Quarantine 40-50 fish from existing 500 gallon reef

[Smo]

If I may offer a single data point--I treated my melanurus wrasse with API General Cure in combination with hypo-salinity of 1.015 SG for ten days to rid him and two other fish of potential flukes. (I was never able to identify any flukes conclusively but a clown had fluke-like symptoms that I felt I needed to deal with first.) All three fish then went thru 20 days of CopperSafe at a therapeutic level followed by transfer to a sterile HT in another room because I did not want to push my luck with the wrasse in Cu any longer. (This was my first QT process.) The wrasse did fine thru the entire treatment process. I also provided the wrasse with a dish of sand, which he spent on average 12 hours a day in. I am two months down the road now and all three fish are doing great in the HT. My sailfin tang had classic Ich symptoms, which prompted the Cu treatment and DT fallow period. They will be returned to the DT in the next couple weeks. I am letting a purple firefish and a small royal gramma, who went thru TTM and Prazi, get settled first.

 

[Jeffdstafford]

Interesting, I've never heard of that API medication before, good to know. I'll do some reading on it, thanks for sharing your experience!

 

[Smo]

API General cure contains metronidazole and praziquantel. Guess who I learned that from.

 

[Jeffdstafford]

Sounds like information a humble forum member would know?

 

[Humblefish]

API General cure contains metronidazole and praziquantel. Guess who I learned that from.

Sounds like information a humble forum member would know?

Just yesterday, it was brought to my attention (by a well respected member) that using GC may be harmful to wrasses. I am currently looking into this. I can only imagine it would be the metro side of GC, as the prazi dosage contained therein is less than Prazipro.

 

[Smo]

Just when it seemed we were making progress...

 

[Humblefish]

Just when it seemed we were making progress...

We are... but sometimes you have to take a step back before taking two steps forward.

 

[cmcoker]

Sorry about your wrasses, Jeff[emoji45]

We are... but sometimes you have to take a step back before taking two steps forward.

Hmm, well I'll add that my Paracheilinus lineopunctatus did well with the general cure. All four doses, oops. But seriously he has a little fin rot going right now, but by the third dose it didn't even phase him, would be looking for food when I added the powder. He's still just as ravenous and active as ever.
I'd be very interested to know what the problem seems to be, or if it's certain species as General cure is in my cart at Amazon to replace for the next qt. Which should hopefully be in a few weeks, and probably another wrasse and a Lawnmower blenny..

 

[Humblefish]

@cmcoker Please share that experience here: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/general-cure-and-wrasses.296505/

 

[Jeffdstafford]

Sorry about your wrasses, Jeff

Thanks, and glad you posted your experience with the GC medication. Happy to see we are getting some knowledge exchange going on the new thread Humble created..if there's another effective route that's better for wrasses, I'm all about it. Will be interesting to see the general consensus once that new thread gets a solid sampling of experience and some testing to see if it's indeed a dependable option.

@cmcoker Please share that experience here: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/general-cure-and-wrasses.296505/

Thanks for being proactive Humble!


I had to break down and hook my fan to an outlet on my Apex Jr in the garage to cool the tank, it was 90 degrees here today, and the QT system was at 82.5 when I got home. I'm going to keep it around 82, and hope I don't turn the garage into a swampland from the humidity. Depending on the timing of the new house, if it ends up taking a bit longer, I may have to move the QT system inside to avoid the evaporation and rusting every tool I own that currently resides in the garage..we'll see.

 

[Jeffdstafford]

Been a while everyone; but it's been boring until recently.

First and foremost, there's some fish in the tank again!

It's been a full 90 day fallow period, and recently I've had some hair algae, and unfortunately, some dreaded bubble algae. I noticed a tiny bubble on a frag a few months ago, removed it and didn't think anything of it, but I guess there were spores that made it in the tank. So..I enlisted the help of my Naso, Bristetooth, and Sailfin tangs, and my Magnificent Foxface to clean up the place a bit, and they're doing an admirable job cleaning up the place. I am going to keep the remaining smaller fish out in the QT system, and these larger 4 fish in the display will be easy to catch when we move.
I also randomly got some ammonia buildup in the QT for the first time since the beginning week, and confirmed I had no dead fish, or any obvious reason for the ammonia. I added a bottle of Dr Tim's and did a 50% water change, and all seems back to normal. I bet getting those huge tangs out of the system will be a big help with the ammonia.

We should be closing on the new place end of next week, so I'll start work over there, and get the outside room ready to covert to my fish room. If I'm up for it, I'm thinking of doing a build thread or videos on the progress...we'll see if I can gather up the energy to document it while in the middle of setup.

