454 data analysis in Qiime1

[LMM]

Hello
I analysing 454 data using Qiime1. I have 4 .fna files that seem to be split into 2 forward read and 2 reverse read files. At what point in the pipeline should I combine them? Before demultiplexing? Combine the OTU tables?
Thanks
Laura

[thermophile]

I don't know qiime well (only used enough to know that I strongly prefer mothur). So can't tell you exactly where to combine but you can't combine OTU tables if you do denovo clustering. In mothur, I combined after demultiplexing, sequence qc, and chimera checking but before aligning and clustering into OTUs

[LMM]

Ok thank you!