IV. Quarantine - Disease, Parasite & Pest Prevention
This article discusses System Options, Factors to Consider & Quarantine for Coral
Frankly speaking, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of treatment. Like us or any other living organism, factors may hamper our quality of life or worse, bring illness or death to the affected. Diseases, bacteria, parasites, and predators are all possible invader of a reef tank. To assure we do not introduce the aforementioned into our tank quarantine protocols are critical, and while it may sound daunting the process is fairly simple.
System Options
To begin proper quarantine we must consider the space requirements of the given species. Several small fish like Chromis or Gobies can easily be quarantined as a group in a standard twenty-gallon long or thirty-gallon tank, however, larger more territorial fish should not be confined with tank-mates during quarantine. Once we select a quarantine tank we can fill it with clean saltwater and bring it up to a suitable temperature for quarantine. I recommend that the temperature in a quarantine tank be kept between seventy-eight and eighty degrees, doing so will increase metabolic rates and effectiveness of treatment. You may begin to filter the water as needed from the time the tank is filled.
Your filter choice is largely dependent on the level of treatment intended. A tank primarily used for observation may utilize a simple trickle or hang-on-back filter with carbon and floss. Tanks in which medications are used will not utilize carbon but filter floss will have no counter-interactions. Additionally to consider, due to the frequency of water changes required with some medications a simple air-pump driven sponge filter may suffice in some situations. Make your choices for filtration based on the purpose of this quarantine system, multiple quarantine systems would, of course, be ideal. Careful observation of a specimen may be all that is required, however, some species of fish should be treated prophylactically for known issues like parasites or worms.
Factors to Consider in Quarantine
Similarly, length of quarantine appropriate is largely dependent not only on the instructions of any given treatment but other factors you may have to judge for yourself. As an example of one factor, you will have to judge for yourself is the source. If you have a good relationship with your local fish store and you have the opportunity to observe the desired fish for any queues or evidence of a problem, you may decide brief observation for a few days is all the quarantine required. A fish from a less known vendor or that has recently arrived at your LFS may not come with an opportunity to observe before purchase. As a result, you may need to purchase your fish and more carefully observe them in quarantine treating them as the need arises.
Another deciding factor to consider is the current diet; if the specimen that you would like is currently eating a food that you already feed or if it is eating a less desired food source. In this situation you may need to quarantine the fish for a very long time as you wean it from one food source to another, understanding that this may not be possible with some fish and thus should not be attempted. Lastly, you will want to consider everything that we have to make an empirical judgment from, text, research and the knowledge of your local fish store will go a long way to dictate a quarantine protocol for a given addition. One may be relieved to hear that coral does not quite require such precaution to assure proper quarantine.
Quarantining Coral
All of the above addresses disease, bacterial/fungal infections and parasites in fish, however many pests associated to coral like flatworms, anemone and various polychaete worms can be treated and addressed more easily in a smaller tank away from your primary tank. A quarantine system for invertebrates should never have copper or medication intended for fish used within it. Instead, coral quarantine tanks may be clean specimen containers or even a large bowl.
Coral are treated with various antibiotics and there are many commercially available remedies to the various maladies present in coral. Anemones such as Majano and Aiptasia anemones can be more easily targeted with solutions designed to remove them, rendering their stinging tentacle harmless to our coral. Worms may be lured out of coral frags with bait and traps in saltwater, while many maladies like tissue recession and flatworms have been treated with a solution of saltwater and iodine or short dips in freshwater. Proper dipping is encouraged for all coral purchases however corals exposed to longer transits may benefit from dips more than those with a short journey from the store to home. This is because of the build-up of various mucous and chemicals therein that leave coral increasingly prone to infection as the waste byproducts build up in the water
If all purchases are acclimated to quarantine, observed carefully and treated properly in quarantine, then acclimated and introduced to your reef only after these steps, you will save yourself from ever learning a valuable lesson the hard way. Proper quarantine significantly reduces the risk of avoidable losses and promotes the overall health and growth of the system by limiting adverse effects from external factors. This serves to increase the overall enjoyment of the tank and reduces the possibility of a brand new five dollar damselfish smuggling a fungus that kills your five hundred dollar ten-year-old angelfish.