QT Questions

I'm finally setting up a QT. Like many, I waited until something happened instead of being proactive. Ich or Velvet killed everything in my tank minus my hi-fin red banded goby. It was really depressing, especially because I've had these fish for around 2 years.

Anyways, I went and bought a 10 gallon tank and biowheel HOB filter. Put some pvc in it, a heater, a piece of LR from my DT to seed the biowheel, and dropped in some ammonium chloride to get the cycle started. I plan to return the LR back to the DT before putting anything in the QT.

My question is basically how everyone handles QT tanks and what to do when medication is needed? I plan to keep it up 24/7. Put a new addition in there for observation for eight weeks. I will treat with Prazipro for the first two weeks on every fish. The next six weeks are observation and if no signs of disease/parasites, off into the DT it goes.

If something does appear, I plan to treat with cupramine. Here is where my confusion lies and I've read conflicting info. Here is what I think is right, please let me know how it sounds:

1. Treat with cupramine for two weeks
2. After treatment, run carbon to get rid of the copper
3. Observe fish for 6-8 weeks

So I've read that calcium carbonate rock will absorb the copper, but what about the biowheel? Will it be fine and not absorb anything AND still have the nitrifying bacteria after treatment?

So do you guys recommend just treating every fish with Cupramine regardless of signs of disease/parasites or only when they are present? After treatment, what kind of cleanup is necessary? And lastly, I know I need to keep tools and equipment separate for each tank, but what is the proper way to transfer a fish from QT to the DT without compromising the DT and the DT's tools/supplies?

 

First, I prefer to seed QT/HT with sponge filters. No live rock. And once you seed, you should not add ammonia, rather just ghost feed. Too much ammonia and you can reverse the cycle more or less.

Here is how I do it:

Week 1 - Observation, get the fish eating and comfortable
Week 2 - Prazipro
Week 3 - Observation
Week 4 - 2nd dose of Prazi-pro if needed
Weeks 5-8 - Observation

I do not prophylactically treat with copper. It is a poison and so I only use Cupramine when required (I am treating 3 fish as we speak).

After treating with copper, I run carbon to absorb the copper. For transferring fish, I do it the same way as when I receive them. Catch them, into my acclimation box, and then do a quick acclimation. I never transfer any of the QT/HT water into my DT.

 

I like the ammonium chloride because it is the bottle from Dr. Tim, so it is easy to measure out a proper concentration.

Is the acclimation box the same one you use for both tanks? And do you use a separate net to go from the box to the DT?

 

I agree completely with Marshall's assessment. In QT, I only treat fish when I observe a problem. It is important to visually inspect your quarantined fish daily and then take action based on your observations.

 

1. I make sure the fish is eating (some can take a while to do this)
2. Two rounds of Prazipro minimum, I've found one round is not enough
3. Cupermine depends on the fish, I try not to treat my wrasses unless absolutely necessary but tangs, butterflies and rabbit fish will not hit my DT without at least four weeks of copper. ( through trial and error I've learned two weeks is not long enough.
4. Cuppermine is ramped up over several days, takes about three times longer than seachem recommends but the fish handle it very well in comparison.
5. Two more weeks for observation

 

Thanks for all of the advice so far. I'll make sure to slowly ramp up the Cupramine if I have to end up using it (pretty sure I will at some point).

I've read conflicting things about copper completely killing the biofilter. Some say it does, some say it doesn't.

My tank will be set up all the time, so it was act as a QT for new arrivals and a hospital tank if needed. Should I be concerned about my biofiltration being knocked out every time I dose Cupramine?

 

Yes. IME, copper can kill the biofilter.

I've never actually used it myself, but I had a neighbor with a 300g FOWLR tank full of large fish. He added a new arrival and it spread ich. Without a second tank for a QT/HT, he treated the DT with copper, and lost everything overnight from an ammonia spike. Being one who prefers to err on the side of safety, I'd be very afraid to suggest that it might not happen; always be prepared for water changes to control ammonia when using copper.

 

Good timing on this thread. Answered every question I had (almost!). My QT is full of copper from treating Ich. Is it better to just set that tank aside and keep it for Ich issues only and start up a completely new separate tank for new additions? Can the tank I've been dosing copper in be cleaned?

 

I have found when dosed correctly in a bare bottom QT/HT (no live rock!), dosing Cupramine does not kill off the bio-filter. Issues come when you dose in a tank with inverts (pods, worms, etc). They will die, which will cause an ammonia spike. I am dosing as we speak and there is no detectable ammonia, nor was there the last time I treated in a HT.

Carbon will remove copper, as will Cuprasorb.

 

Copper is pretty gentle on your bio filter when compared to antibiotics and drugs like quinine phosphate(also used for ich). Where you might have issues with it is if you tried to treat something like a display tank where your not so much killing the biofilter but all the little inverts and stuff.