masharp1126
Membership Expired
Saw this posted by a "Mr.Wilson" on RC a few days ago and thought the information might be helpful for some. I've never really used QT before, but now that I'm setting up a new tank, I'm going to start it right this time. Losing 6 fish in my old tank within a week of adding something new taught me a lesson. Anyway, here it is, hope it helps.
"Some Helpful Guidelines:
1) A lid to keep in jumpers (glass or egg-crate). Wrasse and gobies are far more likely to jump in a small empty tank. PVC hiding places will also help.
2) A heater. much more important than in display tank. Unlike freshwater, marine ich is cued by temperature increases, rather than decreases. A heater will make a consistent temp.
3) Indirect, diffused light. Try to keep a ten hour photo-period to reduce stress. Many antibiotics are photo-degradable, so direct light should be avoided. Sudden light flashes as experienced with fluorescents will cause fish to jump and go into shock.
4) An artificial bio-filter. This can be a bio-wheel or canister filter that is normally run on the display tank to keep it cycled. It is too small to adversely affect the display tank. Remember not to use carbon as it will remove medications. Alternatively, you could just store the filter media in the display tanks sump to keep the bacteria viable.
5) Have plastic cups to catch and move fish. Unlike freshwater fish, marine fish haven't adapted to breathing atmospheric air even for a brief period of time. Most secondary bacterial infections are caused by fish net abrasions.
6) An ultraviolet (UV) sterilizer. They cost a couple hundred dollars but they will pay themselves off after they save a few fish. The bulb will last a long time as it will only be used while you have fish in the QT. You could borrow a UV sterilizer from the display tank without causing too much trouble. UV sterilization should be discontinued if you are using antibiotics.
7) Have medications on hand so they are there when you need them. I use chloramphenical and neomycin together as a prophylactic treatment for bacterial infections. I use coppersafe or cupramine with quinacrine hydrochloride (quinine) for parasites. Malachite green, formalin, and nitrofurazone are also good to have around, but they adversely affect water quality and should be used only when needed. Rifampin or isoniazid should also be used prophylactically to prevent marine tuberculosis (mycobacterium) which is very common in new arrivals. Dewormers such as piperazine should be given in the food. None of these preventative treatments greatly affect water quality and will not cause significant mutation (resistant strains) of pathogens. Quarantine for 21 days minimum to break the parasite life cycle.
8) Keep a low salinity of 1.013 to 1.017. Stressed marine fish can dehydrate when placed in standard salinity water (1.023+). They don't have a healthy slime coat to regulate osmotic pressure and have to work a lot harder to pump salts out of their bodies. A lower salinity will also slow fish metabolism and kill parasites. Ammonia is also less toxic at a lower salinity as well. Fish adapt well to being moved to water with a lower salinity. They adapt poorly to moves to higher salinity.
9) Keep mixed saltwater on hand. Use display tank water for QT tank water changes. Add new saltwater to display. This will remove nitrogen compounds from QT and supply fresh pro-biotics (micro-organisms that will out-compete with pathogens). Following this practice assures that the quarantined fish will be acclimated to display tank water at all times. Remember to top-off meds and adjust salinity. One week before moving the QT fish to the display tank, you can start adding more display tank water to slowly raise the salinity to avoid osmotic shock.
10) Use large pvc pipe segments for hiding places. Paint back and side walls to provide additional shelter.
11) If a disease breaks out, sterilize the tank with bleach before re-use.
12) have a bucket of aerated freshwater of equal temperature handy for freshwater dips. Don't use RO/DI water for freshwater dips. Tap-water has a closer PH and general hardness. The chlorine is also medicinal as an oxidant.
13) Make sure your medications are compatible. Formalin and nitrofurazone don't mix for example. EM (erythromycin) doesn't mix with calcium salts, and EM and nitrofurazone don't mix well either.
14) Medications have a treatment and prophylactic dose. For example, copper should be 15 ppm for QT and 30 ppm for HT (hospital tank).
15) Use a bare bottom, so you can wipe the inside surfaces daily (in HT). This will dislodge and kill parasites in the tomont, trophont, and dinospore stages of their life cycle. A diatom filter will remove these 25-50 micron parasites. You also want to avoid calcareous media as it binds copper.
