- In the last episode, Elliot for MarineCollectors
showed us how to use medications to treat
for ich and velvet.
this week, it's actually the tank transfer method.
What is that?
- All right, so the tank transfer method
is actually one that I really like.
Basically the principle is that we're using the knowledge
of the life cycle of the parasite
to actually remove the fish from that environment,
thereby removing the parasites through that process.
Basically what we're doing is through a series of transfers,
every time the parasites fall off the fish,
we're removing the fish before it has a chance to reattach,
and after a set amount of time, the fish will be clean.
- Yeah, so there is a big difference here.
We'll share some pros and cons with it.
We don't actually believe that the tank transfer method
is the best method for most new reefers,
specifically those new ones doing this for the first time,
but it's a really valuable tool that helps us
understand the life cycle of ich,
and we're gonna explain it today.
All right, let's start with the pros
to the tank transfer method.
- All right.
So the first thing is no medications are needed to do it.
If the fish is in end stage, though,
I still would use nitrofurazone,
but we're not having to use copper to do this.
Everything that you need, you can go out
to a Petco, a Petsmart, whatever.
You can go get all the things you need to do it,
and you can be doing it today.
You don't have to wait for
copper or copper checkers to arrive in the mail.
It's also less harsh on the fish
because we're not using those medications either.
- And so you did say that there was one in there,
being the nitrofurazone.
Why would you still use that medication?
And I'll note that nitrofurazone is not like copper,
where it's really harsh to the fish.
So no medication still applies here in the essence
that still healthy and less stress, but why would I use it?
- So just like we said in the previous episode,
basically what we're looking for is to keep that fish clean.
If the fish is in end stage,
it's got all those little pinprick holes
where the parasites enter the body,
And basically what we're trying to do
is prevent secondary infection, keep that clean,
so that as the fish heals, sorry,
actually has the opportunity to heal
before it gets infected.
- All right, so there are some cons
to the tank transfer method, starting with?
- All right, so the first thing is
that this is not something that's easy to do.
There's a lot of areas and a lot of steps
and a lot of places that you can mess up.
especially if you've never done it before.
The first of which is,
you need to have really strong attention to detail.
You need to have very good practice
when you're doing sanitizing and you're actually
cleaning out tanks between transfers.
That way you're not potentially
gonna be reinfecting a fish.
You also need to have two of everything.
You can't just do this with one set of equipment,
because every time that you move the fish,
you can't be using the same equipment
that you just pulled the fish out of.
The other thing is that it's not good for
outbreaks where the fish is already in end stage.
If the fish is already just absolutely coated.
it's probably not gonna like being moved
every other day or every two days or every three days.
- Yeah, so the big piece here, I think,
is that you have to have that attention to detail,
meaning when I sterilize this tank,
I move the fish out of this tank,
every last element in here needs to be sterilized.
Now a single drop of water can make it from this tank
to the next tank, not on my hands, not anywhere.
And so this is one of those things
where doing this poorly is super duper easy,
but doing it great is actually hard
and probably something that if you're doing it
for the first time, really easy to mess up.
You mentioned a second ago that you wouldn't use
the tank transfer method for active outbreaks.
Tank transfer is commonly used for prophylactic treatment
of QT When you get a new fish,
less commonly used for that outbreak
for three different reasons.
- All right, the first of which is like most people,
they're going to mistake ich and velvet
and they're gonna get the two confused.
Velvet is incredibly hard to treat with tank transfer.
It is possible, but it's a lot more labor intensive
and you have to move the fish a lot more frequently.
- You're definitely gonna do some baths up front
to kind of help the whole process
but also, what's number two?
- All right, the other thing is that if you have
an entire tank full of fish,
a 10-gallon tank like this is not gonna cut it.
Not even close.
If we were gonna, let's say, take all the fish
outta this tank, you'd probably need
60-gallon tanks to do this, and it's a lot more
labor intensive to do transfers every other day,
every two days, every three days, with 60 gallons of water
and a couple dozen fish.
- Yeah, remember that if you're doing a treatment
for something like velvet or ich, especially velvet,
you're not actually going to take just the sick fish out.
You're actually gonna take them all out
if there is an actual outbreak of these things in the tank
and it's threatening all their lives,
and then you're gonna have to do this tank transfer method
with two tanks, probably a bunch of 'em,
and it's just gonna get really gnarly fast
as you're trying to figure out how many tanks
to manage all at once in transferring 'em
and meanwhile, trying to not transfer
a single drop of water from another one,
and really most people are just not gonna get it right.
Right, so how do you do the tank transfer method for ick?
Good news, it's actually the same
as the 80/20 QT method with no meds.
So watch that video on the 80/20 QT, because it's the basis
for almost everything we do, and then we just make
subtle tweaks for different diseases
or different methods of doing things.
So in that case, there are a couple other changes
other than no copper in the 80/20, and what are they?
- All right, the first of which,
we gotta keep an eye on the clock.
Tank transfer for ich,
we don't want to go over that 72 hours
so pick a time, do the water change,
do the transfer at that same time every day.
Don't go over it.
