Quote:
Originally Posted by
novahobbies http:///t/393200/qt-dragonet-fish#post_3496942
Unfortunately, not that simple. No standard 10 or even 20g QT tank, regardless of how long it's been running, will have enough pods in it to sustain a mandarin for a full month. The point of QT for a mandarin is less about the parasite, and more about weaning the fish to pellets and/or frozen. I do agree that keeping your QT up and running for a while prior to the addition of the fish is a help for mandarins, but you shouldn't expect there to be enough pods to last for more than a couple weeks. These guys can eat hundreds of pods daily if that's their exclusive diet.
QT'ing a mandarin even for a full month may or may not be truly effective with ich. As has been stated...they have a heavy slime coat that (1) resists the parasite and (2) makes it difficult to see if there IS a parasite burrowing into the skin. Further, the argument that the fish might have a C. irritans cyst on it is far-fetched, since fish slough off their slime coat constantly and replace it with new (just like we do with our skin, folks!). Also, Bob Fenner has been noted as saying that QT for mandarinfish is unnecessary if you're concerned about ich....a freshwater dip (some people may use methylene blue) is a good preventative in this case.
For what it's worth, if it were MY fish I would probably do a FW dip, then introduce him into a QT system for a few weeks to get some quality 'lone time and begin introducing prepared foods to his diet. I don't think I would QT for more than a few weeks, personally, and I would place his diet and caloric intake higher on my list of concerns than I would any possibility of disease. But that's just me.
So basically your saying that there is no way to introduce more pods for the length of the QT. Adding pods weekly would assist in this. Your assessment is not taking into fact that although the mandarin does not have showing signs of ICH it can still have the parasite.
For that matter you can get ICH transported via a coral frag or even rock and sand. Even coral dips won't kill ICH. The point im trying to make is that you are playing russian roulette with your other tank inhabitants if you introduce anything into your tank without QT. I will state this 1000 times the fish you put into your tank does not have to be "showing signs" of ICH for it to carry the disease.