To QT or not to QT

So are you saying that you are going to hold and treat every fish for at least 6-8 weeks ( typical copper treatment protocol) before you put them out for sale in your store? You will have a continous cycle going I guess? What about the copper sensitive fish?

 

Yup! That's right. Lions can tolerate copper. Everything tolerates Crypto Pro so far and everything tolerates hypo.

 

Gotchya.

 

New QT question: Should you QT fairy wrasse?

I have two females (unknown, as they are red, white belly, black dot on tail which could be a number of fairy wrasse) in a 10 gal QT right now for a few days, planning to keep them in there for at least 4 weeks. They have been behaving as expected (very shy, but eating well). However I just learned that another fish resource website is against QT'ing fairy wrasse in general. They basically say to dip them and add them to the DT. Thoughts?

 

What was their reasoning?

 

Pepper I'll be honest and chime in, I don't QT. I live in an apt, I don't have room to have multiple tanks. So, I try to by the best quality animals I can. Doesn't always happen if you have followed any of my threads lol. As far as ich and QT couldn't you run your quafrintine tank at a hyposalinity to kill the ich opposed to using copper meds. Maybe this is just as stressful I dunno. Just a thought

 

I saw multiple times where they said they should not be QT't, but couldn't actually find why. The site was not against QT tanks; they prompted using then for almost all other fish. My best guess is fairy wrasse need a good size tank to swim. Since most people have smaller QT, the larger DT is preferred. They also need to be feed multiple times per day, and can at least pick at the rocks in the DT. And they are fairly disease resistant, so QT'ing them may not be as necessary as other fish.

That being said, this is my first experience with fairy wrasse, and I am still planning on keeping then in my QT for at least 4 weeks unless someone can back this up.

 

There's never a reason to not QT, you just have to adapt your protocol to meet the needs of of a particular fish. Fish that don't tolerate stress well, you can modify the QT environment to match their personalities. You could put some sand in a container for a wrasse. No fish likes a QT tank.

There's a wrasse weenie on here. Bet they would would know which route to go.

 

Agreed. I actually have a 46 bow setup which is a permanent tank, but acting as a QT for now. I have a lawnmower blenny in there. That is one fish that would not do well at all in a bare bottom QT (IMO). He won't eat any of the herbivore foods I try to feed, but is getting plenty fat eating the algae in the tank. A sand sifting goby would fit in the same category, as they obviously need a sand bottom. A mandarin would be another, as you would need a pod filled tank.

As far as my two wrasses, they seem to be doing just fine for now in the 10 gal bare bottom. I have a few pieces of PVC which they hide and sleep in. They will hide once you go near the tank, but after a minute they both come right out again. And they are eating well, so I see no reason why they should be moved yet.

PS - Love your reason for editing

 

Thanks for the feedback , guys and gals! I originally asked this question on 3reef because it seems when someone has a sick fish, a lot of the posted questions are , " well did you quarantine ? You should always quarantine . " the thing seems to be, if I ask a fish expert in my area and in person... Very few quarantine. Honestly myself, even though I had an ich situation recently (due to a spike in my dt temp because my ac went out) I'm not convinced that I should quarantine my fish. I have never quarantined any of my fish before, had a little situation that is now under control . I had no losses, but feel as though if I started pulling wrasse out of my 110 dt I would have had losses... Most of my fish are wrasse, a few fairy, and my personal opinion today is that I think it is more important to get the fish to a stable environment for his health ( since they have been battered from ocean to shore to store to store....) and then leave him alone. I make sure to keep water params stable and excellent filtration. The QT issue is a topic near and dear to people's hearts, I know. I have only been into saltwater for about 8 months now, haha I will let you know if my opinion changes.