QT Protocol Flowchart

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ngoodermuth said:
The PraziPro treatment would address flukes prophylactically, however if you suspect flukes...particularly a heavy infestation or flukes in the eyes; then doing a freshwater dip first to confirm/remove a large portion of the worms is recommended. When PraziPro hits the worms they seize and spasm, which can be very uncomfortable on a heavily afflicted fish.
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^^ Agree; perfectly stated. :)
 
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ngoodermuth said:
To the OP, you might consider adding the second PraziPro dose to the chart for clarity. It should be dosed twice, 5-7 days apart.
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Thanks! I had actually intended for the PraziPro, CP, and Copper treatment boxes to be "The full protocol" for those. (ie: use established/documented protocol from community for doing these). This would include a pair of Prazi treatments 5 days apart. But that isn't clear on the chart, thanks for calling this out. I'll do up a revised version tonight where I both clarify in the notes panel, and tweak the wording on those boxes to be clear that it's not just "a single treatment as it says on the bottle".

ngoodermuth said:
The PraziPro treatment would address flukes prophylactically, however if you suspect flukes...particularly a heavy infestation or flukes in the eyes; then doing a freshwater dip first to confirm/remove a large portion of the worms is recommended. When PraziPro hits the worms they seize and spasm, which can be very uncomfortable on a heavily afflicted fish.
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I very much agree, and I called out in the notes panel that any existing symptoms should follow a proper diagnosis and direct symptomatic treatment protocol, or in any severe case, obviously do an emergency protocol, or follow specific treatment needs for the displayed symptoms. Prioritize as appropriate. This protocol chart is meant for "New fish bought, appears healthy and has apetite, but want to prophylacticaly treat to ensure nothing sneaks past".

In your opinion, should I adjust the wording of my notes? (second last paragraph starting with "Note:"), or is that sufficient to get this idea across. I don't want people to mis-interpret the chart and take a fish with obvious symptoms of say a bacterial infection, and begin treating with CP and then Prazi, which would:
A) Do nothing to help the underlying disease
B) Probably over-stress the fish, and make things worse.

Thoughts?

Idoc said:
I'm a newbie here and just trying to get a QT system up and ready for when my DT is finished with its cycle in a couple of months. This is very informative and helps visually to understand everything I've been reading. One thing I see recommended a lot on the posts is a Freshwater dip to catch flukes...would that be beneficial in this prophylactic protocol?
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Hey! Thanks for the comments, exactly as called out earlier, both Prazipro and CP treat flukes (usually different varieties of the worms for example). And so the freshwater dip isn't actually required under "normal" cases, and just adds more stress to the fish during this ordeal. However it's very important as discussed above to check the fish for obvious symptoms to start, and treat appropriately. A fish with severe fluke infestation would greatly benefit from an immediate FW Dip followed immediately by Prazi treatment (instead of the CP/Copper treatment indicated on the chart).

drawman said:
Great work Glasswalker! Very easy to read this will be a great resource for anyone new wanting to treat their fish!
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Thanks!

I'm far from an expert, just a guy with a tank, most of this is based on hard work by @Humblefish and @melypr1985, and other Reefsquad members, and some discussions with my close friend and fellow reefer @sbash so I certainly can't take all the credit.

Combined with my own thoughts and needs, I pulled this together to try and have one "fairly general" go-to for "standard cases" to walk through a nice step by step protocol. There will always be exceptions of course, but hopefully with further feedback from the community we can make a nice easy to understand reference that will help many newbies feel more comfortable with this process.

I know when I started, I was completely shocked at how CRITICAL this process is with the current market, I was naive, and "trusted" my LFS, as a result I've lost a few fish during QT, and when things went wrong, that wasn't the time to be trying to do research and understand "what do I do next?" I'm stressed out, and rushing, mistakes can get made, and the fish suffers.

There is a reason they have actual hard-copy checklists of procedures for an emergency landing for airline pilots. These guys are heavily trained, and so on. But in that situation, it helps control stress and anxiety to give the brain a consistant and deliberate process to move through.

Now treating your new pet isn't nearly as stressful as landing an airliner full of people safely, but you get the idea ;)

Knowing what to have on-hand, and knowing the steps one at a time I hope will help save some animals (and their new owners) some suffering, and expensive mistakes.
 
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Glasswalker said:
Combined with my own thoughts and needs, I pulled this together to try and have one "fairly general" go-to for "standard cases" to walk through a nice step by step protocol. There will always be exceptions of course, but hopefully with further feedback from the community we can make a nice easy to understand reference that will help many newbies feel more comfortable with this process.

I know when I started, I was completely shocked at how CRITICAL this process is with the current market, I was naive, and "trusted" my LFS, as a result I've lost a few fish during QT, and when things went wrong, that wasn't the time to be trying to do research and understand "what do I do next?" I'm stressed out, and rushing, mistakes can get made, and the fish suffers.

There is a reason they have actual hard-copy checklists of procedures for an emergency landing for airline pilots. These guys are heavily trained, and so on. But in that situation, it helps control stress and anxiety to give the brain a consistant and deliberate process to move through.

Now treating your new pet isn't nearly as stressful as landing an airliner full of people safely, but you get the idea ;)

Knowing what to have on-hand, and knowing the steps one at a time I hope will help save some animals (and their new owners) some suffering, and expensive mistakes.
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Trust me it has happened to all of us. Sadly I feel that pests/diseases are more prevalent today than they have ever been and I am not sure how people just coming into the hobby can cope. So resources like this and members on R2R are extremely valuable to those lucky to stumble upon this site.

