Quarantine invertebrates?

[Hugh Mann]

You're welcome. I try and do what I can to save others my mistakes.

Some side notes here. Once your display is set up, do not use any shared equipment, even buckets between the QT and Display. As remote of a chance as it is, one drop of infected water can transfer ich/velvet to a clean tank. Takes about 24 hours of being completely dry for ich to die if you have to share equipment.

Try and keep your quarantine at least 3.5 meters from your display. Droplets can fly a long way through the air.

Wash hands thoroughly working between the two tanks.

It's a real PITA, but after waiting almost 3 months for inverts, it would be very annoying to accidentally transfer ich by some random accident.

If you're running a sump, leave a sponge filter sponge in there. Come time to quarantine, use that sponge. Instant cycled QT. If using HOB equipment, do the same with an extra sponge, or filter floss. Display should be clean, so no chance of infecting fish. Replace with new sponge every time of course.

 

[RobB'z Reef]

You're welcome. I try and do what I can to save others my mistakes.

Some side notes here. Once your display is set up, do not use any shared equipment, even buckets between the QT and Display. As remote of a chance as it is, one drop of infected water can transfer ich/velvet to a clean tank. Takes about 24 hours of being completely dry for ich to die if you have to share equipment.

Try and keep your quarantine at least 3.5 meters from your display. Droplets can fly a long way through the air.

Wash hands thoroughly working between the two tanks.

It's a real PITA, but after waiting almost 3 months for inverts, it would be very annoying to accidentally transfer ich by some random accident.

If you're running a sump, leave a sponge filter sponge in there. Come time to quarantine, use that sponge. Instant cycled QT. If using HOB equipment, do the same with an extra sponge, or filter floss. Display should be clean, so no chance of infecting fish. Replace with new sponge every time of course.

Yeah I'm actually on board with all of that already. Pretty logical stuff. I actually have media on standby to occupy my sump in my main system for bacterial colonization for my next round of QT inhabitants. All rock is already cycled and waiting. (KP Aquatics). The first go I used biospira to kick start the QT tanks.

 

[Hugh Mann]

Perfect, ahead of the game there.

Coral/Invert Quarantine Time Frames

Coral/Invert Quarantine Time Frames Preface: The purpose of this article is to outline time periods required to properly quarantine (QT) marine corals & invertebrates. While unable to host ectoparasites the way fish do, corals/inverts are still able to “carry” fish diseases in one of two ways...

www.reef2reef.com

Is an excellent resource to draw from. In fact, Humblefish has many threads on various quarantine subjects, but that one is relevant. 10/10 good read.

 

[ahiggins]

I don’t quarantine inverts I get through reef cleaners because they’re so “clean” when they come in. Anywhere else I do.

 

[drtechno]

Yes. Quarantine your inverts. I will explain why.

I hope this explains and answers your questions.

Thanks.
I guess my real question is that while I understand the reasoning behind it, I don't stand how it can be successfully accomplished for clean up crews.. Specifically:

-CUC for a 250g tank is a ton of animals which probably (?) need to be replenished quite frequently.. So that's going to need a fairly large QT with animals on top of each other, pretty much in use constantly given a 2-3 month QT cycle...??

-I understand how you could QT cleaner shrimp, hermits (feed small pieces of shrimp/scallop into tank), but what are you going to do to sustain your--
Serpent stars?
Trochus snails?
Turbo snails?
Margaritas? Etc etc

- can you really successfully QT a clam without the effort of setting up an entire duplicate "nano reef tank" with strong lighting correct parameters, etc??


Also as an aside, for QT filtration, people are using something like aquaclear hang on back filters with sponges from the main sump and that's good enough?

It just seems like a really tall order to QT clean up crews without significant mortality..??

 

[Hugh Mann]

I can't say about clams, as I have never kept one, however.

Sponge and/or Aquaclear filters are plenty adequate for quarantine of inverts.

The algae eaters you can feed nori and algae flakes, or even macro algae grown in a refugium.

Honestly, if you're going through all the time, effort and expense to maintain a 250 gallon tank, you can run a 10-20 gallon tank alongside it and be constantly running CuC through. Though as I understand it, in the right environment, CuC can live for years, unless predators eat them. Plus with enough of a population, you could theoretically sustain a breeding population of certain species.

 

[Rickybobby]

Right now I have a 2.5g qt invert tank setup it’s a room that’s away 80f. The tank is only half full abs I have a bubbler going for airation and water movement good enough for a few crabs and snails

 

[gray808]

You actually only need two tanks. Use one to quarantine the fish, treat with copper or however you want. Because it's only a 10 gallon, it's easy and fast to remove the copper via Cuprisorb and water changes to then dose prazi.

Keep the other 10 gallon as your invert quarantine. Heck, set it up as a nano tank with rock and whatnot since you won't be using any meds on this one. Run a batch of inverts through it, once they go into your display, add the next batch of inverts. Batches are best, but if you can keep track of which inverts were introduced when, at each 76-day mark they can be put in the display. What I mean by that is if you put snails in there Day One then Day 30 you put in hermit crabs, you can take the snails out Day 76, and the hermits Day 106.

Hahahahahaa!
Today I got up at the crack of noon to drive down to Redding to check out a LFS there (they also have what looks like a nice coral-only shop, but that's for next time), thinking I was just going to say F it, and give the snails/crabs a few days in exile (a bucket), then to DT.
During the 2.5 hour drive, I was thinking about what I'd read about the tropents(?) and other quarantine stuff and basically decided to do exactly what you just described. So happy to find that I was barking up the correct tree.


While I was there he also had some bits of live rock. I'd decided I was just going to go with the dead Macro Rocks I started with, and avoid live... but I walked out with a nice looking chunk of rock.

As long as I never place fish in the IQT (Invert-QT), it should be fine to place rock, snails, crabs... let them QT for 76 days, then I can be sure no ich/velvet will transfer to tank... correct? ie ich/velvet requires a fish host at some point, or will be done and gone after 76 days?

--Gray

 

[Hugh Mann]

Yes indeed. Both of those require a fish host between the free swimmer and encysted. As long as a fish never goes in there, 76 days and everything is free and clear.