High Tide Aquatics

Buying Quarantined fish from Bay bridge

It would be great to see a pic!
I got one from a local store near me and it did not look good out of the bag. So i kinda learned the lesson..what did I learn I have no idea lol.

This is my 2nd and last try through Michael.
This is the one I got before and did not make it.
 

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Michael texted me more pictures and updates of the fish. Beautiful specimens, he is treating the shipment including my wrass.
I am refraining from sharing the pics and his detailed detailed write up out of respect for him. He can share these details if he like.

So far so good.
 
So here is the big problem : Quarantined does not mean disease free!
It means isolation from other fish, making sure it is not about to die from shipping, and checking it for a while.
That is great, helps a lot, and could certainly be worth paying for.
But if the fish was sick before it went into quarantine, it can be sick when it gets out. Especially ich.

For ich, you really need to do TREATMENT, not just QT.
And a real treatment, not garlic or other nonsense.
I prefer bucket based tank transfer method, but copper and other options exist.
 
So here is the big problem : Quarantined does not mean disease free!
It means isolation from other fish, making sure it is not about to die from shipping, and checking it for a while.
That is great, helps a lot, and could certainly be worth paying for.
But if the fish was sick before it went into quarantine, it can be sick when it gets out. Especially ich.

For ich, you really need to do TREATMENT, not just QT.
And a real treatment, not garlic or other nonsense.
I prefer bucket based tank transfer method, but copper and other options exist.
I do not think this is correct.
Proper quarantine allow for observing the fish for disease and medicate it if it does carry any. Thats why the 30 days protocol and some would do 45 days protocol.
Quarantine in this thread means isolation and treatment not only isolation.
 
So here is the big problem : Quarantined does not mean disease free!
It means isolation from other fish, making sure it is not about to die from shipping, and checking it for a while.
That is great, helps a lot, and could certainly be worth paying for.
But if the fish was sick before it went into quarantine, it can be sick when it gets out. Especially ich.

For ich, you really need to do TREATMENT, not just QT.
And a real treatment, not garlic or other nonsense.
I prefer bucket based tank transfer method, but copper and other options exist.
Did you order from BBA before? It sounds like you know about their process?
 
No. It is just a general statement.
Just because it is quarantined, it does not mean it is disease free.
Correct, literal meaning of quarantine is isolation.. but just to be clear, in the context of this engagement with BBA, its quarantine and medication of needed.
I would think that's what you should get from any biz claiming quarantine. It make no sense you are paying only for isolation.

Humble fish did some really cool articles on quarantineing and medication. Been learning about that side of the hobby alot from him..
 
Co-worker picked 1 up from AC. Its doing well. Might add 1 later buy I'm on the hunt for a P. attenuatus
As to BBA specifically .... I am skeptical.

1) What sort of treatment do they do before QT? A quick copper dip is not enough.
They do not say, which makes me nervous.
To completely kill ich on an infected fish using copper, it takes upwards of 30 days of treatment.
I seriously doubt they do that with each fish.

2) QT with a lot of other fish being constantly introduced / removed does not really work.
All it takes is one sick fish, and your QT tank is then infected.
Unless is it sterilized between uses, it will simply stay infected.
Removing one sick fish from an infected QT helps that fish, but does not fix the problem.
Since they have a huge 1,000G system, I doubt they clean it between usage.


That said : It is WAY better than just buying a fish and tossing it in your display tank.
I've been to BBA and seen their QT set up. I suggest you swing by if you have the time.

I'll leave it up to Michael if he wants to go into details here about their procedure.

But I will say, if you have fish in your system already that have not been prophylactically treated for disease before introduction into your system, there is no guarantee a fish that has been QT'd and treated for disease will be disease free once it enters your system. Just because your fish do not exhibit symptoms doesn't mean diseases/parasites are not in your system.
 
Michael have shared with me ton of pictures and write up on what he is doing every day and the write up describe medication when needed. Pictures confirming it too. Am jist refraining from sharing the write up and pics incase he do not want me to share it.
What will matter at the end of the day, as a customer, is the conclusion of my experience which will be recorded and shared in this thread...
 
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So I would really wish you delete or at least edit this comment because its not serving anything for this specific thread.
This thread is about me walking through the process and will show people and share my experience. It can end up bad or it can end up good.
What this thread should not be, however, is anecdotal opinion. Especially coming from a BOD.

Your post have nothing to do with BBA I feel and more of a personal view. Maybe it make more sense to have this personal view on a personal thread..do not you think?

Michael have shared with me ton of pictures and write up on what he is doing every day and the write up describe medication when needed. Pictures confirming it too. Am jist refraining from sharing the write up and pics incase he do not want me to share it.
What will matter at the end of the day, as a customer, is the conclusion of my experience which will be recorded and shared in this thread...
Anecdotal is giving your single personal experience with BBA.
Skepticism about a large shared QT system being effective is not anecdotal. It is based on knowing the lifecycle of ich.

I did not intentionally hijack the thread, but the title is "Buying quarantined fish" not "Review of BBA"
Given that, it seems quite reasonable to give a dose of skepticism on the whole process.
 
