High Tide Aquatics

Starting a QT - tank size?

IOnceWasLegend

IOnceWasLegend

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So I'm experiencing an outbreak of what I believe to be ich in my DT. I suspect one of the fish was a carrier and the stress of a tank transfer caused an outbreak.

Given I'm going to be doing another tank transfer for all the fish soon (from my current loaner to a more permanent tank), I figure I may as well QT the fish and let the new tank run fallow for a while. However, I recognize that means QTing all my fish simultaneously, which consist of:

Squaretail bristletooth tang (~4")
3 lyretail anthias
4 vanderbilt chromis
Mandarin dragonet
Midas blenny
Royal gramma
Yellow watchman goby
Melanurus wrasse

However, I'm still a novice at (and actively reading up on) QT. What tank size would be suitable for them, or would I need multiple tanks?
 
IOnceWasLegend said:
So I'm experiencing an outbreak of what I believe to be ich in my DT. I suspect one of the fish was a carrier and the stress of a tank transfer caused an outbreak.

Given I'm going to be doing another tank transfer for all the fish soon (from my current loaner to a more permanent tank), I figure I may as well QT the fish and let the new tank run fallow for a while. However, I recognize that means QTing all my fish simultaneously, which consist of:

Squaretail bristletooth tang (~4")
3 lyretail anthias
4 vanderbilt chromis
Mandarin dragonet
Midas blenny
Royal gramma
Yellow watchman goby
Melanurus wrasse

However, I'm still a novice at (and actively reading up on) QT. What tank size would be suitable for them, or would I need multiple tanks?
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Can't help with tank size but if you're going to treat them for the ich while in QT then you can put them all in one tank and then just keep your new DT fallow for 76 days.
 
Arvin R said:
Can't help with tank size but if you're going to treat them for the ich while in QT then you can put them all in one tank and then just keep your new DT fallow for 76 days.
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Yep; that's the plan. I'm just trying to figure out what size QT tank I can get away with for all of those fish, or if I'd need multiple tanks.
 
At the risk of peddling snake oil... i use the imaginatarium parasite remedy for dealing with ich. Has been super effective as an in-tank treatment and for QT of new fish.

It does go against conventional wisdom but it has yet to fail me. Admittedly, in rare cases, i have lost a few fish but usually it's because they were too advanced in decline regardless of method.
 
I’d recommend at minimum a 20g tank. I’m using the Aqueon 20g High tanks. I currently have 7 tangs in QT and they are all happy and healthy.

This is my QT set up. Tank on the right is for Cooper / General Cure. Tank on the left is for Observation after QT.

9AA4B63F-448B-4F15-88AD-ADE4149C50C5.jpeg
 
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Also there are certain fish that is more difficult to QT than others. Check out this list. Humble Fish has tons of info on QT if you want to read up on it. I’d be happy to share my method as well.

Difficult Fish to QT guide

Below is a list of difficult fish to quarantine, with specific recommendations on QT strategies for each group of fish. Angelfish (and their sensitivity to copper) I've never figured out if angels being sensitive to copper is a "thing" or not. They do seem to fare a little better in Cupramine...
humble.fish humble.fish
 
Not to stray from the topic, in my reading somewhere, there's always going to be ich in the water.

One time I had a small powerhead pointing at the foot of a nem over night to try to force it to move. That annoyed the fish and they all show white spots like ich. After removing the powerhead, within 24hrs all spots were gone.

About 2 weeks later I did something to the tank that made the ich return. After fixing it, 24hrs later ich gone.

I since added more fish and they're all healthy and eating.

In my scenario, the solution is to remove whatever stress the fish.

Maybe I'm just lucky.
 
popper said:
Not to stray from the topic, in my reading somewhere, there's always going to be ich in the water.

One time I had a small powerhead pointing at the foot of a nem over night to try to force it to move. That annoyed the fish and they all show white spots like ich. After removing the powerhead, within 24hrs all spots were gone.

About 2 weeks later I did something to the tank that made the ich return. After fixing it, 24hrs later ich gone.

I since added more fish and they're all healthy and eating.

In my scenario, the solution is to remove whatever stress the fish.

Maybe I'm just lucky.
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That's the PaulB method (manage) versus the Humblefish method (prevent/eradicate), at least on the humblefish/Reef2Reef forums. The theory being the manage one is riskier, but a lot less guaranteed work than trying to completely prevent and eradicate.

The humble fish version with long quarantines and medications is pretty guaranteed to prevent ich and such from getting into the tank, but it requires quarantining even snails for 6 weeks, nevertheless doing that for corals and anything else. In practice few people want to do that.
 
What I do, and figure is reasonable, is qt all fish per humble fish, but not snails or corals. I do scrub and rinse snails and coral skeletons and dip corals. And also run a good size UV sterilizer.

Have never had disease in display tank in about 3.5 years now with this tank including two complete upgrades and the fish stress that entails (one was also a house move).