16) Medicating the food will help treat the fish for internal bacterial, parasite, and fungal infections without adversely affecting water quality. Short freshwater dips and medicated saltwater baths will also help.
17) A flashlight is a very effective tool while evaluating fish health. It casts a shadow if cysts are present. This gives you a good head start for treatment.
18) A sharp, new, single edged razor blade can be used to trim away lymphocystis on the margins of fins.
19) Use a dedicated net for the QT and HT. You can use potassium permanganate or methylene blue as a net disinfectant. Segregate any thermometers, towels, feeding devices, and wash your hands to avoid spreading pathogens to the display tank.
20) A good camera will help you take pictures to submit for help in diagnosis and treatment.
21) Have a smaller, second HT tank for very sick fish. This helps eliminate fish to fish disease transmission as the healthy fish pick on the sick ones.
<u>Medication Tips</u>
Amyloodinium Occelatum (Oodinium/protozoan/dinoflagellate/ich/velvet) is a tough one. It can multiply quickly and the symptoms aren't as obvious as Cryptocaryon type ich, with it's larger pinhead (crypto), rather than pin tip (oodinium), sized cycts.
A thin film of mucous on the eyes, tail and pectoral fins is only noticed when compared to a "healthy" fish. QT and HT systems have subdued lighting that mask symptoms. Not only are they darker, but you don't spend as much time watching the fish, so you don't notice scratching and lurking at the surface or near water flow outlets, as you would with a display tank.
Rapid or slow labored breathing are common symptoms, as the gills are affected first, but once again, you may not notice this if the fish are hiding or excitable. Darting around or glancing off of rocks is another tell-tail sign. Healthy fish will never scratch or sit in front of water flow outlets with their mouth open.
The best way to inspect the fish is to shine a bright flashlight on them at a slight angle. This method is far better than relying on MHL lighting as it shows the shadows of cycts. Oodinium has such a fine dusting, that it can often appear like the natural shimmer of the scales. The cysts are usually rust in color, but mucous coating can make them look white. It is common for the fishes natural defense mechanism, the slime coat and scales, to not only obscure the cysts from view, but hinder exposure to medications.
Vibrio bacteria (V. Angularium for example) is another disease that can cause quick and unexpected mortality. Toxins like copper are another possibility, but highly unlikely due to the safety of the other occupants. Water quality is also unlikely to kill two fish that quickly, with the exception to a low dissolved oxygen level. Nitrite is the parameter to watch at the age of your aquarium.
Take it easy on the calcium and carbonate supplements as you only need to replace what is utilized. Stability is more important than achieving "ideal" calcium, magnesium, and carbonate parameters.
For the sake of getting to the root of your problem, I'll assume nothing. I realize you have a lot of flow, but do you have adequate movement of water at the substrate to the surface air/water interface? This is the only area where a significant amount of oxygen enters the water, and despite excessive flow rates and turnovers, poor flow dynamics can cause sub-saturation DO levels.
I know it sounds unlikely, but I can attest that poor flow patterns alone can kill fish, while not affecting invertebrates, in a big tank like yours. You have a lot of biological activity and chemical build-up right now due to the age of your tank.
I believe I raised the same flow question back when you had the phytoplankton/dinoflagellate problem. An easy way to test this would be to buy a cheap marine fish and use it as a guinea pig. If it survives and swims normally after a week or two, it will test a few of these possibilities. I wouldn't suggest using brackish fish like guppies or mollies for the test as you won't have proper controls on the experiment. A royal gramma would be a peaceful, inexpensive, disease resistant test fish. they aren't common ich carriers, so foregoing Qt would be an acceptable risk.
Obviously that Black tang is going to need some serious QT time before he gets thrown into the fray. Wait until a few fish survive before adding him.
To save me from re-reading the whole thread, are you currently medicating the fish in the QT? If so, with what and at what levels? Are you checking, and topping these up accordingly?
Oodinium should be treated in the QT/HT with the following regimen.
1) Give the fish a two minute freshwater bath. Use dechlorinated tap water for this. RO/DI water is ion-poor with a neutral PH and low alkalinity, causing undue stress. Tap water may have elevated levels of heavy metals, but nothing that will adversely affect a fish for the two minute duration. Also make sure the water is of the same temperature.