Anecdotal is giving your single personal experience with BBA.
Skepticism about a large shared QT system being effective is not anecdotal. It is based on knowing the lifecycle of ich.

I did not intentionally hijack the thread, but the title is "Buying quarantined fish" not "Review of BBA"
Given that, it seems quite reasonable to give a dose of skepticism on the whole process.
@MichaelW outlines his process nicely here: https://www.bareefers.org/forum/threads/drreefsquarantinedfish-com.28152/post-414341

Per your terminology of your post a couple of posts up, it appears that the fish are not simply being quarantined but also being treated with various medications, with chloroquine phosphate being the one that treats ich/velvet. Apparently it is supposed to be even better, easier on fish, than copper: https://humble.fish/community/index.php?threads/chloroquine-phosphate.16/. I would say that the term "quarantined" seems to imply QT and treatment by businesses that offer quarantined disease free fish.

Of course you forfeit the control that you have when running your own quarantine process. Personally I plan to TTM most new fish myself, except for more sensitive types like wrasses. I have lost 3 out of the 4 I have tried, so I really would have been better off paying a slight premium and having a fish that has already been through a treatment process.
 
Anecdotal is giving your single personal experience with BBA.
Skepticism about a large shared QT system being effective is not anecdotal. It is based on knowing the lifecycle of ich.

I did not intentionally hijack the thread, but the title is "Buying quarantined fish" not "Review of BBA"
Given that, it seems quite reasonable to give a dose of skepticism on the whole process.
Yup I get that, the difference is that am giving anecdotal based on actual experience, while you are giving an opinion starting by saying you are skeptic about the vendor specifically which I felt was not useful.
Am not accusing you of hijacking the thread rather saying the way you started your "opinion" based review was aggressive.
By all mean go for it. I now recognize that I made a mistake on the title and I should have named it buying a quarantined fish from BBA.

I might be wrong here, so am gonna leave your post alone and keep going with the original intention I had in mind when I opened this thread.

Cheers.
 
@MichaelW outlines his process nicely here: https://www.bareefers.org/forum/threads/drreefsquarantinedfish-com.28152/post-414341

Per your terminology of your post a couple of posts up, it appears that the fish are not simply being quarantined but also being treated with various medications, with chloroquine phosphate being the one that treats ich/velvet. Apparently it is supposed to be even better, easier on fish, than copper: https://humble.fish/community/index.php?threads/chloroquine-phosphate.16/. I would say that the term "quarantined" seems to imply QT and treatment by businesses that offer quarantined disease free fish.

Of course you forfeit the control that you have when running your own quarantine process. Personally I plan to TTM most new fish myself, except for more sensitive types like wrasses. I have lost 3 out of the 4 I have tried, so I really would have been better off paying a slight premium and having a fish that has already been through a treatment process.
I will also add, I am not aware of anyone in this hobby who will mean only isolation when they say quarantine.. its always assumed that quarantine means: isolate, observe and medicate..
 
I will also add, I am not aware of anyone in this hobby who will mean only isolation when they say quarantine.. its always assumed that quarantine means: isolate, observe and medicate..
I know lots of people who mean just isolation when they say QT. If a fish doesn't present ich, doesn't mean it is free of ich. So QT, observe and medicate if disease/parasite manifests doesn't really do anything.
 
Fair enough.
I am generally very frustrated about the ton of misinformation on ich, the many scams involved, and how many
fish end up dead because of that. But yes, my tone went beyond skepticism and into accusation, and it
was unfair to lump BBA into that, so I will delete that part.
 
I know lots of people who mean just isolation when they say QT. If a fish doesn't present ich, doesn't mean it is free of ich. So QT, observe and medicate if disease/parasite manifests doesn't really do anything.
Not sure why would anyone mean only isolate when they say quarantine..do they flush the fish if during isolation it shows disease? I would think they will medicate.
I think with ich its tricky, am not worried about ich. All my fish get ich when I first add them and all recovered after that.

Am worried about more sinister diseases like velvet or others.
My personal philosophy, If you are worried about ich you should not buy any fish.
Because the argument can be, how would u say the fish had ich not your existing fish is the one who has?
I feel we are marginalizig the whole quarantine efforts by judging it of ich.
 
Hi everyone,

For clarification:

Yes, the QT that we do always includes drug treatment unconditionally on every single fish. Some people might choose to isolate only, and that is still a quarantine without treatment, and it still has its benefits; but generally in the industry "quarantined fish" means that it includes drug treatment. As a link above provided, I wrote a brief overview of the process I do at the new shop. I should still do a better writeup. Yes, every single tank gets bleached in between additions or when doing a tank transfer. The former system at the old store also had individual isolation and plumbing, but the water was shared, and drugged, and we used massive amounts of UV and ozone.

