Our Conditioning Procedure

We want to make sure your new fish has the absolute best start in your tank. That is why every imported specimen goes through a thorough conditioning process before we offer them for sale.

Here is exactly how we care for them behind the scenes:

The Hybrid Tank Transfer Protocol: Upon arrival, fish enter a dedicated two-week deworming + tank transfer routine. If no complications arise, we move the fish to a new sterilized system every 3 days, totaling 4 transfers. By moving them to fresh, independent systems on a strict schedule, we naturally interrupt common parasite life cycles and keep their water quality consistently high while minimizing stress.
Prophylactic Treatments: To protect against internal and external pests, fish receive at least one spaced round of praziquantel (at 2.5 ppm) and levamisole (at 3 ppm) during the tank transfer period. This targeted approach addresses a wide range of common health issues often found in imported marine fish.
Constant Monitoring: Throughout their stay, we closely watch each fish for normal behavior and overall health to ensure they are thriving.
Targeted Care for Issues: If a fish does show signs of specific illnesses during quarantine, we don't take chances. We quickly step in with targeted treatments like chloroquine phosphate or antibiotics to ensure they are fully recovered before moving forward.

Nutrition and Settling In

Once the treatment phase is complete, the fish spend another one to two weeks under close observation. During this time, we ensure that the fish is eating at our facility.

Our Feeding Guarantee: We guarantee that every fish is actively eating frozen food at our facility before it ships. Just let us know and we will happily send you a video of your exact fish eating frozen food. Some fish may be weaned onto pellets at our facility, but this is not guaranteed.

A Quick Note on Aquarium Safety: While no quarantine process can completely eliminate every single pathogen, this multi-stage method significantly reduces risk compared to unconditioned fish, ensuring you receive a strong, stable, and well-adjusted specimen.

If you have any questions about our current arrivals or want to see a feeding video, please reach out to our team.

Questions

We do not believe in formalin or copper. These medications work by being poisoning everything alive, but the gamble is that the fish will tolerate them better than the pathogen. It is possible to eradicate most diseases from the fish itself, but standard reef keeping practices will just end up reinfecting the fish. Medications such as those just cause damage to the fish, shortening their lifespans for no reason.

Many common fish diseases such as Ich (Cryptocaryon) can remain as a treatment resistant tomont for over 70 days, so all live rock and corals require a fishless quarantine period for this amount of time. Usually people just buy and place corals directly into their aquariums.

Due to reasons like this, virtually all hobbyist and even professional exhibit aquariums exist in a metastable state where diseases are present but are simply suppressed by the fish's immune system. Most outbreaks occur when a stressor event allows the diseases to overcome the fish's defenses.

We do, however, always use praziquantel and levamisole. These two drugs target flukes and nematodes, which are common in wild fish but can be eliminated from most aquariums. Monogenean flukes can multiply very quickly in a closed environment, overwhelming and killing your fish. Meanwhile, digeneans, cestodes, and nematodes usually just sap energy from fish and present a problem when a stressor event occurs.

The main diseases we encounter are:

Cryptocaryon and Amyloodinium
Brooklynella
Bacteria
Internal Uronema

Usually the tank transfer process reduces the Cryptocaryon and Amyloodinium load quite a lot, but in case we see an outbreak we will use Chloroquine phosphate at >10ppm for 15 days with three tank transfers.

Brooklynella is a catch-all label for a common disease on clownfish that results in excessive mucus shedding and then rapid mortality. Even captive bred clownfish often carry this, especially from fish raised in farms connected to the ocean. When we encounter these symptoms we use Chloroquine phosphate at >15ppm for 15 days with three tank transfers.

For bacterial diseases, we will use antibiotics as needed. Our repertoire includes kanamycin, erythromycin, and enrofloxacin.

Currently, there is no known proven treatment for what the hobby calls internal Uronema, but we have reason to believe that the presence of Uronema is a secondary player in this disease. We are currently experimenting with a protocol that targets our hypothesized primary disease causing agent. This has worked in a small number of shipments.

We always have live baby brine shrimp on hand in case a fish isn't eating. This way, we can ensure any really stressed fish can get through the critical early period. If they look better, we then slowly wean the fish onto frozen foods.

We will also try pellets or flake for certain fish, but this is not guaranteed.

If we are unable to wean the fish off live foods, the fish will simply not be sold. Don't believe us? Ask us for a video of the exact fish you will receive eating frozen.