Certain delicate fish like gobies, blennies and wrasse cannot tolerate freshwater dips. These fish are less likely to have ich anyway, so it's no great loss if they skip the bath. Monitor the fish during the bath and discontinue if they appear to be overly stressed (lying on their sides or darting around erratically).
Repeat once daily if breathing heavily or rapidly. Only necessary just before addition to the display tank, otherwise.
2) Maintain a copper level of 0.15 PPM for quarantine, and 0.30 PPM for active treatment. You should try to keep your QT/HT free of calcareous media, as copper is readily adsorbed into it. Replace rocks with PVC pipes, and aragonite with silica sand or glass beads (as used for sand blasting).
Mardels' "Coppersafe", and Seachems' "Cupramine" are the best copper sources. Make sure your test kit measures "free copper", which is bio-available copper, rather than "total copper", which includes copper bound in calcareous media.
Maintain copper levels for 21 days to cover the parasite life cycle.
3) Add Quinacrine Hydrochloride, at a level of 250 mg per 10 gallons. Quinine is photo-degradable, so discontinue lighting. Quinine may give lightly colored fish a dark appearance. Tetra and Sera offer quinine-based medications in various cocktails. Online fish-room supply houses offer it in a "pure" form (Dynapet, or Argent).
Quinine will not adversely affect water quality, but it will kill some invertebrates. It can be used with any fish, including "scaleless" varieties. It remains effective in the water for only two days, but it remains within the fishes tissue for a period of ten days. This is a nice feature as you can treat the fish just prior to adding them to the display tank. They will be protected for a ten day period, while they acclimate and settle real estate disputes with existing tank inhabitants. This carries them over the stress period and the natural life cycle of the parasite.
Dose every second day for a total of three treatments, or according to the manufacturers recommendations.
4) Add Metronidazole (Flagyl) at 250 MG per 10 gallons. Metronidazole is a protazoacide that can be effective against Oodinium and Cryptocaryon. It too, has little effect on nitrifying bacteria colonies.
Repeat treatment every second day for three treatments.
5) If the fish are experiencing heavy or rapid breathing, add methylene blue or malachite green, according to manufacturers directions. These will have little effect on the parasites, but they free gill plates of mucous and aid in respiration.
Fish don't die from the parasite, but from the symptoms. In the case of Oodinium, the gill plates become obstructed with mucous, and the fish in-effect drowns. This is why your fish may have died without outward symptoms. Medications may have taken care of external cysts, but the ones in the gills were shielded from the copper.
The quality and strength of malachite green and methylene blue medications/dyes range greatly. Buy premium brands like Mardel or Kordon.
Formalin has some value in a saltwater bath, but the balance of toxicity to the fish and pathogen is hard to achieve. It should be used only if parasites show resistance to all other treatments. The dose is 6-10 drops per gallon for 20 minutes. This is an over-simplified method, as there are many facets to formalin (37% formaldehyde). It forms dangerous nalaformaldehyde precipitate at the bottom of older stock solutions, and it has a methanol stabilizer that needs to be aerated out for a few hours. Seachem has an "Aldehyde" alternative called "Paraguard", but it's less effective. Formalin should be reserved for treatment of Brooklynella in clownfish.
Copper lowers the fishes production of natural immunization agents like interferon, lysozymes, and antibody proteins. Garlic has proven to be effective in restoring this ability, but it only works if the fish are eating. While garlic is a "chicken soup remedy" in advanced cases, it has value if used early. After all, it is only the fish that can truly cure itself, and a strong immune system is at the center of it all.
It's a good idea to treat fish that have been exposed to copper with antibiotics to treat secondary bacterial infections. The soars that cysts leave behind are easily infected when the fishes immune system is depleted. This is why many fish with parasite infections, also show signs of bacterial or fungal infection. It makes diagnoses difficult, as only one ailment is treated, when in fact there are two offending pathogens.
Chloramphenicol and neomycin (250 MG per 10 gallons, each) are the most effective, broad spectrum, antibiotics. They can be used in concert, and they have comparatively low impact on nitrifying bacteria. The best way around this is regular water changes in the QT/HT, using water from the DT. Top-up medications accordingly, and discontinue chemical filtration such as protein skimming and molecular absorption (carbon, polyfilters, chemipure, ion exchange resins).