Why:
Up to 90% of fish caught wildly have velvet and many other parasites on it (Uronema marinum, etc). It depends on the season and exactly where caught, but that's expected, it's the ocean and these parasites come from the ocean. The true problem is the aquarium systems both at the collection and wholesaler level. The sad reality is most fish caught don't ever make it to an aquarium store at all. Many go through multiple wholesalers in foreign countries where they are aggregated and bought and resold, and die. These systems often are not very advanced and may not use much medication. It then goes through the importer, generally a wholesaler that wants to move the fish as quickly as possible, and has fish coming in and out of the systems often. Only the strongest make it through. What has actually proliferated significantly, especially in the last 2 years is copper resistant velvet (Amyloodinium). There are many different strains of velvet, like all organisms, regional differences and genetic variability occur. Some have adapted to constant exposure to copper, of either excessively low or high concentrations over extended periods of time. You'd assume high concentrations would be totally lethal, but what actually happens is the partial exposure and "treatment" time (days) is insufficient to complete the lifecycle. New additions keep coming in constantly; low levels of copper may not be sufficient for complete eradication fast enough, and for systems kept at very high copper levels constantly, 99% may get eradicated, but the tiniest bit that do survive end up reproducing - very slowly - with much resistance to copper, and normal dosages of copper used in the past are no longer very effective. This same phenomena occurs with antibiotics and produces resistance. UV sterilization at the commercial level kills the vast majority of what flows through it, but some persists on the fish and in the water that doesn't make it into the UV. While under control of UV and slow growing velvet, the fish create antibodies and develop strong resistance to velvet, along with many other external protozoa. This may manifest itself as a fish that eats and appears fine, perhaps with the tiniest of fin erosion if you look super carefully, or muted coloration, but it will gradually become overwhelmed with velvet that can take a long time to kill. The fish can then be put into a tank with fish free of disease, free of medication, and fish not accustomed to parasites, which will then rapidly proliferate on those fish and spread to everyone and cause big losses. Some fish can maintain suitable levels of resistance for months, or even longer, and until an event occurs causing immunosuppression, or a UV sterilizer breaks, it's kept under control. I get a customer coming in to me several times a month with this occurring.

How do I know all this?
I happen to have long had a keen interest in microbial pathogenesis. I received a BS in Microbiology from the University of Hawaii - spending a lot of time with marine fish as a hobbyist, and scuba diving constantly, rarely collecting myself. Prior to opening a fish store in Oakland, I was a Sr Molecular R&D Engineer here in the Bay working on PCR (which everybody knows about now, thanks to COVID) for various human bacterial and viral diseases. I very much continue to learn about ichthyology and I maintain and check out the fish in my microscope here. While I don't dissect each and every fish that dies, or examine everything before sale [It's hard enough trying to get even $20 more for a fish] I regularly examine skin scrapings, fin snips, examine waste, and see what may have caused some mortality if I am not sure.

Many times fish die and it isn't because of anything pathogenic. They can succumb to so many issues - even lactic acid and cortisol from stress just being caught by a net can overwhelm a fish; osmoregulation difficulties, hypoxia from gill inflammation combined with reducers that remove oxygen, even in "aerated" water, etc. Like every living organism, they're very, very complex.
My focus in owning a fish shop has long been towards making new innovations in aquatic treatment. On the side, I am working on various experimental treatments and drugs; one day I'll have new medications out there with delivery mechanisms that can work in a reef tank but also make it out to the collector site in an effort to reduce fish mortality. It takes time. Most of our regular customers are aware that supporting our store goes to those initiatives.

I will never guarantee any fish to truly be free from disease, but can do absolute best practices to making it as healthy as possible given the realities of cost. It is hard enough to sometimes sell fish for $20 more than another shop, even with costs to treat it exceeding that. We still have to pay rent and employees and do more than 1 fish at a time. Anyone selling fish, or quarantining and telling you a fish is disease free, does not have a complete understanding of the complexity and variety of pathogenic organisms that could come along with the fish, and the many other problems a fish may be suffering from that is impossible to detection by visual or observational means of any kind. More often than not, fish suffer ammonia damage from acclimation that doesn't manifest itself for weeks. I will be doing a write up about that at some point. In the future, we will have genomic sequencing and PCR analysis to identify fish pathogens. Even then, however, something pathogenic could still slip through during bagging with a cross contamination event The best that can be done is continued risk reduction and improving the health of the fish to the highest possible level. Healthy fish that have been well adjusted can heal themselves from a wide variety of issues.
 
Not sure why would anyone mean only isolate when they say quarantine..do they flush the fish if during isolation it shows disease? I would think they will medicate.
I think with ich its tricky, am not worried about ich. All my fish get ich when I first add them and all recovered after that.

Am worried about more sinister diseases like velvet or others.
My personal philosophy, If you are worried about ich you should not buy any fish.
Because the argument can be, how would u say the fish had ich not your existing fish is the one who has?
I feel we are marginalizig the whole quarantine efforts by judging it of ich.

Most that I talk to will not medicate if they see ick. They will try to feed heavy, water change etc. Most will not notice flukes, and anything else is usually lethal by the time you see symptoms severe enough past a casual glance.

As @rygh said, there is a lot of misinformation, advice based anecdotal (at best) experiences etc regarding fish disease.

My 2cents.

Even if I buy from a place that does QT/medication, I continue to do my own QT/treatments once the fish gets to me. Why? Because I can then control and qualify each step. I had an ich free tank for a few years. Each fish was put through TTM and was dosed with several medications along the way before being introduced into my tank.
 
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