Live food safety question

jimbau · Jul 24, 2016

I am buying some live brine shrimp and some copepods online. My question is, should I worry at all about the water that these critters come in? I have spent lots of effort making sure my tank is free of Ick and any other decease causing organisms and do not want to introduce anything in this way but I can't really QT live food, right?

Triggreef · Jul 24, 2016

I guess you have to draw a line somewhere. If these will be coming from reefs2go i would cancel the order of just freeze them. Anywhere else i would bet that those critters would not be stored with fish in the system which would make it pretty safe.

I'm positive i introduced ich into one of my systems byway of reefs2go snails and crabs. It can happen as the parasite encysts on any hard surface where it multiples and explodes. There was no other possible way for it to enter my system and only days later i had the spots.

jimbau · Jul 24, 2016

Triggreef said:
I guess you have to draw a line somewhere. If these will be coming from reefs2go i would cancel the order of just freeze them. Anywhere else i would bet that those critters would not be stored with fish in the system which would make it pretty safe.

I'm positive i introduced ich into one of my systems byway of reefs2go snails and crabs. It can happen as the parasite encysts on any hard surface where it multiples and explodes. There was no other possible way for it to enter my system and only days later i had the spots.

I am buying the Pods from a place called Aquarium Depot out of Florida and the Brine shrimp from Live Aquaria. I am more worried about the pods since I have never bought from them.