish death from people who don't QT. If people who don't QT should feel responsible for those fish deaths than people who recommend QT'ing should feel responsible for every fish that dies in QT or in a tank with fish that have been QT'd.
If you look back to my post, that was the first comment I replied to.

Also, I’ve not advocated for “treat everything” approach and I actually don’t see a single post in this thread that suggests anything event remotely close to that. There is a wealth of options in between “not quarantining at all” and “treat everything. And yes, i’d Label anything in that range as “responsible”

I'm not even sure where you are going with this. Did you actually read my post and the quotes I replied to?

 

[bluprntguy]

That ^^^ touches on a few things. I dont QT but I have statrded to dip Fish just to do something before adding them, I lost most of my fish to velvet so I understand those who insist on QT. But to keep this in perspective is #1. Most can barley afford a salt water tank and to QT is requiring them to own TWO. Most inexpensive QT on the cheap is a Cadillac Reef to others. #2. Is Time. When Velvet showed itself I had to scramble to get something set up and running, tare up the display to catch the fish. buy the time I got them in it was too late. Then running a QT for new fish takes time away from the display and other obligations. Then #3 is My biggest hurdle, The Wife. She is not thrilled that I have a tank and the time & $$$ I spend on it, So a qt in her eyes is 2 tanks. Needless to say I am very cautious to what go's in.

I’ve quarantined most of my fish in 5 gallon buckets and did TTM (they were small enough that was appropriate). It cost me $10 for two buckets, $30 for two filters, $25 for two preset heaters. Let’s say I spent $50 in salt doing TTM. The only thing I treated for was flukes. That’s around $120. It literally takes 15 minutes to mix water and transfer fish to a new tank x 5 times. You can get a 20 long at Petco for $20 for larger fish. Quarantining is not expensive, hard, or time consuming.

My tank cost thousands of dollars and I don’t even want to know what I have spent or will spend on corals. I’ve spent way more than I should have just on fish. Why would you not spend a little extra time and money to protect that investment? Frankly, anyone that’s ever had to tear a reef apart to rescue all their fish from velvet or brook knows that’s a serious time suck and hard work. It takes way less time and energy to quarantine everything that goes in and allows you to actually enjoy the tank.

 

[MnFish1]

For anyone curious, I have an article on this very topic as well. The short of it, is that an LFS isn't really able to quarantine and ensure clean fish. Unfortunately, haphazard quarantine can do more damage than good, harming the immune response to no real effective end. I know these are sensitive topics, and not something we want to read/hear.

https://www.reef2reef.com/ams/lfs-fish-“treatment”-the-“sudden”-need-for-quarantine.308/

The one thing I would ask - if this is true - how are so many people successful doing it this way? If you look at the recent poll less than 20 percent of people use QT for fish and coral. Given the supposed amount of parasites in the supply chain - a great percentage of people should be on these boards stating that all of their fish are dying. So - whether one quarantines, prophylactically treats, or plops and drops (I dont care which method) - the point is there has to be more to the story than we are discussing (IMHO).

So I guess I disagree with your point above - I think LFS can do effective quarantine. (IF they cant - then how can the suppliers/wholealers or anyone else do it?) - and why are so many people successful?

But- the topic of the poll was 'mitigation' - right - not 100% effectiveness. I think that an observation period (with treatment if necessary) - does mitigate against these diseases.

 

[bluprntguy]

Very few people advocate "plop and drop".

Mind explaining how you reconcile that obviously false statement with the 102 people that chose “I don’t QT livestock. I just DUMP IT IN” in the poll at the top of this very thread and the 10+ people (I stopped counting after page 2) that posted that they buy fish and dump them directly into their display tank?

 

[MnFish1]

Except when you qt a fish and put in in absolute sterile conditions it does way more harm.to their immune system. At this point they are 100 times more susceptible to fatal parasite/disease as they essentially have zero immunity.

There is certainly more to it however this is the bread and butter of the discussion to qt or not or kinda.

How would this work? First of all - there is no such thing as 'absolute sterile conditions' in seawater - so there is no way sterile conditions can harm their immune system. Second - you have no way to say 100x 1000x 10x or .5 x more susceptible to disease. Third you have no way to show that they have zero immunity.

