Medications you'll need:
- Metroplex
- Kanaplex
- Focus
- Furan-2
- Coppersafe (any chelated copper sulfate product should work fine, I just use this one personally - I try to stay away from ionic copper since it can interfere with some other meds). When you're running copper, never use an ammonia detoxifier like Prime. It will kill your fish (added benefit - the parasites too). Copper Power is also good to use, and more available. Haven't personally tried it yet.
- API General Cure
- BIO-Spira
- QT Tank
- Hanna Copper Checker
- Something to aerate water in your QT
- FW Dip
- Temp acclimate, observe and get used to feedings.
- Start API General Cure in water - 3 days of meds, 4 day break (run carbon to remove), repeat once. Once done, lots of carbon to remove from water.
- Start copper (raise slowly over period of 5 days, target 1.75 ppm). Immediate concentration of 2.25ppm for active infection of Brook or Velvet. 30 day timer starts on copper once concentration is 1.75ppm. Never let drop below 1.75ppm or the timer restarts. Once 30 days are done, large water change and cuprisorb to remove all copper. If you do a water change at any time, make sure your new water matches the copper concentration in your QT.
- Start antibiotics (Furan-2, Kanaplex): 3 days of meds, 4 days break (run carbon to remove), repeat once. Make sure to aerate water a lot while doing copper/antibiotics. Monitor for bacterial infections, restart as needed. (White fuzzy, pop-eye, etc).
- Start feeding medicated food: 3-4 cubes of mysis, 1 scoop Focus, 1 scoop Metroplex, feed for 14 days. Meds can make food unappetizing for the fish, use garlic and selcon to mask flavor. Once 14 days are done, monitor for white stringy poop, re-medicate as needed. You can keep medicated food in the fridge for about 5 days, toss if it gets any older and make a new batch.
- Observe for 1-2 weeks after complete with all treatments. Any sign of infection, start over - curse the gods.
- Once comfortable to introduce to DT - take a 2 gallon bucket of DT water, take fish from QT to 2 gallon pail, let it chill for 5 or so minutes, then place into acclimation box in the DT.
- Observe for aggression from existing fish. Release when you feel ready.
- Beer
I had a few people ask me about my QT process, so I thought I'd just create a post. I sent most of this to @Lulu_Lunette after talking with her and @Fishfoo at @ADeepBlueSea 's recent meeting.
For the most part, I follow HotRock's QT procedure. https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/my-current-qt-process.483371/
His process is a good read if you're interested to see what the latest on QT is - the major difference between his process and mine is he only runs copper for 15 days whereas I do a full 30 treatment. If you decide to run copper for 15 days you'll need a 2nd, separate QT tank - which is why I do the full 30. I also don't keep and use as many meds as he does, but he is set up to treat every possible issue. What I do is for the 90% of issues you'll run into and I haven't had any major issues. Yet.
When I get a fish, I first start off by temp acclimating the bag in my QT tank. I start my QT sg at 1.0180 or so, the hypo salinity can help suppress some parasites until the meds can take care of them.
Once the fish is in the QT, I observe and get it used to eating for 3-5 days until it is taking food before I start on meds (if it has an active infection I'll start treating immediately).
First I start two rounds of API General cure in the water. This I generally dose 3 days of medication, 4 day break, then 3 more days of meds. Use carbon between to remove it and any toxins from dead parasites from the water - it turns your water yellow so you'll know when it's in the system. This will treat flukes and external parasites. If you have a fish with a ton of flukes, do a fresh water dip before using this med - dead flukes poison the water so a large number of them will kill your fish when they die.You can dose the powder directly to a high flow area or mix it with alcohol and rodi to dissolve. I've done both, generally I stick to just adding it to the back of my AIO so it mixes, but the powder can irritate a fish if it gets on them. I find myself not mixing it in alcohol as much anymore because it causes my skimmer to foam like mad plus I don't like adding additional variables to the QT process. So maybe just stick to adding the powder to the tank as well.
This is where in the process I start running copper. I'll talk more about that after the antibiotics part.
To treat bacterial infections, I'll do Kanaplex + Furan-2, both can be dosed at the same time. Antibiotics reduce oxygen in the water, so make sure you have a power head pointed at the surface for a lot of agitation (this is why I run an internal skimmer but don't run it with the cup).
After dosing the antibiotics, keep the tank dark and wait three days. After 72 hours, use carbon to remove whatever meds are remaining and then wait for 4 days - then do another three day treatment.
For the amount to dose, I follow what the packet says (1 per 20g I think?). You might have to weigh and discard extra, not sure how long it'll keep outside of the packet.
For the metro/focus/general cure food treatment, take some frozen food (like 2-3 cubes), mix with a bit of RODI, 1 scoop of focus (the scoop that comes with focus) and one scoop of whatever med I'm treating with (again, the scoop that comes with the focus powder). I keep this mixture in my fridge in a specimen cup, it'll last 3-5 days before I toss it if I haven't used it all. I feed medicated food for 3-4 days, take a 3-4 day break, then do one more round of medicated food treatment. I observe the remaining time in QT for any white stringy poop - that's a sign of internal parasites (then I do more treatments).
The difference between metro and general cure is general cure will treat worms and internal parasites, whereas metro will only treat the parasites. Usually we don't see a lot of worms in the hobby so I usually only do metro in the food, general cure in the water. If I suspect that a fish has worms, I do general cure in the food.... but I haven't had to do that yet (blood in poop is an indication of worms, or if a fish is very thin even after eating constantly and won't put on any weight).
OK, now to copper. This will kill ich, brook, velvet, pretty much any of the major pests that afflict fish and can kill them. It has the negative affect of suppressing your fish's immune system, so they're more prone to bacterial infections. The one fish I lost while QTing fish was a brunneus wrasse, which I lost halfway through the copper treatment to an infected swim bladder. I start copper by slowly raising my levels using copper safe - I need to dose about 35ml to get my 40g AIO to 1.75ppm Cu. If you're going to run copper, 1.75ppm is the target therapeutic level to maintain for 30 days to kill ich, velvet and brook. If a fish has an active infection of brook or velvet, I'll raise to 2.25ppm for 15 days before lowering back down to 1.75ppm. Ich I will let it ride since the protozoa will fall off of the fish after 3-7 days unless the fish is really bad... but I don't usually buy a fish that is completely coated in ich.
I start raising copper levels right after the general cure water treatment, and while dosing antibiotics. Super important to keep surface agitation in your tank during this time - copper and antibiotics will deplete oxygen in your water very quickly. The trick is to take 4-5 days to raise your levels up to 1.75ppm so it is as gentle on the fish as possible. Once you are at 1.75ppm, your 30 day copper timer starts. If you ever let your copper level drop below 1.75ppm, restart the timer (so honestly err on the side of caution and target 1.80 or so). Ich can't take copper at this concentration during one part of it's life cycle, if your copper stays at this level it'll die, if below it'll be able to move to the next part of it's life cycle and you're just suppressing it, not killing it.
After 30 days, I do a large water change, run cuprisorb to remove any remaining copper, then observe for 3-10 days. During this time I'll raise salinity to match my DT.
Once I'm ready to move the fish from QT to DT, I take a 2 gallon pail of tank water, move the fish from QT to pail, let it hang out for 3-5 minutes, then move to DT in a acclimation box.
It sounds daunting, but once you've done it once or twice it is really easy and is worth the peace of mind (plus not losing any fish is a huge bonus!)
The whole time I run QT, I use a bottled bacteria product to manage ammonia/nitrates. I personally use biospira.
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