In summary, if you see no signs of parasites, keep the copper at 0.15 PPM, and add the other medications only as needed."
"Some Helpful Guidelines:
1) A lid to keep in jumpers (glass or egg-crate). Wrasse and gobies are far more likely to jump in a small empty tank. PVC hiding places will also help.
2) A heater. much more important than in display tank. Unlike freshwater, marine ich is cued by temperature increases, rather than decreases. A heater will make a consistent temp.
3) Indirect, diffused light. Try to keep a ten hour photo-period to reduce stress. Many antibiotics are photo-degradable, so direct light should be avoided. Sudden light flashes as experienced with fluorescents will cause fish to jump and go into shock.
4) An artificial bio-filter. This can be a bio-wheel or canister filter that is normally run on the display tank to keep it cycled. It is too small to adversely affect the display tank. Remember not to use carbon as it will remove medications. Alternatively, you could just store the filter media in the display tanks sump to keep the bacteria viable.
5) Have plastic cups to catch and move fish. Unlike freshwater fish, marine fish haven't adapted to breathing atmospheric air even for a brief period of time. Most secondary bacterial infections are caused by fish net abrasions.
6) An ultraviolet (UV) sterilizer. They cost a couple hundred dollars but they will pay themselves off after they save a few fish. The bulb will last a long time as it will only be used while you have fish in the QT. You could borrow a UV sterilizer from the display tank without causing too much trouble. UV sterilization should be discontinued if you are using antibiotics.
7) Have medications on hand so they are there when you need them. I use chloramphenical and neomycin together as a prophylactic treatment for bacterial infections. I use coppersafe or cupramine with quinacrine hydrochloride (quinine) for parasites. Malachite green, formalin, and nitrofurazone are also good to have around, but they adversely affect water quality and should be used only when needed. Rifampin or isoniazid should also be used prophylactically to prevent marine tuberculosis (mycobacterium) which is very common in new arrivals. Dewormers such as piperazine should be given in the food. None of these preventative treatments greatly affect water quality and will not cause significant mutation (resistant strains) of pathogens. Quarantine for 21 days minimum to break the parasite life cycle.
8) Keep a low salinity of 1.013 to 1.017. Stressed marine fish can dehydrate when placed in standard salinity water (1.023+). They don't have a healthy slime coat to regulate osmotic pressure and have to work a lot harder to pump salts out of their bodies. A lower salinity will also slow fish metabolism and kill parasites. Ammonia is also less toxic at a lower salinity as well. Fish adapt well to being moved to water with a lower salinity. They adapt poorly to moves to higher salinity.
9) Keep mixed saltwater on hand. Use display tank water for QT tank water changes. Add new saltwater to display. This will remove nitrogen compounds from QT and supply fresh pro-biotics (micro-organisms that will out-compete with pathogens). Following this practice assures that the quarantined fish will be acclimated to display tank water at all times. Remember to top-off meds and adjust salinity. One week before moving the QT fish to the display tank, you can start adding more display tank water to slowly raise the salinity to avoid osmotic shock.
10) Use large pvc pipe segments for hiding places. Paint back and side walls to provide additional shelter.
11) If a disease breaks out, sterilize the tank with bleach before re-use.
12) have a bucket of aerated freshwater of equal temperature handy for freshwater dips. Don't use RO/DI water for freshwater dips. Tap-water has a closer PH and general hardness. The chlorine is also medicinal as an oxidant.
13) Make sure your medications are compatible. Formalin and nitrofurazone don't mix for example. EM (erythromycin) doesn't mix with calcium salts, and EM and nitrofurazone don't mix well either.
14) Medications have a treatment and prophylactic dose. For example, copper should be 15 ppm for QT and 30 ppm for HT (hospital tank).
15) Use a bare bottom, so you can wipe the inside surfaces daily (in HT). This will dislodge and kill parasites in the tomont, trophont, and dinospore stages of their life cycle. A diatom filter will remove these 25-50 micron parasites. You also want to avoid calcareous media as it binds copper.
16) Medicating the food will help treat the fish for internal bacterial, parasite, and fungal infections without adversely affecting water quality. Short freshwater dips and medicated saltwater baths will also help.
