What are ya'll QT methods?

[madducks42]

So we learned are lesson the hard way about not quarantine fish and are almost done with a 3 month fallow period in our display tank after having an ick outbreak. Our only surviving fish are a pair of clownfish who went through TTM and are now going through a 30 day copper treatment. I started the copper treatment because after the TTM procedure I noticed some white spots on one of the clownfish. Treating with copper still worries me a bit, since you're basically poisoning your fish, but I got the Hanna copper tester and that's made things a little bit easier.

So now that we're in the home stretch before we can put our clownfish back in the tank I'm curious about what other people do for QT.

1) Do you use the TTM or copper? I don't mind doing TTM but since it only works for ick I'm leaning a bit towards doing copper treatment for all incoming fish. If you do use the TTM how long do you wait after the treatment is complete before putting the fish in your display? How long can things like velvet remain with the fish before showing symptoms?

2) What do you do for adding cleanup crew? Our snail population does a pretty good job at maintaining it's population but the hermit crabs reproduce slower and we're down to one turbo snail. At some point I'll likely be adding more CUC. I know I could put them in a QT tank for 3 months but generally if I'm adding more to the CUC it's because I want them now...not three months from now. Any rough idea of what the chances are of ick or something else coming in with CUC?

3) Basically the same questions as above but for coral. I do have a really small frag tank so in theory I could put any coral frags in there for 3 months before moving them to the display tank. I could also possibly put the CUC in here for three months but there wouldn't be much for them to eat so I'd have to supplement them with some type of food source. Even then I'd worry about them starving, it's a shallow frag tank and only about 8 gallons of water.

I realize that not following strict QT procedures for CUC or coral frags comes with risk. I'm mostly just trying to collect information on how much risk comes with not doing a three month QT on those and what other people do. Also please don't tell me to just buy a UV sterilizer and not QT anything. If that works for you I'm super happy for you. But we've lost about $500 worth of fish in the last year so I'm going to be quarantining all the fish from now on, lol.

 

[madducks42]

Doh! Did I put this in the wrong category?

 

[mfinn]

I use either a 20 gallon or a 29 gallon tank ( depending on fish size or amount) for quarantine tank.
I use a free standing air powered sponge filter in it that is seeded in the sump of my display tank. I always keep one going so I'm ready for anything.
While copper can be deadly in high amounts, so can many medications we use.
Used at the proper dosage, it will only kill the parasites.

I use either copper or chloroquine phosphate depending on which fish it is.
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/fish-and-treatment-guidelines-with-chart.283450/

I don't qt any clean up crew.
I will acclimate they for a short time with water transfer, then do a final rinse in a veggy colander with tank water, and then add to the tank.
When I used my 50 gallon tank as a dedicated zoanthid tank, I did use my bigger tank as a sort of quarantine system for new zoanthid frags, but only after doing a couple dips.

I keep mostly softies and lps so there isn't too many issues or predators associated with these corals. ( except zoanthids, there are several )