Do i need to QT Snails

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Sloanhaus

Aquarium Advice Apprentice
Joined
Aug 12, 2012
Messages
48
I ran my DT through 8 weeks of Hyposalinity and plan on QT all new fish with Hyposalinity before adding them. Do I need to QT my invertebrates?
 
I personally dont but I do give then a good once over before I put them in. I'm sure qt is a good idea there is a chance you could introduce ich with the addition of a snail. Be careful for other things like pyramid snails.
 
Well that sucks since you can't do Hyposalinity on them. What do you mean by a once over?
 
This is a great question and opens a can of worms that makes it difficult to give a reasonable answer. Ideally, you would want to QT EVERYTHING for 4-6 weeks before placing it into the DT. And in this case, that would require an established QT with algae and food stuffs (aged live rock) that would sustain the snails for the time in QT.

But typically, many look at inverts as being incapable of bringing in disease/parasites so they acclimate and put them directly into the display. It's a risk, but so is everything in life.

I can assure you that snails ARE in fact capabale of transmitting disease from dealer tank to yours if not QT'ed. And as an interesting side, did you know that "ich" can feed off the feet of an urchin, treating it as a surrogate host and replicating through its life cycle on this host alone? Scary thought and just goes to show you that there are many mysterious factors that defy convential wisdom of how a parasite like ich can sustain itself without fish.
 
Im gonna 99% of they time, probably higher that inverts are not going to transfer anything to a tank.

Secondly if quarantining an invert there is no way to tell really what or if it is carrying anything and thirdly you have no way to treat even if you did, so then what?

Ive never had a problem with inverts carrying anything. Inverts i buy get a good looking over at the store and they acclimated to the tank when i get home. Obviously if i see something 'off' at the store then i wont buy it. Really your not going to be able to tell any different in a QT tank.

If you see something attached to a snail shell then it should be pretty easy to spot and not buy it. Ive seen aiptasia on snail shells and all kinds of things. Pretty much the initial inspection is the best prevention you can do in my opinion.
 
It's a balancing act. If the QT isn't up to snuff, you doomed the new fish or invert anyway. I have never had a sick fish that didn't recover quickly once placed into good water conditions. It is controversial, but I gave up on using a QT stand alone tank (20 gallon nano). Mine is plumbed into the main system with a shut off valve in an emergency treatment scenario. It allows me to catch a sick fish easily and without stress, instead of trying to recover it from the main reef tank. It also allows the new fish to acclimate to my good reef water. In 20 years, no ICH.
 
A little off topic, but I'm working on doing something similar to my QT:

I run auto water changes daily - about 1/2 a gallon give or take. I will soon be plumbing the "waste" water (almost ULNS) to run into the QT instead of down the drain. The QT will then overflow into the drain. This way there's no risk of QT to tank infection, there's some but minimal nutrients going in and the QT should keep similar parameters to the Display system. There may be the need for the odd manual water change, probably before adding new fish, but during the quarantine process, it will be acclimating to tank parameters.

As for invert QT, I've never bothered. Probably never will. After the QT is working, I'm revamping my Culture/Breeding station so maybe ill be looking for a project like a coral QT & frag tank.
 
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