17) A flashlight is a very effective tool while evaluating fish health. It casts a shadow if cysts are present. This gives you a good head start for treatment.
18) A sharp, new, single edged razor blade can be used to trim away lymphocystis on the margins of fins.
19) Use a dedicated net for the QT and HT. You can use potassium permanganate or methylene blue as a net disinfectant. Segregate any thermometers, towels, feeding devices, and wash your hands to avoid spreading pathogens to the display tank.
20) A good camera will help you take pictures to submit for help in diagnosis and treatment.
21) Have a smaller, second HT tank for very sick fish. This helps eliminate fish to fish disease transmission as the healthy fish pick on the sick ones.
<u>Medication Tips</u>
Amyloodinium Occelatum (Oodinium/protozoan/dinoflagellate/ich/velvet) is a tough one. It can multiply quickly and the symptoms aren't as obvious as Cryptocaryon type ich, with it's larger pinhead (crypto), rather than pin tip (oodinium), sized cycts.
A thin film of mucous on the eyes, tail and pectoral fins is only noticed when compared to a "healthy" fish. QT and HT systems have subdued lighting that mask symptoms. Not only are they darker, but you don't spend as much time watching the fish, so you don't notice scratching and lurking at the surface or near water flow outlets, as you would with a display tank.
Rapid or slow labored breathing are common symptoms, as the gills are affected first, but once again, you may not notice this if the fish are hiding or excitable. Darting around or glancing off of rocks is another tell-tail sign. Healthy fish will never scratch or sit in front of water flow outlets with their mouth open.
The best way to inspect the fish is to shine a bright flashlight on them at a slight angle. This method is far better than relying on MHL lighting as it shows the shadows of cycts. Oodinium has such a fine dusting, that it can often appear like the natural shimmer of the scales. The cysts are usually rust in color, but mucous coating can make them look white. It is common for the fishes natural defense mechanism, the slime coat and scales, to not only obscure the cysts from view, but hinder exposure to medications.
Vibrio bacteria (V. Angularium for example) is another disease that can cause quick and unexpected mortality. Toxins like copper are another possibility, but highly unlikely due to the safety of the other occupants. Water quality is also unlikely to kill two fish that quickly, with the exception to a low dissolved oxygen level. Nitrite is the parameter to watch at the age of your aquarium.
Take it easy on the calcium and carbonate supplements as you only need to replace what is utilized. Stability is more important than achieving "ideal" calcium, magnesium, and carbonate parameters.
For the sake of getting to the root of your problem, I'll assume nothing. I realize you have a lot of flow, but do you have adequate movement of water at the substrate to the surface air/water interface? This is the only area where a significant amount of oxygen enters the water, and despite excessive flow rates and turnovers, poor flow dynamics can cause sub-saturation DO levels.
I know it sounds unlikely, but I can attest that poor flow patterns alone can kill fish, while not affecting invertebrates, in a big tank like yours. You have a lot of biological activity and chemical build-up right now due to the age of your tank.
I believe I raised the same flow question back when you had the phytoplankton/dinoflagellate problem. An easy way to test this would be to buy a cheap marine fish and use it as a guinea pig. If it survives and swims normally after a week or two, it will test a few of these possibilities. I wouldn't suggest using brackish fish like guppies or mollies for the test as you won't have proper controls on the experiment. A royal gramma would be a peaceful, inexpensive, disease resistant test fish. they aren't common ich carriers, so foregoing Qt would be an acceptable risk.
Obviously that Black tang is going to need some serious QT time before he gets thrown into the fray. Wait until a few fish survive before adding him.
To save me from re-reading the whole thread, are you currently medicating the fish in the QT? If so, with what and at what levels? Are you checking, and topping these up accordingly?
Oodinium should be treated in the QT/HT with the following regimen.
1) Give the fish a two minute freshwater bath. Use dechlorinated tap water for this. RO/DI water is ion-poor with a neutral PH and low alkalinity, causing undue stress. Tap water may have elevated levels of heavy metals, but nothing that will adversely affect a fish for the two minute duration. Also make sure the water is of the same temperature.
Certain delicate fish like gobies, blennies and wrasse cannot tolerate freshwater dips. These fish are less likely to have ich anyway, so it's no great loss if they skip the bath. Monitor the fish during the bath and discontinue if they appear to be overly stressed (lying on their sides or darting around erratically).