Doesn’t have to be all or nothing
 
I’ve got a 20long and a 10gallon I use for qt btw.

You could also use a big ole Rubbermaid tub from Home Depot, only need to fill half full, and when you’re done you have a good storage container for your garage to boot! I do this for tank upgrades and moves
 
IOnceWasLegend said:
So I'm experiencing an outbreak of what I believe to be ich in my DT. I suspect one of the fish was a carrier and the stress of a tank transfer caused an outbreak.

Given I'm going to be doing another tank transfer for all the fish soon (from my current loaner to a more permanent tank), I figure I may as well QT the fish and let the new tank run fallow for a while. However, I recognize that means QTing all my fish simultaneously, which consist of:

Squaretail bristletooth tang (~4")
3 lyretail anthias
4 vanderbilt chromis
Mandarin dragonet
Midas blenny
Royal gramma
Yellow watchman goby
Melanurus wrasse

However, I'm still a novice at (and actively reading up on) QT. What tank size would be suitable for them, or would I need multiple tanks?
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Were those all in your RedSea 250? That is a lot of mid water swimmers.
You are going to need to be very careful QTing that many fish especially known sick ones. That is pretty high density for your DT let alone a smaller QT tank. Putting them all into a even smaller tank medicated will hurt their immunity and increase their stress hormones. Pretty risky proposition for your first real attempt at this. The Anthias and Mandarin feeding well on prepared foods? That is another issue.

Personally, I would either reach out for some help from a LFS or other hobbiest to divide the group and not put them all in one basket ,on your first attempt especially. Give the most difficult fish to who ever has the most experience.

If I was going to attempt this all myself, I think I would tank transfer the fish in small groups using buckets, etc into a stock tank (you have one from the seam failure) starting with the fish that need immediate attention - FW dip on transfers. If a fish starts to decline, separate from group. This will divide the fish lowering stress between them and keeping them from making each other more sick. The fish obviously all had Ick or whatever already (so they have high immunity) and the stress of your seam failure made the disease present. I would want to preserve that immunity using tank transfers (not copper) and giving the fish some chill time to heal. Keep all the buckets separated from each other, especially if using air pumps. Ick can defiantly aerosol and jump into an adjacent tank. They recommend a 10' separation. That is probably conservative, especially if you don't use air pumps, don't have fans blowing air around and use lids. Your work experience should get you to a reasonable separation for your place/conditions and tell you how many buckets you can handle. With enough buckets and space you can have them all moving in parallel.
If you want some more detail on that approach I can elaborate. Understand if you are in a 1 bedroom apartment, that would be a waste of time and not work for you.

If space is a premium, get the biggest free tank you can find on CL, put it on the floor and start moving the fish with a FW dip in between and start treating them - would recommend Copper Power at 2.5 ppm, starting at half that concentration and raising over a few days. Look for signs of other disease while you are at it and know you are going to have a group of immune depressed fish to take care of.

Also, if you raise the DT temp to 80.6 degrees you can drop the fallow time to 45 days. The higher the temps, the quicker the life cycles.
 
@IOnceWasLegend one other thing to keep in mind in this is you actually don't need to QT fish for ich super long. If you haven't, check out the humble fish copper treatment guide. After 14 days of copper the fish are out of QT your fish are ich free and you're able to move them to another tank. The long period is the fallow period for ridding it from your display/corals/snails/rocks/sand/...

I mention that because if you're ok with it taking 4 weeks, and you're transferring to a new tank anyway, you could do the QT in two tranches.

Also, there's interesting information about ich lifecycles and required fallow periods in this New Ich Fallow Period thread. The gist I found relevant:

  1. the 72 day fallow period is likely a misinterpretation of research. The 72 days was based on research that put ich cysts in a setting that effectively maximized its ability to sustain as a cyst, in ways that were very artificial. Additionally the study didn't actually say after 72 days there wasn't any ich; it said a minimum of 72 was required. They stopped the study at 72 days. It is possibly (maybe even likely) that had they not stopped it they would have continued finding viable cysts afterwards.
    1. the artificiality was that they put the ich cysts into sterilized water with I believe antibiotics, preventing bacteria and other things from degrading the cyst and they ran it at very cool temperatures
  2. there's recent research saying you can get rid of all ich from a fallow tank in 2 weeks by raising the tank temps to 86. That likely isn't SPS friendly, but I did it recently in an isolation tank and my softies, starfish, and snails made it through it. That might be helpful if you're looking to move rock/sand/inverts/hardy corals from your old tank to your new tank. The inverse is that if you run the tank at cool temperatures you need to wait very long periods.
  3. there's more to the fallow period than just pulling fish. You also need to ensure no hypoxic/anaerobic areas are in the tank. Cysts will stay dormant practically indefinitely in those regions, subverting even a 72 day fallow.
  4. you need to keep your QT tank physically isolated (rule of thumb is 10ft apparently) from your other tank, to avoid aerosolized spread (that sounds also like a wive's tale, but could be reasonable)
 
Mr2KiEu said:
I’d recommend at minimum a 20g tank. I’m using the Aqueon 20g High tanks. I currently have 7 tangs in QT and they are all happy and healthy.