If you do go over it, you do have to restart the clock
and you have to start the entire process over again.
The other thing that we're gonna do
is we're gonna rinse the fish in between transfers.
So a little specimen container,
obviously we're gonna have this sanitized prior
so that it's clean and sterile.
Basically we're gonna rinse that fish
before we move it to a new one,
and the last thing is that we're gonna sterilize
the prior quarantine tank, so that means
we're gonna drain it down, fill it up with water.
We're gonna be doing bleach at a hundred parts per million.
What it's gonna look like is we're gonna fill the tank up,
let's say with tap water, put bleach in there
to a hundred parts per million.
There'll be a little link in the description
on how to get there.
Leave it for four hours, let it circulate,
put all the equipment that you've used in there
so that it's all sanitized, rinse it out
and then we'll put the dechlorinator in there as well.
And once that's been done, we'll just let it dry
for the next two days, or it'll be probably
almost close to three.
That way you can be sure that it's absolutely sterile
by the time it comes time to use it again.
- So just to give you an idea of what we're doing here,
instead of relying on those meds to protect the fish,
what we're again doing is we're gonna put the fish in there
for three days, the parasites are gonna fall off
and we're then just going to physically remove the fish,
rinse it off, and put it into a brand new tank.
And some of those parasites will follow into a new cycle.
They'll fall off in another three days,
and now we have this sterile tank over here.
We're gonna move it back to the sterile tank,.
and we'll just do that process for a few times
and what will happen then is we'll beat out the cycle.
The big, big piece of that though,
is that you effectively sterilize it in between,
dechlorinate it in between, and make sure
no drops of water are going in between.
That is how we're gonna do the tank transfer cycle
and beat out the parasite, leveraging its own life cycle.
All right, next, tank transfer method for marine velvet.
Straight up, I would not recommend
doing this for an active outbreak.
There are probably better methods,
especially for new reefers.
Start with why.
- The reason why is that it moves
incredibly, incredibly fast
and fish are often just way too compromised
to actually handle the actual transfers.
If you were gonna do it, you gotta move the fish
within every 36 hours.
Personally, I would do it a lot sooner than that,
but it's just a lot more work than most people
are willing to do.
- It's a lot more frequent than,
most people again say do every 36 hours.
If you do the math on that,
that means that I'm gonna do it at noon
and then midnight and then noon and then midnight.
These are really infrequent times,
So you could bring it back all the way
to 24 hours, but you can't go past.
And also if I'm gonna do it with velvet,
Velvet usually, I'm not gonna take one fish out
that has it, I'm gonna take 'em all out
and again, we run into that problem
with tons and tons of tanks now,
or really, really big ones
and it's just gonna get hairy fast.
Also, it's supposed to be done,
it could be done for less than two weeks
than what we do with the 80/20 method
but the two weeks gives you a bit of a buffer,
so if you are gonna try this,
I would probably go the full two weeks.
All right, so before we get to how you do
tank transfer method at home, or what we'd suggest,
how do you actually do it at MarineCollectors?
- All right, at MarineCollectors,
there's always a select few fish
I'm just not willing to put through medications,
or at least medications like copper.
Basically what would I do is I pick a set time
and every 12 hours, I move the fish,
rinse the fish in between.
First, third, sixth day I'll do a formalin bath
in between transfers just to kill off anything like velvet.
You know, it also treats for Brook and uronema.
but that way we can kind of have
an all-encompassing tank transfer.
It is a lot of work and most people aren't willing to do it,
but for the few select rare fish,
it's definitely worth the extra effort.
- So that's a good point.
If your profession is taking care of fish,
every 12 hours may not be impossible to do
but at home, that would be pretty difficult to do.
Also what you're doing is you're prophylactically
treating fish that came in, a single fish.
- Yeah. - Okay.
I can't imagine trying to do
all of these fish every 12 hours,
so doing it at home would be pretty difficult
but you can see the difference there, again,
between prophylactically treating fish
in a quarantine that comes in,
and a hospital tank where I'm actually
treating them when they're sick.
All right, so if you got through all that
and you still want to use the tank transfer method
for an active outbreak in your display,
the good news is it's the exact same thing
as the ich one we just described
except for you're gonna change the timing.
- All right, so we're gonna be doing it every 24 hours.
So pick a time, do it every day. Sanitize the tank.
Might even be able just to have three of these
just so that you can actually have one that's already done,
ready to go a full 24 hours in advance.
That's it.
- Yeah. All you're gonna do is change the timing.
It's gonna be a lot more work, 'cause not every single
or every three days, you're gonna be doing it every day.
There are also variants of the tank transfer method.
Actually Elliot just shared his,
which is he's combining that with a medicated
formalin dip or bath in between,
but I've also seen hybrid methods
using hydrogen peroxide as well.
Many of these things are what I would call
experimental to some degree,
and for the trailblazers or thought leaders
and probably not the type of thing that I would recommend
for a first reefer doing this for the very first time.
All right, next one, Brook.
We're charging through all of them.
How do I deal with an active outbreak for Brook?
Coming here.