Repeat once daily if breathing heavily or rapidly. Only necessary just before addition to the display tank, otherwise.
2) Maintain a copper level of 0.15 PPM for quarantine, and 0.30 PPM for active treatment. You should try to keep your QT/HT free of calcareous media, as copper is readily adsorbed into it. Replace rocks with PVC pipes, and aragonite with silica sand or glass beads (as used for sand blasting).
Mardels' "Coppersafe", and Seachems' "Cupramine" are the best copper sources. Make sure your test kit measures "free copper", which is bio-available copper, rather than "total copper", which includes copper bound in calcareous media.
Maintain copper levels for 21 days to cover the parasite life cycle.
3) Add Quinacrine Hydrochloride, at a level of 250 mg per 10 gallons. Quinine is photo-degradable, so discontinue lighting. Quinine may give lightly colored fish a dark appearance. Tetra and Sera offer quinine-based medications in various cocktails. Online fish-room supply houses offer it in a "pure" form (Dynapet, or Argent).
Quinine will not adversely affect water quality, but it will kill some invertebrates. It can be used with any fish, including "scaleless" varieties. It remains effective in the water for only two days, but it remains within the fishes tissue for a period of ten days. This is a nice feature as you can treat the fish just prior to adding them to the display tank. They will be protected for a ten day period, while they acclimate and settle real estate disputes with existing tank inhabitants. This carries them over the stress period and the natural life cycle of the parasite.
Dose every second day for a total of three treatments, or according to the manufacturers recommendations.
4) Add Metronidazole (Flagyl) at 250 MG per 10 gallons. Metronidazole is a protazoacide that can be effective against Oodinium and Cryptocaryon. It too, has little effect on nitrifying bacteria colonies.
Repeat treatment every second day for three treatments.
5) If the fish are experiencing heavy or rapid breathing, add methylene blue or malachite green, according to manufacturers directions. These will have little effect on the parasites, but they free gill plates of mucous and aid in respiration.
Fish don't die from the parasite, but from the symptoms. In the case of Oodinium, the gill plates become obstructed with mucous, and the fish in-effect drowns. This is why your fish may have died without outward symptoms. Medications may have taken care of external cysts, but the ones in the gills were shielded from the copper.
The quality and strength of malachite green and methylene blue medications/dyes range greatly. Buy premium brands like Mardel or Kordon.
Formalin has some value in a saltwater bath, but the balance of toxicity to the fish and pathogen is hard to achieve. It should be used only if parasites show resistance to all other treatments. The dose is 6-10 drops per gallon for 20 minutes. This is an over-simplified method, as there are many facets to formalin (37% formaldehyde). It forms dangerous nalaformaldehyde precipitate at the bottom of older stock solutions, and it has a methanol stabilizer that needs to be aerated out for a few hours. Seachem has an "Aldehyde" alternative called "Paraguard", but it's less effective. Formalin should be reserved for treatment of Brooklynella in clownfish.
Copper lowers the fishes production of natural immunization agents like interferon, lysozymes, and antibody proteins. Garlic has proven to be effective in restoring this ability, but it only works if the fish are eating. While garlic is a "chicken soup remedy" in advanced cases, it has value if used early. After all, it is only the fish that can truly cure itself, and a strong immune system is at the center of it all.
It's a good idea to treat fish that have been exposed to copper with antibiotics to treat secondary bacterial infections. The soars that cysts leave behind are easily infected when the fishes immune system is depleted. This is why many fish with parasite infections, also show signs of bacterial or fungal infection. It makes diagnoses difficult, as only one ailment is treated, when in fact there are two offending pathogens.
Chloramphenicol and neomycin (250 MG per 10 gallons, each) are the most effective, broad spectrum, antibiotics. They can be used in concert, and they have comparatively low impact on nitrifying bacteria. The best way around this is regular water changes in the QT/HT, using water from the DT. Top-up medications accordingly, and discontinue chemical filtration such as protein skimming and molecular absorption (carbon, polyfilters, chemipure, ion exchange resins).
In summary, if you see no signs of parasites, keep the copper at 0.15 PPM, and add the other medications only as needed."