To QT or not to QT

Auburn866 · Oct 17, 2019

I have been running my tank fallow for 90 days following a Brook outbreak I had that wiped out both of my clowns earlier this year. I have added nothing new to to DT for 80 days during my fallow period and had only inverts and coral in the tank. I purchased a royal gramma and a flasher wrasse and put them through a month long QT process following HumbleFish's guide. I treated with Prazi and Cupramine. Both fish showed no signs of ich in QT. After a month in QT I transferred both to the DT. To my frustration the wrasse is showing possible signs of ich. 1 day he will have 2-3 small slightly elevated white dots on him but the next they will be gone. In the 2 weeks he has been in the DT this has happened 3 times. He does like to lay the sand at night. He is fully active, eating fine, no scratching or flashing. Could this be sand sticking to him or is it probably ich? The gramma shows no signs of this. I am currently running 2 clownfish through QT, will be using Copper Power this time around and I'm having a really hard time deciding whether or not to pull the 2 fish in the DT and put them through QT AGAIN. On one hand I really hate to because I know it is hard on the fish, I also tried to catch the wrasse and gramma a couple of times which is proving nearly impossible due to my rock work and coral.

lagatbezan · Oct 17, 2019

itch has tendency of staying on the fish for about 3-5 days and then falling off. If its staying for only a day my "guess" would be that its most likely sand.
#reefsquad

Flippers4pups · Oct 17, 2019

If the copper amount was kept in the therapeutic range during the duration of QT, then likely it's just sand. Nothing is 100%.

@Humblefish

Humblefish · Oct 17, 2019

If its just on the wrasse, I would suspect sand as well. Grammas are much more prone to Ich, velvet, etc. so keep a close eye on that fish.

phatduckk · Oct 17, 2019

My clown gave me a scare recently in the QT. She ended up sleeping in a bed of marine pure particles.

here’s a pic of her with marine pure on her and the floor of the tank

Auburn866 · Oct 18, 2019

phatduckk said:
My clown gave me a scare recently in the QT. She ended up sleeping in a bed of marine pure particles.

here’s a pic of her with marine pure on her and the floor of the tank

That is exactly what my wrasse looks like every once in awhile! Thank you all for the advice, I just don't want to treat fish with copper unnecessarily.