Warning to all those who don't QT
 

It's been a devastating 24 hours watching fish in my QT die of velvet because Canada has banned most of the helpful medications. It seems that those that are not banned are very hard to get and the shipping would take longer than I think my fish can survive.

I am not going to name stores but it came from what I would call a very reputable local shop. I am 99% sure it came from this shop.

I had my Porcupine Puffer in QT for almost 2 months and he came from another person's aquarium, not a store. He was not showing any signs of any parasites but unfortunately my display tank was not ready. Then I made a huge mistake...I added a tang and chromis to my QT thinking that worst case, I would treat them with hyposalinity if they show signs of ich. The fish looked really great in the store. A week later and the tang is dead, the chromis are dead and my puffer is suffering. I am surprised he is still alive but he is a pretty big guy.

I have one last hope to save the puffer but it's a bit of a shot in the dark. I guess I'm just venting and reminding people to QT. I can only imagine if I had added these perfectly healthy looking fish to an established display tank. It's so easy to QT...

yes QTìng is crucial if you love your fish . Luckily I have all but 2 fish I want and those fish are rarely available so I have no temptations to add new fish . But plan in advance , never impulse buy(REALLY NEVER) and leave the fish in QT for 3-4 months if possible . I have has some fish going on 15 years now so would be devastating to kill them by adding a new fish . But good luck saving your Puff

Sorry to hear about your loss:sad: Now that I have a tankful of fish that have been with me for a while, I’m quite fearful of this scenario as well.

Really wishing you luck with your puffer’s recovery. How is he doing?

Agreed. I got out of the hobby some years back because I made a mistake and did not QT a new fish which introduced velvet to my display killing almost every fish including some that I had for years. I remember not even having the energy to come on here and mention it or ask for help, I was just done with it all.

I really regret adding more fish to my QT before the puffer had gone to the display tank. I also keep thinking about how every other fish from the system that I got this tang from has been exposed to velvet and could infect other people's tanks.

I'm sure I sound all preachy now but it's frustrating to buy sick fish and not have access to the right medications anymore. I don't blame the store...it just sucks.

Yeah, you have a beautiful tank and some great fish.

yes thats also a crappy situation , knowing the fish is sick and in a system with others for people to buy and destroy what they have . So always stress QT'ing fish for newbs .

They certainly have made it hard on us and ability to treat fish it is quite frustrating these days.

Sorry to hear about your fish, always sucks. I agree always quarantine, just because a fish doesn't look ill it could very well be carrying something.

Sorry to hear about this. I lost a ton of fish due to velvet over the last year.
And still lost a few recently due to impatience on adding additions.

I'll be setting up a proper quarantine tank and procedure for any new inhabitants.

And i too just recently found out that there are no fish medications readily available at LFS anymore. geez.

Hello

@GreenSpottedPuffer sorry to hear this and thanks for sharing your stories. It's terrible to lose what we cherish. I have read light is crucial for the parasite so maybe somehow stop light from getting to the QT?

Titus

We need to know the source of these problems so we can help to resolve them.

I'm concerned with trends these days to not be transparent and honest. I get it - we don't want any cognitive dissonance / beef with our LFS - but at the same time, we need this information.

Does anybody know what meds are banned? I know that insecticides like Bayer Complete is banned. This is helpful in treating AEFW. But never heard about fish medications being banned.

Is there any article or paper about this?

Fwiw, i was told by LFS anything labelled as "medicaton" was banned in Canada.

I don't know what is banned but I have noticed many websites have nothing under medications anymore.

I have been doing the tank transfer method and so far the puffer is alive and doing really well. It's only been 4 days since I last saw spots so it's too soon to say but hopefully he survives. I have cupramine ready in case he shows any signs of distress again.

Everything is banned.
 

Everything is banned. All The antibiotics, any of the parasite meds like prazipro and cupramine,. Even herbtana and melafix pimafix were taken off the shelves.

It was an expensive month when they banned everything . Bought a stockpile

www.humble.fish for some alternatives, diy copper and hybrid TTM.

