Quarantining fish preferred online without copper

[neltel_7]

I ordered some fish online from live aquaria and am kinda nervous there is going to be disease on them because of hearing all the horror stories. I am going to quarantine but I won’t want to use copper, will it still be effective to use natural products like herbtana and just observe?

Does anyone had any advice on methods of quarantining without copper?

 

[Malifry97]

I ordered some fish online from live aquaria and am kinda nervous there is going to be disease on them because of hearing all the horror stories. I am going to quarantine but I won’t want to use copper, will it still be effective to use natural products like herbtana and just observe?

Does anyone had any advice on methods of quarantining without copper?

The ONLY proven methods are copper and Chloroquine Phosphate.

 

[Bramzor]

Tank Transfer Method! No copper needed.

 

[lagatbezan]

I personally believe that almost every fish out there is plagued by some kind of a parasite or disease by the time it goes from collection, holding station, distribution, lfs and then gets to me. So I treat for them prophylactically.
When first arrives i do a 40mim formalin dip for brook, then I treat with copper for 14 days for velvet/ich, transfer to new qt and then 5 days of hypo for flukes. Then observe for 14 days.
I used to be a firm believer in ttm until about 2 years ago but stopped since it doesn’t treat for velvet which is becoming more and more popular now a days.

 

[AZMSGT]

Nothing else works, Copper is the tried and true method. Everything else is snake oil.
Tank transfer method uses copper, you have to treat, 7-8 or 15 days later you move to a sterile tank. If you don’t initially treat with copper nothing dies. So you are transferring a sick fish to another tank.

OP, use a tried and true method otherwise you‘re wasting your time.

 

[Salty Lemon]

Velvet, etc is everywhere. I have my entire population from my 210 gal sharing a 40 breeder tank in qt right now because of a mishap adding a fish to my tank and velvet appeared. They aren't happy about the cramped space and it took me over two days to scoop everyone up. You do not want to go through this. Copper...every time you qt. Chloroquine Phosphate is recommended by many, and I have heard good things about it. But I have never used it. However... many fine folks have different opinions. This is a sensitive topic for some. Good luck! I can't wait to see how this turns out for you.

 

[Shufflepig]

Velvet, etc is everywhere. I have my entire population from my 210 gal sharing a 40 breeder tank in qt right now because of a mishap adding a fish to my tank and velvet appeared. They aren't happy about the cramped space and it took me over two days to scoop everyone up. You do not want to go through this. Copper...every time you qt. Chloroquine Phosphate is recommended by many, and I have heard good things about it. But I have never used it. However... many fine folks have different opinions. This is a sensitive topic for some. Good luck! I can't wait to see how this turns out for you.

Chloroquine phosphate definitely works and is easy to use but it has become impossible to get since the COVID-19 pandemic.

 

[Jimmyneptune]

Check out what Paul B has to say.

 

[vessxpress1]

I had 3 fish come in from LA on Tuesday. Shipping time was extremely brief. Packed in afternoon day before and arrived at 9:30 a.m.
One was DOA. The two damsels were gone when I got home today on Friday. They were in QT being treated with ProziPro for last 2 days. Was going to proceed with additional meds but didn't get that far. I sensed something was wrong with them last night.

 

[Bramzor]

Nothing else works, Copper is the tried and true method. Everything else is snake oil.
Tank transfer method uses copper, you have to treat, 7-8 or 15 days later you move to a sterile tank. If you don’t initially treat with copper nothing dies. So you are transferring a sick fish to another tank.

OP, use a tried and true method otherwise you‘re wasting your time.

Tank Transfer method does not use copper and is specifically designed to be used without copper in case of fish that is sensitive to copper...
It does not kill anything but transfers over the fish when parasites are in a specific stage and not on the fish or free swimming. That is why it is called tank transfer method. Parasites are left in the old tank, fish is clean after the transfer (or after multiple transfers)

 

[Deinonych]

Tank Transfer method does not use copper and is specifically designed to be used without copper in case of fish that is sensitive to copper...
It does not kill anything but transfers over the fish when parasites are in a specific stage and not on the fish or free swimming. That is why it is called tank transfer method. Parasites are left in the old tank, fish is clean after the transfer (or after multiple transfers)

Exactly. Tank transfer method is more reliable, as it doesn't require medication/testing, and is about as close to 100% effective as you will get in this hobby. Only downside is that it only works against crypto, so an extended observation period is still required.

