Finally rolled snake-eyes

[mikerunkle]

I've had SW tanks for 17 years or so now and have never used a quarantine tank.

Up until last week, I haven't had the need nor do I think I've ever lost fish because of disease/contamination (but I could be wrong).
Well, last week I broke down and got a "nemo" fish for the kids...Dori, of course. She was fine for the first couple of days, eating well and playing nice with all of other fish, when I noticed a whole host of white spots all over her....and quickly remembering that these damned tangs are very susceptible to ick. Being quite proud of this particular tank and knowing that there is no such thing as reef safe anti-ich, I decided I'll go ahead and setup an emergency hospital tank and try to treat her (and make a boyscout promise to then use it as a quarantine tank from now on). So after nearly destroying my reef trying to catch dori, I got her into my new 10 gallon QT and started administering a copper medicine. FYI, the tank consists of a heater, a rock to hide in and an old hang on back filter (without charcoal in filter pad). I siphoned water from the display tank to fill the QT. The white spots went away after about a week, but dori did not seem to be eating at all. My wife called a few minutes ago and said that dori appears to be quite dead

(thats what I get for going to work, she still seemed ok this morning). So here are some questions for the group.
1. Can you kill a fish with too much copper? Stupidly I did not get a test kit and although I followed the bottle directions, I would add just a splash after each daily partial water change to make up for whatever was lost in the change...its possible the level was too high.
2. I hadn't done QT before because it seemed like a hassle to have a small tank hanging around and I had doubts about the effectiveness of the hang on back filter. How are you folks running your QT? I've read things about leaving rock and filter media inside your display to place in the QT when you set it up, but if you use medicines, doesn't that now preclude putting that rock and filter pads back in the display? not to mention the meds killing the good stuff in the live rock anyway?
3. How often are (successful) QT's having water changed? Are you just adding water from your display or making up fresh everytime?
4. Any fans of hyposalinity (1.010) in conjunction with or instead of medicines?
5. Any other tips or hints to make a QT more successful? I'm assuming that "dori" died of starvation that was caused by stress (the ich and the hour long battle to get her back out of the reef). I've got an order from SWF coming in a week and want to use the QT appropriately but would hate to kill off the order because I've overlooked something obvious.
Thanks

 

[the egregious]

Too much copper can most certainly kill any fish. I would 100% recommend a good test kit for the copper if you use that method of treatment again.
About question number 4, I might be mistaken but I am pretty sure that hypo salinity needs to be precisely 1.009 to be affective, and I would choose it over any other method of treatment.
I hope some others can assist you with your questions.

 

[tizzo]

The reason that copper is frowned upon in the hobby is because the medicinal dose is very close to the lethal dose, and unfortunately for you, you learned that first hand...
In short a QT is like a small display tank. Some prefer to keep LS and LR out of it because if you treat it (then it's officially a hospital tank), but the pourous substances will absorb the medicine then leach it out and blah blah blah...
I really good QT, has been cycled, just like your display, has adequate filtration, just like your display, has powerheads for flow and oxygenation, just like your display and plenty of places for a fish to hide like PVC and such...
You can actually percieve it as a "poor man's tank". If it does have a skimmer, it's usually the extra one from the garage, same with filter.
But since these tanks are so small, water changes are crucial. Whether from your DT or made fresh, it doesn't matter.
Hypo is the recommended treatment for ick for a number of reasons.
It gives your DT an opportunity to be fishless for a while thus letting the parasite that's already IN the tank die off.
If you hafta treat one, you should treat them all.
That's why it's easier to treat them one at a time before they ever even make it into the DT.
HTH

 

[quicksivler]

I have a very large reef tank and use a product buy the name of no ick and it works great.