I have been doing this. I read the same.

The puffer is still not showing any signs of velvet but he does now seem to have a bacterial infection on his fin. Likely a secondary problem from the velvet and also less than ideal water conditions.

This is where I got the idea to try a TTM. My expectation was that it will at least give him some relief and keep him alive which it has so far. I am now hoping it will actually work to get rid of the velvet all together. If it's successful, I should know in another week or so.

Sorry about the problems you're having...

The easiest and best way to control velvet/ick is with a properly sized UV sterilizer with proper flow rate and a good bulb.

The next best method is copper sulfate, which you can still buy on Amazon.ca, in a QT. You'd need a very accurate scale and a way of testing the copper levels. Copper needs to always be above 0.16mg/l but not above 0.26mg/l. It's also best to add some citric acid to the mix to help it stay in solution better. Sorry I don't remember the recipe anymore... it was a long time ago I used to use it.

I'd never try treating fish with h2o2 as it will burn they're gills.

Cheers,
Tim

Thanks for the info. I did see copper sulfate on Amazon but I wasn't sure if my puffer could handle it or not.

I have run a UV sterilizer on most of my larger aquariums in the past and always felt they helped a lot. I will be doing the same with my new tank.

UV sterlilizer is good for Ick and Velvet?

Do you have any literature on this?
Everything i've read says otherwise... but i'd like it to be true.

Any adbice on the most effective way to setup a QT?
I'm challeneged for space.

What medication do you need? Maybe we have what you need and can help

I'm not sure but I have always thought they helped. There are some great videos on UV sterilizers on BRS TV (youtube). I trust most of what they say on there.

The big thing is to get the flow rate correct for whatever it is that you want to accomplish. For example, if you want to avoid algae, the flow rate needs to be higher than if you want to kill parasites which need more contact time. I have always used them for algae control with high flow rates and never had algae problems, even when using tap water in a FOWLR. They also make the water really clear which I like.

If you want to try and control both algae and parasites at the same time, you can try and go with a oversized UV sterilizer and have a high flow rate. The high flow rate should allow it to keep up with algae but also have enough contact time to kill parasites. I have never tried this but I am probably going to on my new tank.

Thanks for much for the offer. I was looking for cupramine and I did get some. I am good for now.

I have always set up QT's when needed, meaning I don't keep it running all the time.


What I do is... keep ceramic biomedia in my main tanks sump, if you don't have a sump you can keep it in your main display somewhere. When I am going to buy fish, I pull out my QT tank and put the biomedia in a HOB filter. Add a heater and some PVC pieces for the fish to hide in. I let that sit for a few days and then add fish. I also like to have an ammonia badge (cheap on amazon) so I always know right away if there is an ammonia issue. You can keep something like 'Prime' on hand in case of an ammonia issue. It will temporarily detoxify ammonia. Keep in mind if you use a product to detox ammonia, your test kits or monitor will still read ammonia in the water, it is just not toxic to fish for a period of time.

Since my QT's are usually around 20G, I try and buy small fish. In the past when I was buying some large fish, I used larger rubbermaids that I re-purposed as storage after.

If the fish show signs of disease, you can then decide how to treat them and turn the QT into a hospital tank.

Once QT is done, I just sanitize everything and put it in storage. You should throw away the ceramic balls after QT and put new ones in your sump for next time.

Yes, UV's are very effective against Velvet due to the trophonts small size.

There is a lot of literature out there about how to configure a UV's flow rate. If you have too low of a flow rate for the tank volume or too high of a flow rate through the UV or an old bulb they will not be effective.

This book will explain it.

https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/sh...ms_Engineering

Cheers,
Tim

found this article that seems to outline things.
http://www.americanaquariumproducts....ilization.html

yes QTìng is crucial if you love your fish . Luckily I have all but 2 fish I want and those fish are rarely available so I have no temptations to add new fish . But plan in advance , never impulse buy(REALLY NEVER) and leave the fish in QT for 3-4 months if possible . I have has some fish going on 15 years now so would be devastating to kill them by adding a new fish . But good luck saving your Puff