Quarantine and decontamination of fish and plants

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WestOfSeven

Feeder Fish
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Aug 15, 2015
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I need to start quarantining and decontaminating my new plants and fish and come up with a strategy to quarantine a fish if they start exhibbiting signs of illness.

Im thinking just putting new fish in a 5 gallon pail with heater and a aquaclear with seachem paraguard and polyguard. Is this a good idea? Should I elevate temps or keep them the same as my display tank? 80 degrees. How long should I leave them in quarantine? Since there would be no plants in the bucket how would I prevent ammonia killing the fish? I was thinking about just medicating the fish for one day then running purigen/carbon in the aquaclear.

What is the best way to decontaminate plants? A dip in chemical? For how long and with what chemical?

Should I be worried about killing beneficial bacteria some wild caught fish have in there stomachs to process food? Such as the bacteria oto cats have in their stomach.

Is a 5 gallon pail a good Idea or should I use a 10 gallon and only set it up when Im doing a quarantine? I live it a small apt with my gf and cant get mts.

Sorry for the poor formatting/lack of proper paragraphs etc Im typing on my smart phone.

Thanks for reading my thread and I look forward to your replies
 
I wouldn't use 5 gallons tank for quarantine, It's depend on the size of your new purchased species, you don't want to put a 5 inches fish into a 5 gallons for weeks in quarantine tank, any new stocks should quarantine at least 4 weeks before transfer to main display tank.
*your quarantine tank water parameter probably won't match with your main display tank cause you will do water change daily so don't worry about that, you still need acclimate your fish before put it in your main tank.
 
Yuki Rihwa said:
I wouldn't use 5 gallons tank for quarantine, It's depend on the size of your new purchased species, you don't want to put a 5 inches fish into a 5 gallons for weeks in quarantine tank, any new stocks should quarantine at least 4 weeks before transfer to main display tank.
*your quarantine tank water parameter probably won't match with your main display tank cause you will do water change daily so don't worry about that, you still need acclimate your fish before put it in your main tank.
Click to expand...

All the fish would be small dither fish such as tetras etc
 
Search craigslist for a cheap used tank, in my area there are tons of 20-40 gal tanks for sale. Should be able to find a full setup for less than 100$. Then you only need to keep the filter cycled in between uses.
 
As long as the container has some kind of biomedia, and filtration, it doesn't matter what it is.
I don't medicate, or do anything different from main tanks unless I know what I'm treating for, just add water from my main tanks daily to the quarantine tank.
Part of quarantine, is to get the new fish used to your set up, not just to keep them away from your other fish.
You may have fish that are semi-immune to something, and carriers of something the new fish are not resistant to.
But if the new fish become infected, the infectious dose may overwhelm your semi-immune fish, and your entire tank.
I believe a month of quarantine is not out of the question.
 
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With fish a QT tank is just a smaller tank then your display that you should keep any new fish in for at least a month with out sick, while monitoring that they don't get any sickness.

As for plants I give them a dip in a chlorine bath, and that should kill any nasties on them, and kill off algae to, which is good.
 
Like others have posted 5g is way too small...shoot for 20-40g add a few sponge filters. Potassium permanganate is a good way to decontaminate plants, fish will still require quarantine.

I like to have multiply sponge filters in one tank/sump. That way in an emergency you can remove one of those and quickly set up a new tank
 
Last edited:
Wailua Boy said:
Like others have posted 5g is way too small...shoot for 20-40g add a few sponge filters. Potassium permanganate is a good way to decontaminate plants, fish will still require quarantine.

I like to have multiply sponge filters in one tank/sump. That way in an emergency you can remove one of those and quickly set up a new tank
Click to expand...

My display tank is only a 20 long
 
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