 

[phatduckk]

Yup. As the folks said TTM exists but is only for ich. Velvet still needs copper or CP

 

[lolmatt]

I agree that CP is the only tried and true method for both ich and velvet. @Humblefish is testing out some new TTM with peroxide that looks promising. But the only two certain treatments for velvet are copper or CP. I think it's correct that you won't be able to get cp during this coronavirus madness, the guy on eBay I get mine from has 10x the price I bought it from him about 3 months ago! Champion lighting had nls ich shield on their website a few days ago but it's OOS. That's allegedly got cp in it, so maybe try your lfs. My one respectable lfs was kind enough to offer up a single treatment of cp when I needed it and couldn't get it anywhere.

 

[vessxpress1]

I'll say what everyone else is thinking.... Having a QT tank on the side is already a pain. Having multiple tanks in addition to the QT, which requires handling the fish several more times, all in order to treat one type of disease doesn't seem practical to me. It may work for ich but how do you know that's all the fish has?

 

[lolmatt]

I'll say what everyone else is thinking.... Having a QT tank on the side is already a pain. Having multiple tanks in addition to the QT, which requires handling the fish several more times, all in order to treat one type of disease doesn't seem practical to me. It may work for ich but how do you know that's all the fish has?

Not at all true. TTM in my opinion is the easiest and least stressful way to treat ich. If you're confident nothing else is there, it's the only way I would treat ich. Done in 4 transfers using brute totes and some pvc, hardly what you'd call a tank.

 

[homer1475]

I use the same 5G buckets I have on hand from multiple salt purchases to do TTM. Hardly what anyone would call a "tank".

 

[Deinonych]

I'll say what everyone else is thinking.... Having a QT tank on the side is already a pain. Having multiple tanks in addition to the QT, which requires handling the fish several more times, all in order to treat one type of disease doesn't seem practical to me. It may work for ich but how do you know that's all the fish has?

If you observe for at least 30 days, you'll know if other diseases (velvet, brook etc.) are present. Having a QT may seem like a pain, but it beats having a disease outbreak in the DT. Having lived through a crypto outbreak early in my fishkeeping experience, I can tell you it's not fun.

 

[Wildreefs]

Tank Transfer method does not use copper and is specifically designed to be used without copper in case of fish that is sensitive to copper...
It does not kill anything but transfers over the fish when parasites are in a specific stage and not on the fish or free swimming. That is why it is called tank transfer method. Parasites are left in the old tank, fish is clean after the transfer (or after multiple transfers)

tank transfer is not a good option. Does nothing for velvet, or any of the other maladies except for ich, way too much work for what it does.

literally 10 days continuously in the correct amount of copper (tested , not guessed or assumed right level) and ich and velvet are history.

every lfs around the country uses it, even if they don’t admit to it. Not sure why so many are afraid to use it. Maybe in the olden days of using a color chart to guess level, or assuming your tank is 40 gallons and not 50, but with the meter it’s really not difficult

 

[Wildreefs]

I'll say what everyone else is thinking.... Having a QT tank on the side is already a pain. Having multiple tanks in addition to the QT, which requires handling the fish several more times, all in order to treat one type of disease doesn't seem practical to me. It may work for ich but how do you know that's all the fish has?

^^

Truly a bad method. With instance bacteria around to cycle on the fly, and copper meter to test, ttm is truly awful.

I used to use it with prazi on the last day of transfer 2 and 4. My last fish I did this with, a big powder blue went thru it, followed to the T (3 sets of equipment, bleach after each use followed by 48 hr dry time, no more than 72 hours between, mostly 60) observed a week after , went into qt, writhing 4 days 11 fish dead with velvet.

 

[lolmatt]

^^

Truly a bad method. With instance bacteria around to cycle on the fly, and copper meter to test, ttm is truly awful.

I used to use it with prazi on the last day of transfer 2 and 4. My last fish I did this with, a big powder blue went thru it, followed to the T (3 sets of equipment, bleach after each use followed by 48 hr dry time, no more than 72 hours between, mostly 60) observed a week after , went into qt, writhing 4 days 11 fish dead with velvet.

So you didn't treat for velvet. Whoops. TTM is an excellent method for treating fish that you're confident don't have brook/velvet/uronema. Like if you accidentally infect your tank with ich via a fish addition, or bring it in on an invert or coral.

Expecting TTM to treat anything other than ich is almost as ignorant as calling it a bad method.