Part of this may be that you're just not being clear - if you mean removing a fish from CI means that eventually it will have less and less immunity with time to CI - and eventually perhaps zero - perhaps.

But you also need to describe what QT means. Is it observation? Is it treatment with copper? is it treatment with CP, Prazipro, etc etc?

Empirically - what you say can't be true - becasue if in fact QT destroyed immunity - no one with a QT tank would be successful in keeping any fish.

 

[Lasse]

A separate thread on this site shows 420 people would pay 2x -5x more for certified quarantined fish while only 180 people would not pay anything extra. Clearly there is a demand for quarantined, disease free fish and people would rather avoid these diseases.

I would not pay a penny more for special QT fish because there I live it is not legal to sell sick fish. There is a consumer law that say that the first 6 months - it is the seller's responsibility to show that the goods sold did not have any fault at the moment of sale. This also applies to living organisms and disease is considered as original error - if something happens. This make it rather easy to purchase fish if you by from a responible LFS

This post was clearly labeled as anti-quarantine mitigation. Very few people that practice quarantine will bother to even click on this link because they are just going to get bashed and have arguments with people like you that have an agenda.

Now you use the word "Very few people that practise quarantine" will be bashed - and you do not have any agenda? And - excuse my bad english but I thought it was very clear that I have not anything against a proper observation QT and treatment when it is needed if indications of a disease. Let me say it again with capitals so you understand what I say. I HAVE NOTHING AGAINST OBSERVATION QT AND TREATMENT IF DISEASE INDICATIONS SHOW UP BUT USING CHEMICAL WAREFARE IN ORDER TO DO PROPHYLACTIC TREATMENTS AGAINST DISEASES - JUST IN CASE - IS IMO THE WORST THING YOU CAN DO TO YOUR FISH - I make it bold too.

If your point is that more people on reef2reef don’t bother to quarantine than do quarantine, then I think that you also need to own all the posts in the disease forum of sick and dying fish. Over the past month or so I’ve seen at least three posts about complete tank wipeouts from people putting diseased fish in their tanks without quarantining. Add to that the daily posts asking for help for dying fish in display tanks because they didn’t quarantine.

I have also read a lot of dying fish in chemical prophylactic QT, people that have asked why they can get wrasses through the QT. Once again - you can do QT but do not use chemical prophylactic treatments. I have seen threads where people have been worried abut weak sign thats not mean anything and directly have been hammered with the sledgehammer. Treat with this coctail of human medicines !

Why is it that the people on here that advocate for responsible husbandry practices like quarantining are also the only ones trying to help people in the disease forum while the people advocating for “plop and drop” and no quarantine are nowhere to be found when people need help recovering from the disasters that diseases create in our captive systems?

You miss the point - to use chemical prophylactic treatments within worst case a cocktail of mammal medicines has nothing with responsible husbandry of fish to do. To use observing QT, to use other methods - including vaccination when it is possible, to adapt the treatment to species demand and so on – that’s husbandry. I have seen QT tanks with a small plate of 1 cm sand for sand sleeping wrasses - that’s cruel and mishandling of animals - IMO. It is not true that people like me not give advices in the disease forum - but when we do that – we get to hear that we bash the people with the sledgehammer (cocktail chemical prophylactic) approach. Some mammal medicines are useful when you have a real indication of a disease – but used – just in case of and in every situation – it will lead to resistant strains of facultative pathogens and leave us without tools when the real thing happens. And if you look at the disease forum it looks like it already has happened in some cases. There is a lot of advises here when people do not really know the nature of the used drugs and get surprised that some fish manage only one week with that concentration, another species manage 2 weeks and so on. the benchmark is if the fish survive the treatment or not. If the fish get sublethal damage or not is not of interest at all. Warnings from people that know both the uptake and the breakdown pattern of many of these lipophilic drugs will be accused for bashing other persons personal believes. ‘

I have an agenda you state. Yes – this is the only thing you are completely right in. I have an agenda – and that agenda is to have people to understand the whole picture and understand how dangerous it is to take the dead-end street that is named chemical prophylactic treatment QT

Today – it looks like the word QT is a synonym for chemical prophylactic treatment. It is not that – QT can be the old classic observation QT – and that´s good for me if it is in an environment that not stress the fish and promote the immune system. Chemical prophylactic QT is another thing and the fact that I do nor recommend that makes me not to be irresponsible and cruel to my fish. I do not use that method - I use my refugium as introduction to my DT and you can see which fishes I have succeded to introduce and have for years in my build thread.