Coming from a medical background flow charts are very nice for either a quick reference or for the inexperienced to keep things straight so I'm glad you (with the help of others) came up with it.

If I can comment on one thing I wonder if we can get away from using the term sterilization. I know it is super nitpicky but disinfection seems more appropriate. Either way people get the idea. Good work!
 
Nice job and thank you for the effort put in to this!
 
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Quick update, made a few changes as commented above. Just adjusted a few things to improve clarity on treatment specifics.

Also added version/date info, and R2R logo :)

@revhtree or @Humblefish I still can't seem to edit my original post. So could one of you update it with this image?

ngoodermuth said:
I put together a rough symptoms checklist here if it's helpful for whatever document you might be preparing.
Fish disease diagnostic check-list

https://www.reef2reef.com/index.php?threads/Fish-disease-diagnostic-check-list.306975/

I think it would be awesome if someone could add links at each level that bring you to appropriate write-ups with possible diagnosis and treatments.
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Awesome! I'll take a look and I'm sure this will be a big help in the treatment & diagnosis flowchart.

Victoria M said:
I would love to be able to print this.
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As @Humblefish mentioned, you should be able to click to get the full version of the image. I designed it to be fully printable at 8.5" x 11", though you could probably print larger, just won't be as clear.

Ok, here is the updated image V3:
Reef QT Protocol - V3.png
 
Glasswalker, well done! I've printed out my own set of tables relating disease example pictures to disease names to appropriate treatment. This will be a great addition!

Out of curiosity, does everyone generally treat all fish they put in the QT? I generally do not treat unless I notice something out of the ordinary. They stay in QT for the same amount of time. I've just had the mindset that its harder for me to document (via video and notes) a baseline when I'm instantly adding chemicals to the water which adds stress.
 
WWC
tdunmore2 said:
Glasswalker, well done! I've printed out my own set of tables relating disease example pictures to disease names to appropriate treatment. This will be a great addition!

Out of curiosity, does everyone generally treat all fish they put in the QT? I generally do not treat unless I notice something out of the ordinary. They stay in QT for the same amount of time. I've just had the mindset that its harder for me to document (via video and notes) a baseline when I'm instantly adding chemicals to the water which adds stress.
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Thanks!

I doubt "everyone" does this. Up until now what you describe is how I've handled QT, but I've had heavy losses as a result. The LFS in my area all use sub-theraputic levels of copper, and hypo salinity in their tanks. As a result fish all "look" healthy (for the most part) but there is active Velvet, Ich, Brook, And everything else in all of their tanks. (usually one large system with 20+ tanks on it per wall).

And from what I understand this isn't limited to my area, and is rampant in the wholesaler systems as well. As a result the chances of getting a "sick but appears healthy" fish seems to be pretty high right now.

As a result I've learned (the hard way) not to trust the LFS at all (from the perspective of how they QT the fish, etc), and that chances are the fish coming in have a very good chance of having Ich, Brook or Velvet. And if Velvet, chances are by the time I notice symptoms, the fish has a low chance of survival.

This protocol was designed to solve this. These treatments may add a little stress for the fish, but are (I believe) generally considered "safe enough" to treat Prophylactically.

This way you can nail down the common stuff right away, solves flukes, ich, velvet, brook, etc all in one process. Meaning whatever makes it to the QT tank (from hospital) is now fairly certain to be a healthy fish. The remaining QT process is to observe, for other symptoms, or something that may have slipped through, to give you nearly 100% safety before any fish makes it to your DT.

It might seem excessive to some, but from here on out, this is the protocol I'll be doing with ALL my new acquisitions.

And I thought since I'm spending the time/effort to put this together for myself, might better share it to possibly help some others in the community out too :)

Humblefish said:
Full screenshot, to be printed or downloaded, can be found here: https://www.reef2reef.com/attachments/reef-qt-protocol-v3-png.540056/

Version 3 ;)
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Awesome! Thanks for updating the OP, and sharing the easy-link to print from :)
 
This is primarily for fish, but I would do a few more things for corals.

In addition to coral dip of choice (Bayer, CoralRx), I would also do a H202 dip (for nuisance algae). The upside of a QT frag tank is you can repeat dips, more that one round of dips is potentially beneficial.

This chart is a great resource.
 
Hey, just an update, and a question from those of you with more experience.

So based on the treatment chart by @melypr1985 it looks like Dragonets won't tolerate Copper treatments.

I'm thinking of picking up a small Ruby Red Dragonet from the LFS, they have several in stock (8-10 in one tank approx). they are quite small, but look healthy (and I'm aware of the feeding challenges, will likely post a separate thread on that once I get him).

Anyway, my protocol above, defaults to CP which is good, Dragonets seem to tolerate it better than copper. But I haven't been able to source CP locally yet (called 3 different vets, none will write a prescription for fish, still trying to find one that will, sure I'll be able to do so eventually, and once I have a supply chain setup I should be fine).

Anyway, in the meantime, what's the best method to accommodate this little guy to ensure he's ich/velvet free? Am I stuck with TTM? I'm not a huge fan of TTM due to the stress of constant tank changes, but will take what I can get.

Also will they tolerate Prazipro well?

Should I make any adjustments to my chart to call out NOT to use Copper on the Copper-intolerant species?

@Humblefish or others?

Any other thoughts/input?

Thanks!
 

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