How do you handle your new fish additions?

[Michaelmarc]

This I'm sure is a simple question for those of you who have learned to quarantine any new fish that's added to your reef. My luck finally ran out and whipped out all but two of my fish.

I've got them presently in a hospital tank & treating them with copper for three weeks, doing daily water chages from my main tank.

My question:

What's the general method of handling new arrivals?
How many weeks in the quarantine tank?
Do all fish get treated with copper or only if you see a problem?

This has so devasted my tank I'd like to know the right way.

Thanks for anyone's help.

Mike

[Hal]

What's the general method of handling new arrivals?

Put them in a Quarantine tank. No exceptions.

How many weeks in the quarantine tank?

If no signs of trouble, 4 weeks. If I see a disease or other problem, I reset the 4 week period to day one after I've fixed the problem.

Do all fish get treated with copper or only if you see a problem?

Copper can be rough on the fish, especially tangs. I don't medicate unless I see a problem. If you must use copper, the chelated coppers tend to be a little gentler (e.g. coppersafe). However, hyposalinity is just as effective and is easier on the fish than copper. I highly recommend it over copper.

I also recommend garlic and selcon for soaks of the food. Both supposedly help stimulate a new fish's appetite and is rumored to have provide some assistance with health/anti-disease, even if the fish becomes sick.

Also keep some live brine shrimp handy (if you can) to get/keep the fish eating. The next best thing is probably cyclopeez and frozen mysis shrimp. Just about everything eats those.

Sorry you had to learn the hard way about QT's. Good luck.

[Michaelmarc]

Thanks Hal for your advise.
I've been treating the two fish I have left with copper, so will co9ntinue on with that course this time. I'll look into the hyposalinity treatment method more closely when I think about adding to my tank in two months. It will be a pain in the tookus for two months keeping my reef tank fallow, but that's what needs to happen.
Does the hyposalinity kill other paarasites then ICH too? Logically it follows what a fresh water dip does; the weaker animal can't with stand the lower salinity. Hopefully other parasites/diseases also respond to hyposalinity too?
How long does the food marinate in the garlic/selcon? And do you soak all the time or just occassionally?
Thanks for your help.

Mike

[Hal]

I'm not sure, but I don't think hyposalinity is effective against all parasites. Keep in mind you're only taking it down to 1.009, so it's not the same as a freshwater dip. I would guess that internal parasites (e.g. brooknella) are less effected. I've only heard of it being used on ich.

I recommend the articles by ATJ (userid on reefcentral) on ich and hypo. You should be able to find links to them in various ich threads.

Soak the food in Selcon for as long as you can. I try to hit at least an hour for frozen food, but thats also giving it time to thaw. Flake food would be nearly zero time, since it soaks it right up.

In my mind, the longer you can wait and let the water from the frozen food evaporate, and thereby be replaced by Selcon, the more Selcon you're going to get into the food. Same with garlic.

If it's my main tank, or the fish in the QT looks healthy, I usually soak only occasionally, but only because it's an extra step. In theory you could soak everytime. If the fish is in the QT, I'll soak if I think it's less than 100% healthy, or a couple of times just to give it a jumpstart. Once it's eating well I'll taper off.

[Michaelmarc]

Thanks again Hal. I need to pick up some Selcon & garlic and start doing this when I have fish to feed again. I'll be very selective in th type of fish I put in my tank this time.