My basic quarantine process is 30 days of organically chelated copper (I use Coppersafe) followed by two weeks of praziquantel and then two weeks of observation, before releasing the fish to the display. If at any time I see a disease develop, I may decide to move the time back to day one.
The nitrogen cycle of your QT is of paramount importance. Copper may impact that a little, but you need to manage your ammonia levels at near zero. I prefer to use media from an established, "disease-free" tank.
Here is an excerpt from my upcoming disease book (I'm going to make files here in the future, but for now, I need to paste the text in)
Quarantine Procedures
All too often, aquarists acquire a new, seemingly healthy fish and add it to their main display aquarium, only to watch a major disease epidemic occur in the aquarium within a few days to weeks later. Did the new fish bring the disease into the aquarium? Did the added stress of the new fish in the environment simply allow an existing latent disease to become deadly? Was it simply pure bad luck? Regardless of the reason, the aquarist is now faced with a disease problem in his or her main aquarium. A comprehensive quarantine process minimizes (but does not completely eliminate) the chance of this occurring.
All new fish must be assumed to be harboring disease, regardless of their history. Freshly captured wild fish, fish from pet shops, as well as tank-raised fish can potentially transmit infections to a stable aquarium population (aside from causing mortality in the new fish themselves).
To help control these problems, all new fish should undergo a quarantine procedure prior to their introduction into an aquarium housing other fish. These quarantine protocols often represent a compromise between their degree of effectiveness, the amount of effort required, and the safety to the animals themselves.
At one end of the spectrum is using no quarantine procedure at all, which is the easiest course of action but obviously the least effective. At the other end is a very comprehensive quarantine protocol that can require months to perform and utilizes a wide variety of medications along with veterinary services to determine that the fish are free of all disease. A middle-ground approach is best for most aquarists. Using simple visual symptoms from the fish combined with uncomplicated but effective prophylactic treatments, new fish can be more safely added to an established aquarium.
General fish quarantine
The following process outlined below works well in most cases, with minimal risk to the new fish, but always be prepared to modify the procedure if circumstances require it.
Active quarantine begins after the preliminary quarantine phase described in the previous section. The actual quarantine procedure used is determined by the type of fish being processed and the resources at the aquarist’s disposal.
Remember that many diseases can be transmitted on wet surfaces and as droplets through the air, so it’s important to disinfect tank tools that are used in more than one system—or use a dedicated set of tools for each system—and to avoid locating quarantine tanks close to your main aquarium.
Step 1) The quarantine system must be established before acquiring any new fish. Many aquarists find it helpful to establish a biological filter in their main aquarium a month or so before transferring it over for use in the quarantine system. Sponge filters and canister filters work very well for this purpose. If the water quality in your main aquarium is good, you can use water removed from it during water changes to fill your quarantine tank. These techniques make the assumption, of course, that your main aquarium is already operating disease-free.
A basic quarantine system consists of an aquarium large enough to temporarily house any fish you expect to acquire, a tank cover, aeration, a heater, a biofilter, and some inert hiding places, such as pieces of PVC pipe. Do not use any calcium-based materials, as these will interfere with copper treatments if they’re needed.
Also, the true volume of the quarantine tank needs to be determined. This is often less than an aquarium’s advertised volume (or it could be more if there is a sump attached to the system). The most accurate means to determine the volume of an aquarium system is to measure the amount of water it takes to fill the total system, with all decorations in place, up to its normal water level. If that is not possible, the aquarium volume can be calculated (as described in the formulary section).
Step 2) Begin an anti-protozoan treatment. The three common options for this include organic copper, ionic copper, or chloroquine. Most beginning and intermediate aquarists should choose the organic copper option. Public aquariums often use the ionic copper method, while advanced aquarists have been experimenting with using Chloroquine for this stage.
Organically chelated copper quarantine:
There are a variety of copper medications on the market that contain copper chelated (bound) to an organic chemical. This makes the copper less toxic to the fish and more stable in solution. Basically, you add the medication once and then add more only if partial water changes are made.
One drawback to these medications is that they work fairly slowly and may not eradicate an active disease in time to save all the fish. Another drawback is their proprietary nature; manufacturers do not disclose how they are made, so it is difficult to choose one brand over another. Use your dealer’s advice to select a product to use. Finally, they work best as a preventative and, like ionic copper, cannot be used with invertebrates present.
Organic copper is added to the aquarium for a treatment length of at least 30 days. Because step three needs to begin sooner than that, the praziquantel treatment it entails will need to be run concurrently.
Copper products that are bonded with an amine compound have special issues; the amine is essentially a derivative of ammonia. When these products are added to an aquarium, some ammonia test kits will register false positives – reading the amine as NH4 ammonia. A more serious issue arises if you dose an aquarium with amine bonded copper and then add an ammonia neutralizer. Those compounds strip the amine molecule, leaving a huge amount of free copper in the water, poisoning the fish. Since most aquarium product manufacturers do not divulge the formula for their products, you must assume that any organically chelated copper product is amine-based, and treat it accordingly.
Amine-based Copper Medications: A Special Case |
Special note: “Observational quarantine” is a term you might hear. It involves a technique that is used when one wishes not to expose a new specimen to any procedure more drastic than environmental control and observation pending the development of any obvious disease symptoms. The use of this technique should be limited to extremely delicate fish, such as flashlight fish, or fish that do not normally transfer diseases to bony fishes, such as sharks and rays.
The specimen is placed into an isolation tank and observed for signs of disease for a period of 45 days. The difference between this technique and no quarantine at all is that the problem of disease transfer is minimized on a case-by-case basis in choosing "low-risk" or "low-value" tankmates. In addition, the operative word
observational is very important. At least twice daily, the animal must be inspected closely for signs of developing problems. Please do not fall into the lazy habit of routinely using this technique simply because it is easier—because it is certainly not very effective.
Aggressive Triage
Some dealers and public aquariums have adopted a very aggressive “triage” method for handling newly acquired fish. The basic premise is that almost all fish travelling through the supply chain are exposed to a variety of diseases, so treating them immediately in a preemptive fashion is an appropriate course of action. Techniques for this vary, but often include osmotic or chemotherapeutic baths while acclimating the fish upon (or soon after) arrival. In reality, these aggressive treatments are also highly stressful, just at a point where the fish is already undergoing the highest amount of transport stress. Since these single dose or dip treatments are rarely 100% effective, a subsequent treatment will be required anyway. A series of test implementations of this process at a public aquarium, showed much higher mortality rates than seen when seen in first allowing the fish to recuperate from shipping stress for at least