This is my QT set up. Tank on the right is for Cooper / General Cure. Tank on the left is for Observation after QT.

View attachment 39347
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FYI - You should have those 2 tanks at least 10' apart to eliminate aerosol transmission.
 
Here is a link to show how safe it is to treat all kinds of fish. Your Mandarin dragonet will be the most delicate and they dont like copper
www.reef2reef.com

Fish and Treatment Guidelines (with chart)

Fish and Treatment Guidelines (with chart) The following chart is a quick reference guide on what QT protocol should be used according to which type of fish you are running through QT. It will give you an idea of which methods are generally safest with certain species but is not meant to be...
www.reef2reef.com www.reef2reef.com

Personally I would use something of 50g and up. I have tried 3 med size fish in a 10 and I had to do alot of water changes to keep ammonia down. I use the Seachem ammonia badge to keep an eye on the ammonia

Here is an outline that I use for QT. The only difference is now I run copper at 2.5 for 14 days instead of 2.0 for 30 days due to past experience.. I only have room for 1 QT tank so i just scrub it down real good between each step.
www.reef2reef.com

My Current QT Process

I am frequently asked what my process is for QT, so I am just creating a thread that I can link users to for a reference. On arrival day, I match salinity in QT to arriving fish or make sure it's a touch lower (Usually 1.018). Acclimate (float for 30-45min in bag and release) fish directly...
www.reef2reef.com www.reef2reef.com
 
popper said:
WTF is aerosol transmission? it's like WOW...paranoia
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here is a snipet from an article:
Aerosolization is a more or less theoretical mode of biosecurity failure where a disease propagule is entrapped in a tiny water droplet that moves into the air above an aquarium, drifts in air currents, and then settles in a new aquarium. Due to the small size of these droplets, it would be presumed that mostly bacterial or viral diseases could be transmitted in this fashion. Tank covers and tank separation would be two means to limit this mode of transmission. It has been reported in the literature (citation unavailable) that Amyloodinium spores can travel 12 feet inside aerosolized droplets of water and Aeromonas bacteria can travel over 20 feet. However, propagule pressure also plays into this – it can take a number of pathogens entering a system to actually cause an infection. In most instances, separating aquariums by about six feet, and never stacking aquariums (with potential disease issues above) removes most of this risk.
 
Finnaddict said:
here is a snipet from an article:
Aerosolization is a more or less theoretical mode of biosecurity failure where a disease propagule is entrapped in a tiny water droplet that moves into the air above an aquarium, drifts in air currents, and then settles in a new aquarium. Due to the small size of these droplets, it would be presumed that mostly bacterial or viral diseases could be transmitted in this fashion. Tank covers and tank separation would be two means to limit this mode of transmission. It has been reported in the literature (citation unavailable) that Amyloodinium spores can travel 12 feet inside aerosolized droplets of water and Aeromonas bacteria can travel over 20 feet. However, propagule pressure also plays into this – it can take a number of pathogens entering a system to actually cause an infection. In most instances, separating aquariums by about six feet, and never stacking aquariums (with potential disease issues above) removes most of this risk.
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Can that be translated in layman term? Who the F would understand that ?
 
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Finnaddict said:
here is a snipet from an article:
Aerosolization is a more or less theoretical mode of biosecurity failure where a disease propagule is entrapped in a tiny water droplet that moves into the air above an aquarium, drifts in air currents, and then settles in a new aquarium. Due to the small size of these droplets, it would be presumed that mostly bacterial or viral diseases could be transmitted in this fashion. Tank covers and tank separation would be two means to limit this mode of transmission. It has been reported in the literature (citation unavailable) that Amyloodinium spores can travel 12 feet inside aerosolized droplets of water and Aeromonas bacteria can travel over 20 feet. However, propagule pressure also plays into this – it can take a number of pathogens entering a system to actually cause an infection. In most instances, separating aquariums by about six feet, and never stacking aquariums (with potential disease issues above) removes most of this risk.
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There is actual data showing repeated transmission in a lab of tanks 3 feet away using an air stone. Don't remember if they had a lid. Also saw someone who placed some medium around a tank and could see the micro spray that resulted. They saw pattern in a radius of something 3-4 feet away. They didn't have a lid, but I don't recall if it was air stones or a powerhead. Neither had active fans from memory. Its not BS but you do need to take 10' with a grain of salt or in this case drop of salt water. Typical engineering is 2x - 3x the test results to account for unknown factors such as HVAC air movement and you can get to 10'. It also a probability game and you can mediate with other methods, like a sneeze guard, fan blowing the other way, lids, not using air stones, etc.
 
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