I need also to state that I have nothing against TTM at all - at least when it is used when there is indications of marine ich. I do not use it on a newcomer because it needs to settle down in calm environment first and start to eat. The only time I have had marine ich - I used an own variant of TTM with success - I have never used chemichals in order to treat SW fish.

Sincerely Lasse

 

[Brew12]

Mind explaining how you reconcile that obviously false statement with the 102 people that chose “I don’t QT livestock. I just DUMP IT IN” in the poll at the top of this very thread and the 10+ people (I stopped counting after page 2) that posted that they buy fish and dump them directly into their display tank?

Because it isn't obviously false, and this is a weak attempt at trolling.
Saying that everyone who says they add fish directly is doing no more than "plop and drop" is like saying everyone who doesn't treat every fish with copper, prazi and metro isn't really QT'ing. Obviously a false statement in the other direction.
There are ways to mitigate disease and risk within a DT.

 

[Mastiffsrule]

Morning or happy whatever time zone you are in..

I think we should get back to Rev original question. Not debating (for use of a stronger word) if QT should be used, but if you DON’T QT how do you minimize risk? I saw this as an opportunity for those of use how don’t QT how to practice safe reef.


And

To answer your question, I don't help out in disease threads due to having limited knowledge of disease as we never had to deal with it in over 10 years and I don't quarintine. Hmmmm.

Stealing others posts and making them as your own is wrong

May 11, 2019,

I have said in many posts I am bad at disease ID. Not from lack of research, but real world experience. Only thing I knew in the 80’s was ich since that was most prevalent to me.

Just joshing as always. Always fan of your posts.

I agree 100%. Nice others think like me to validate I am not insane.

I think we all agree the straight up plop drop is not good. But if you are saying plop and drop to mean properly acclimating a fish and putting him in, then that is good. The thing about non QT reefers have that the QT doesn’t have is we know how to QT but don’t and still have success. The QT group (not good or bad) only knows and abdicate strongly everything must be QT.

 

[Kremis]

i dont qt anything, however I also know that some fish that are more vulnurable to certain diseases are not an option for my tank. (acanthurus tangs, etc). I also will heavily dip any corals that I get from LFS or other hobbyists.

 

[Lasse]

I'm already qt'ing corals that had a outbreak of red flatworms. I dipped once and waited, just to see what happens. In about 3 weeks, the flatworms came back. They are going to be dipped for the full 4 weeks now with an added 3 weeks of observation.

You not need any chemicals in order to defeat red platworms - just get a scooter blenny - he/she fix it in a week

I guess I should have been more clear. I’m talking about the tank transfer method. It rids a fish of ich by breaking the lifecycle. You simply transfer the fish to a sterile tank every three days for two weeks. Nothing could be easier.

As for everything else, as opposed to spending money on a UV filter, I bought a nice frag tank. All new corals, snails, hermits go in there for observation and to wait out the lifecycle of problematic diseases. Again, it’s really simple.

Again, i’d file all these things under the “not hard” portion of the hobby.

Now I´m very upset - this is the first time I see a false quote in R2R In this post (#84) you quote @Mastiffsrule with this

I don’t like @Lasse either.. and I have been here a short time too...

To be clear, I don’t dislike Lasse. He made a gross generalization that wasn’t true. I poin

In the orginal post #75 Mastiffsrule write this

I don’t like @Lasse either.. and I have been here a short time too.

.nah. ..he is awesome, deserve every ounce of respect given regardless of agree or not

you rock sir...

Now back to the issue. I see a lot of people, including myself focusing on nutrition. It is a huge part. But I also focus on environment. Not just water conditions, but actual housing. I think nutrition and environment go hand in hand.

I 100% believe mind and body are connected. Feed a prisoner living in a 5x5 box fish, rice and grains and it will not make him any healthy a specimen. Put the same man in an environment with comfortable temperatures, ample lighting, relaxing amenities and see a difference using the same food.

