Advice? Quarantine System/Routine

After 7 years in the hobby I just had my first major setback. Marine velvet wiped out every fish in my tank including some fish that I have had for my entire 7 years of keeping saltwater fish (which had followed me on two moves across the state). Of course I had always heard how necessary a quarantine tank is... but honestly I don't know that I've ever seen someone else who actually runs one. Needless to say I had never ran a quarantine tank and after 7 years of getting away with it I started to think it was unnecessary. I had periodically seen ich pop up on tangs but never had any real disease issues. Marine velvet is a whole different ballgame. Costly lessons are some of the best teachers... lesson learned.

I'm letting the display run fishless for several weeks now. I'll be setting up some kind of quarantine system but it seems like advice is all over the place on what type of routine to follow. For example, some say to blanket treat every inhabitant in hypo and copper (or chloroquine phosphate) others say simply observe for 6 weeks before placing into DT and treat if needed. Some advise formalin or freshwater dips on everything before quarantine while others say it's too stressful. Some seem to neglect quarantining inverts, corals, and macroalgaes; others say to quarantine everything wet. Others swear by a certain tank transfer method and others say that won't do anything for certain infections.

While this issue was devastating it did at least help me convince my wife that I need to take over some additional space in the basement to set up additional tanks for quarantine/treating. I should be able to set up a 55g, 40g, and a 29g. My display is 400g so I'd like to be able to quarantine more than just a fish or two at a time. I am just trying to figure out what I really need to get set up and what routines I should follow.

So I'm interested in hearing what has worked (and hasn't worked) for those of you who have followed quarantine routines. Specifically:

• Dips prior to quarantine? Freshwater, formalin, methylin blue?
• Hypo for everything?
• Certain treatments for everything? Copper, CP, prazipro, etc?
• Observe in a quarantine tank and treat in a separate hospital tank if needed?
• Quarantine inverts/corals/macro algae? Or just dip corals and place in display?
• Any certain time specific routines would be good to hear.

I am planning on keeping certain fish which don't necessarily quarantine well (large angels and burrowing wrasses). So I'd be interested in hearing specifics about how to handle them as well.

I look forward to hearing your thoughts. Thanks!

 

From what I've read marine velvet doesn't get carried passively. You may not see it show symptoms if the infection is in the gills though. Unfortunately it's a very quick killer and by the time you figure out what's going on it's usually too late. I had added some new fish from an LFS and allowed them to go into the display without quarantine like I always have. The majority of my previous fish purchases have been from liveaquaria.com or Sea of Marvels in North Liberty and never had any issues. As much as I'd like to purchase from an LFS here in Des Moines this experience definitely left a bad taste in my mouth.

I'm leaning towards treating all new inhabitants prophylactically with chloroquine phosphate for 30 days to knock out any protozoans. This is especially useful for copper sensitive species like angels. However it sounds like wrasses don't handle this treatment very well... so I'll have to figure something else out for them.

 

Hrmm.. so it seems like people are all over the place on their methods .

@mattman319 That looks like a nice setup. That's similar to what I had in mind (except I have HOB skimmer laying around that I would use). How do you handle angles since they aren't so tolerant to copper treatments? Any experience with fairy or flasher wrasses?

@xroads Are there any species you would avoid with the freshwater dip & TTM method? I have heard it works wonders at eliminating ich without any chemical treatment. My only concern is it doesn't work on velvet but I suppose that's what an observation period is for.

I'm on the fence still on whether to observe (maybe dip first) or treat chloroquine phosphate or copper prophylactically. Here's what I'm currently leaning towards... so please shoot holes in my idea before I go too far down a crazy path:
I have a 55g I can use (can get other tanks during this $1/g sale as well) which I would plan on using as an observation tank.
I would set up a smaller (20g) observation tank with substrate and some rocks for observing corals or inverts (possibly burying wrasses).
I would set up a separate hospital tank (29g) for treatments if deemed necessary after observation. This is where CP or copper would be administered.

Alternatively I could reverse the order of this method and send all fish into the hospital tank first to be treated for a month before they go to observation for another couple weeks. If I go that route I would probably want to get a larger hospital tank.

Thanks everyone!