Preparing for nigripes--how to quarantine

[illcssd]

So, in the next two weeks, i will have about 10 Nigripes coming in for my 240G cube.
As i have heard they are notoriously bad shippers, i want to be prepared to treat them upon arrival. I have a 30G quarantine tank ready for them with a power head, and a remora pro skimmer.

Those who have these clowns and who have dealt with them, how did you quarantine and what should i be looking for?
Copper, pipzine? Hypo?
Not sure what they usually come in with and what they need so i am looking for some feedback for this so i can get some healthy clowns....
Thanks
Austin

[amphiprion13]

hypo sounds like the best way to go IF you have to do any..

[vaporize]

10 nigripes in a 30G QT is dangerous, once they catch brook it will wipe out all your fish. Treatment for brook in my experience has a 40% success rate with formalin.

You might want to to try multiple tank to lessen the stress. clownfish live in an established family and when so many of them are put together, it usually create more stress than anything else (with exception of t.r. clowns b/c they are born that way). This was one of the trick an ex-wholesaler taught me (multiple tanks).

Would love to hear how others quarantine large amount of wild caught clowns as I will be getting some later.

[illcssd]

Well, on rc ron popeil suggested real dark quarintine ten gallons, a couple in each(2?3?) and just see how it goes. They are all going in a 240g cube and supposedly are being collected as a "colony" with the magnifica they are living in.
Now, i have never seen a picture of these in the wild, so i'm just assuming they are found in big groups, if they aren't then i may go with another type of clown...
Anyone seen a picture of these in the wild around?

Edit:
Saw one in the clown pictures place. Appears to be quite a few there, i think i may have luck yet with these in a big group.

[vaporize]

clownfish do live in big groups, but whether your 10 are from the ORIGINAL group is questionable, and unless you are importing them directly yourself, through out the chain of collector-exporter-importer-wholesaler-LFS, there are always chances you just happen to have 10 of them (that are not in an original group).

Ron Popeil's idea is interesting, would you mind posting the link (or send it to me in a pm).

Thanks for sharing.

Another thing I also thought of was from Christian's brook treatment, he treated his growout tank from brook by dosing direct formalin in his tanks (as suppose to the common formalin bath) and had some success. His dosage was 1ml/70L on day 1 & day 2, 1/2 ml/70L on day 3.

[illcssd]

Ron popeil first post:
i tried several methods ranging from a UV sterilizer to copper and maracyn, to freshwater dips and formalin dips. none were successful. the two i have now succeeded, i believe, because both had been at other stores for a significant portion of time.

id probably try to seperate them into several ten gallons, use depressed salinity and darken the tanks. theyre aggressive little clowns, even when stressed.

although, another approach that might work just as well, is to keep them with an established sponge filter, and some form of anemone they can immediately hide in. keeping the tank dimly lit for the first several days would help too. even after having my pair for nearly two years, theyre still super shy fish.

will these be transhipped fish? if so, that might increase your odds of success as well...

good luck austin..
Second post:
i believe if you have more than one magnifica in your 240, and theyre large....i dont think youll have a problem. then again, i dont know of anyone who has attempted this before, so....youll be laying down some groundwork here. i was going to attempt it in my 60 gallon...but, couldnt get any of the guys to survive QT.

[WDLV]

Just a thought....
I have had VERY limited success with quarrantining ANY fish. What is in your 240? Any rare or favorite fish? If it is a newly set up but stable system or it doesn't have anything you wouldn't mind risking, you could just put them in it with the nem and hope for the best. Of course if you have any potentially aggressive tank mates that might follow them into an anemone that might not be the best route. Dimming the light isn't a bad idea for the first day or so.

EDIT: Obviously don't do this if there are obvious signs of disease. A dip probably wouldn't hurt either.

[Chupacabras]

I wouldn't do anything prophylactically, 'gripes are such nervous fish that any addition of stress will likely cause more harm then good.

QT is fine and I'd guess that RP's suggestion is probably good but to be honest, I wouldn't QT them at all. They're your centerpiece species, I'm sure you don't want sex changes in the colony; seems to me this would be very possible considering the subdoms could very well be old enough to at least transition to functioning males.

Put 'em all in the tank and cross your fingers, that's what I'd do.

[illcssd]

Originally Posted by WDLV

Just a thought....
I have had VERY limited success with quarrantining ANY fish. What is in your 240? Any rare or favorite fish? If it is a newly set up but stable system or it doesn't have anything you wouldn't mind risking, you could just put them in it with the nem and hope for the best. Of course if you have any potentially aggressive tank mates that might follow them into an anemone that might not be the best route. Dimming the light isn't a bad idea for the first day or so.

EDIT: Obviously don't do this if there are obvious signs of disease. A dip probably wouldn't hurt either.

In the 240 currently is lr, a mated pair of golden headed sleeper gobies, and 9 blue/green chromis. Thats it.
It is stable, it has been setup about 3 months. Maybe i will just get the anemone and put them in.

[illcssd]

Thanks for all the advice guy's, i realy appeciate it.