How to Quarantine

drstratton · Feb 26, 2016

reynaldoramon said:
What's everyone's experience with Liveaquaria Diver's Den and their quarantined fish? Is QT sufficient in your experience, or are ya'll still doing TTM, Hypo, or copper with their fish? Just curious.

I would always use Qt. They tell you right on the website to quarantine. I use TTM with prazi on the 2nd and 4th transfer.

reynaldoramon · Feb 26, 2016

Everywhere I read, people say that mandarins are resilient to infection and parasites. I want to get one, and I want to still ttm. But I'm worried it won't survive...for nutrional reasons. I've been reading on QTing them properly, but the majority are saying they don't. I'm not using TTM on everyone, and doing fallow for 76 days just to throw a fish in there and be a carrier of something. Thoughts?

Humblefish · Feb 26, 2016

drstratton said:
I use TTM with prazi on the 2nd and 4th transfer.

^^This is how I would QT a mandy to get him/her in the DT faster. Buy an ORA mandarin that's already trained to eat brine/mysis/pellets.

reynaldoramon · Feb 26, 2016

I thought Ora wasn't selling them any more.

Humblefish · Feb 26, 2016

reynaldoramon said:
I thought Ora wasn't selling them any more.

Still shows them on their website: http://www.orafarm.com/products/fish/dragonets/

All but the Scooters say "NOT CURRENTLY AVAILABLE", but that could just mean they are out of stock at the moment.

reynaldoramon · Feb 26, 2016

My mistake. I keep finding threads that they haven't sold them for a long while now. Maybe they were old threads.

reynaldoramon · Feb 26, 2016

As I understood it, people were not willing to pay the higher price of ORA's mandarins. Here is a link referencing that.
https://reefbuilders.com/2014/06/19/captive-bred-mandarins-return-karen-brittain/

I know it's also almost 2 years old. So I am most certainly wrong.

Humblefish · Feb 26, 2016

I'll check with a LFS I know and see if he can still get them.

Humblefish · Feb 26, 2016

@reynaldoramon LFS owner tells me ORA mandarins haven't been on his order list for months.

reynaldoramon · Feb 26, 2016

Sounds about right. Thanks.

reynaldoramon · Feb 26, 2016

Counting down the moment.

Paranoiattack91 · Feb 29, 2016

Humblefish said:
Leave him in copper for one more week, so he gets 4 weeks total exposure time. After that, I recommend doing a large WC, running carbon for 24 hrs (in a reactor works best), and then dosing Prazipro.

Technically you can mix Prazi & copper, but I reserve this for emergency situations (when the fish has both flukes and ich/velvet) for two reasons:

The presence of copper diminishes praziquantel's overall effectiveness (but still usually enough to get the job done).

Mixing Prazipro with any other med increases the chance of a bacterial bloom (cloudy water) occurring, which can starve most of the O2 out of the water and suffocate your fish. This is because the oxybispropanol found in Prazipro doesn't always play well with other meds. This scenario does not usually occur when mixing with copper, but I've seen it happen when mixing Prazipro with CP and antibiotics. One time it happened, and I did not move a CBB into another QT fast enough and lost him. So, I just play it safe now.

I guess My question should have been ; "Can I avoid doing a water chancge all together?" I'm only asking because it's only one fish in a 40 gallon tank, so I doubt the waste levels are that high. I don't want to stress the fish out anymore by doing an unnecessary water change. Would running carbon for 48 hours and then dosing prazi be ok?

melypr1985 · Feb 29, 2016

Paranoiattack91 said:
I guess My question should have been ; "Can I avoid doing a water chancge all together?" I'm only asking because it's only one fish in a 40 gallon tank, so I doubt the waste levels are that high. I don't want to stress the fish out anymore by doing an unnecessary water change. Would running carbon for 48 hours and then dosing prazi be ok?

It's best to do the water change before running the Prazi. Though, if your not going to do the water change it's ok to mix the prazi with the copper.... though like humble said, it wont be as effective as with the copper gone.

Humblefish · Feb 29, 2016

melypr1985 said:
It's best to do the water change before running the Prazi. Though, if your not going to do the water change it's ok to mix the prazi with the copper.... though like humble said, it wont be as effective as with the copper gone.

+1 And whether or not you can go 30 days without doing a WC depends upon how much ammonia builds up during that time period. All you can do is let the ammonia alert badge be your guide.

Bubblebass · Mar 2, 2016

This may have been covered - when you are not QT ing do you dry out the tank or keep water in there or???

In the same manner, do you use new water each time you QT?

Isaac Alves · Mar 2, 2016

Bubblebass said:
This may have been covered - when you are not QT ing do you dry out the tank or keep water in there or???

In the same manner, do you use new water each time you QT?

Good questing. I haven't been able to find a clear answer.

Duke4Life · Mar 2, 2016

Bubblebass said:
This may have been covered - when you are not QT ing do you dry out the tank or keep water in there or???

In the same manner, do you use new water each time you QT?

This all depends. Some only keep up when in use and use water from DT, while others drain and hide when not in use. I've had mine up for a year because I'm not done stocking. There is no wrong or right answer to this.

Humblefish · Mar 2, 2016

Bubblebass said:
This may have been covered - when you are not QT ing do you dry out the tank or keep water in there or???

I personally break down my QT in-between batches of fish, unless they are arriving back to back. However, there is nothing wrong with maintaining a permanent QT so long as everything goes smoothly. But if you suffer a massive fish loss in QT it might be best to just start over again with a "clean slate".

Bubblebass said:
In the same manner, do you use new water each time you QT?

Many times I will fill my QT with water from a DT water change. This is only advised if you are sure your DT is disease free. Also nothing wrong with using freshly mixed SW, so long as you allow time for it to thoroughly mix & circulate. So once again, no right or wrong answer here.