I think there is a huge missed opportunity is in researching environments we put our fish in. Show me 1 thread that talks about a certain environment needed for a certain fish, not just salinity. I dare you. (Not really since I am not sure there is not threads like that out there)

We don’t see zoos putting giraffes in desserts. We don’t move from Alaska to Miami without changing wardrobes. I am a city guy, put me in rural Alabama and not soo good.

Anyway, thanks for reading, and if you got this far, thank you Lasse.

and the post is not edited.

And you have still not say which Europan country ther the reffers use chemical prophylactic treatment.

Sincerely Lasse

 

[MnFish1]

Why is it that the people on here that advocate for responsible husbandry practices like quarantining are also the only ones trying to help people in the disease forum while the people advocating for “plop and drop” and no quarantine are nowhere to be found when people need help recovering from the disasters that diseases create in our captive systems?

I go to the disease forums routinely - and 'try to help'. So do many others including @Brew12

I’ve quarantined most of my fish in 5 gallon buckets and did TTM (they were small enough that was appropriate). It cost me $10 for two buckets, $30 for two filters, $25 for two preset heaters. Let’s say I spent $50 in salt doing TTM. The only thing I treated for was flukes. That’s around $120. It literally takes 15 minutes to mix water and transfer fish to a new tank x 5 times. You can get a 20 long at Petco for $20 for larger fish. Quarantining is not expensive, hard, or time consuming.

I mentioned this once before to you - but as with everything else in this hobby - there was a fairly big debate as to the ethics of TTM - I'm not taking either side - its just that its not as black and white as you and @Paul Sands seem to make it. To me it seems like the majority of posts that seem to disagree with you are trying to point this out - its not black and white (though you're trying to make it that way). TTM also does not take care of 'all parasites' and may be less effective for velvet. But read the thread and perhaps see that others who are perhaps just as smart/educated/well versed in reef keeping disagree with the method (I personally do not think TTM is 'bad')

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/please-stop-using-ttm-its-barbaric.326254/

 

[hatfielj]

I definitely believe in the importance of quarantine. For corals, I absolute do it before adding new livestock to an existing system. I've dealt with all of the pests many times in the past and there is simply no better way to "mitigate" the risks than to dip and quarantine. The problem is keeping an extra QT system running when you're not adding anything new. I had a separate QT set up running specifically for SPS, but it remained empty so much I ended up converting it to a growout/frag tank and now I don't have a QT tank.

For fish, it's even trickier because you need a tank that can function as both a QT tank for observation as well as a hospital tank in case you need to treat for something. I have a healthy happy achilles tang and hippo tang in my display now and because these fish are such huge ich magnets, I refuse to add anything new to that tank. If I ever do, I will first set up a separate QT AND I will start running my giant, oversized UV sterilizer when the new additions are finally done with QT.

 

[MnFish1]

BTW - sorry I meant to add this on my post - One problem with the poll - is that QT isnt defined. For example is dipping a coral 'quarantine' or is coral quarantine 76 days in a fish-free environment. Likewise - is QT for fish - observation alone, observation with medications, or merely doing a couple freshwater dips.

And none of the above takes into account the fact that there are many different methods of QT. The protocol by @HotRocks and @4FordFamily is one method - and theoretically it should work (and sorry im not singling them out for a critique) but all the sudden it didnt work once. There are many other QT methods out there as well - at the National aquarium they use a 90 day Observation period (how many of us do that) - because they found velvet after 65 days that had apparently been 'living' on the fish. TTM wouldn't have helped this. etc etc.

My end comment - rather than being totally dogmatic that there is one way - we should be trying to figure out the best way. There are things out there that are becoming resistant to copper at theraputic levels. That is a problem. There are countries banning medications used to treat disease (thats a problem) - so - being right or wrong on a forum 'discussion/debate' is not the key - its what should we do about it?

 

[MnFish1]

Now I´m very upset - this is the first time I see a false quote in R2R In this post (#84) you quote @Mastiffsrule with this

It would be interesting to hear the other person's side. That said - I saw the post and wondered where and why would anyone say anything (that negative) about @Lasse. I dont remember who posted the edited quote - and I don't know if it was meant to be deceiving - I will give that person the benefit of the doubt. But - If it was meant to be deceiving - I would say thats not what this forum is about....

(From one who has had at least one 'talking to' about the tone of my posts)