I think that's it for now..just trying to get myself hyped up for the upcoming nightmare of moving the 600 gallon system!! Seriously, it's going to be awful.

 

[tj w]

Glad to see some fish back in your DT Jeff, it's been quite a ride for you. Look forward to seeing what you do in the new place.

 

[Jeffdstafford]

Thanks TJ!

Now some seriously sad news; my Naso tang mysteriously died over the weekend, and it has absolutely crushed me. He was the most personable fish, extremely fat healthy and active, and he was with me for a very long time...it has been a bittersweet time with the fallow period over and feeling great about things, then this happened.

So, I honestly am stumped on trying to figure out what happened; the only thing I can think of is stress from going from the garage for months in that fairly confined and somewhat dark place to the unfamiliar and open tank. I dimmed my lights for a couple days for them and all seemed well; he was swimming and eating fine, so I figured all was well, then he stopped swimming one night, and dead the next morning. I'm leaning toward stress vs disease, because my other fish aren't showing any symptoms of disease, but they also are skiddish. I'm leaving my lights completely off today and will see if they are swimming around more, and I'll gauge when to turn the lights back on based on how the other 3 fish react.
-Also, I'm wondering if my transfer method was bad; instead of drip acclimating the fish, I matched the display tank temperature and salinity exactly with the QT system, thinking that was the best method to reduce transfer stress, but maybe there were other parameters that were way off that would bother the fish? I have a traceable thermometer that should be within .1 or .2 degrees accuracy so I know temp was good. I tested pH and they are almost identical between the systems, and zero ammonia and nitrate in both systems. I dunno.

Just goes to show you, no matter how long you've been in this hobby and how well you feel like you're doing, reefkeeping will always humble you!!

 

[Brew12]

Thanks TJ!

Now some seriously sad news; my Naso tang mysteriously died over the weekend, and it has absolutely crushed me. He was the most personable fish, extremely fat healthy and active, and he was with me for a very long time...it has been a bittersweet time with the fallow period over and feeling great about things, then this happened.

So, I honestly am stumped on trying to figure out what happened; the only thing I can think of is stress from going from the garage for months in that fairly confined and somewhat dark place to the unfamiliar and open tank. I dimmed my lights for a couple days for them and all seemed well; he was swimming and eating fine, so I figured all was well, then he stopped swimming one night, and dead the next morning. I'm leaning toward stress vs disease, because my other fish aren't showing any symptoms of disease, but they also are skiddish. I'm leaving my lights completely off today and will see if they are swimming around more, and I'll gauge when to turn the lights back on based on how the other 3 fish react.
-Also, I'm wondering if my transfer method was bad; instead of drip acclimating the fish, I matched the display tank temperature and salinity exactly with the QT system, thinking that was the best method to reduce transfer stress, but maybe there were other parameters that were way off that would bother the fish? I have a traceable thermometer that should be within .1 or .2 degrees accuracy so I know temp was good. I tested pH and they are almost identical between the systems, and zero ammonia and nitrate in both systems. I dunno.

Just goes to show you, no matter how long you've been in this hobby and how well you feel like you're doing, reefkeeping will always humble you!!

I'm bummed for you! It is hard to believe that he had survived so much only to pass when he should have been the happiest.

I think your acclimation method was fine and I doubt it contributed. Have you run GAC in your system since you took it fallow?

 

[Jeffdstafford]

I know, totally sucks knowing he endured all the torture of the last few months just to die at the finish line.

I have not run carbon; actually haven't used carbon in over a year in the DT, but definitely couldn't hurt to do a round of it, I will throw some in a reactor tonight and see if that helps any

 

[tj w]

Aww man, sorry Jeff. That sucks for sure. Hopefully the others hang in there and you figure out what happened. I can only imagine how gutted you are about that. Let me know if there's anything we can do to help you out.

 

[Jeffdstafford]

Will do, thanks for the support!

 

[Maritimer]

Drat!

Sorry to hear about your tang, Jeff ... he sure was a handsome fellow, even in lipstick.

~Bruce, hoping your path levels out for a bit . . .

 

[Jeffdstafford]

Ha, yep he was a handsome lip-sticked man indeed!

 

[Humblefish]

Also, I'm wondering if my transfer method was bad; instead of drip acclimating the fish, I matched the display tank temperature and salinity exactly with the QT system, thinking that was the best method to reduce transfer stress, but maybe there were other parameters that were way off that would bother the fish? I have a traceable thermometer that should be within .1 or .2 degrees accuracy so I know temp was good. I tested pH and they are almost identical between the systems, and zero ammonia and nitrate in both systems. I dunno.

All I ever do is match temp & SG, and then transfer the fish on over. So sorry for your loss