Do you quarantine your new fish

[RDFISHGUY]

I've had a run of bad luck recently and the last fish I bought I put into quarantine in my 55 gallon community tank and my puffers got ich. Easier to treat a 55 than a 230 gallon. I now have my 25 gallon tank with a goldfish and a pleco to serve as my quarantine/hospital tank.....BTW the puffers got better. If I'd added him to the 230 with the troubles I'm having now it would have been a complete disaster. Check out my thread "4 DEAD" and you'll see why you need to quarantine. It may not always be 100% guarantee that you won't get disease, because parasites can live in a fish for a lot more than 3 or 4 weeks before any obvious symptoms show, but it will give you a chance to acclimate the fish to your water and could ,potentially, save you from some ailments. That said ,you can quarantine a fish that may have a parasite you don't see and add him to your tank then the following can still happen:
1) The fish in the new tank stress him out causing the disease to rear its ugly head.
2) He carries the disease to your tank and , even though he's immune to it, your stock isn't and they get the disease.
Unless you medicate for everything under the sun you'll never be guaranteed of anything, but you do limit your risks.

 

[ikevi]

Well it depends. I just didn't Q a fish and it likely caused about 15 fish to die... saddly one was my afra the only mbuna I really wanted to keep still.

The problem is that my q-tanks tend to get occupied by fry... But I don't really tend to Q fish that are from a reputable dealer, but if I buy them from an auction or such I will put them in a q-tank, or at least in a tank that if it caused all my fish to die I wouldn't be heart broken.

As for putting other fish in the q-tank to keep bio media alive. Not really. I don't change the water much unless there are fish in the tank. But if you just have one fish in say a 10 it isn't hard to do frequent water changes.

 

[Muske]

I think to QT or not to QT depends on your dealer. I have 2 LFS that QT before they put price tags on the tanks, which menas no QT for me at home. If I had more space, I would run a QT for sure and Q any newbies and or sick fish.

 

[tank125]

I think to QT or not to QT depends on your dealer. I have 2 LFS that QT before they put price tags on the tanks, which menas no QT for me at home. If I had more space, I would run a QT for sure and Q any newbies and or sick fish.

this is a false sense of security. in a store situation a true qt is very difficult due to water transfer via nets, hands, algae cleaning equipment, siphon hoses, etc. Not to say the store is dirty, but it only takes one instance to add as a variable and hence an unknown.

I always QT, it is absolutely necessary and completely irresponsible not to. Esp. in your case with Africans, there is some nasty bacterial infections that will cost you your whole tank in a matter of hours if it gets in. An LFS around me is selling such infected fish and friends are pissing and moaning about the fish's mouth rotting off within days of adding a new fish.

 

[cwill78295]

plus the stores water sytems which go from tank to tank to tank help spread bacteria quickly throughout all of iits tank and thye sell them not knowing alot of times.

Have you ever walked in a store and saw the ign sayiong none of these fish are for sale.

 

[Yanbbrox]

this is a false sense of security. in a store situation a true qt is very difficult due to water transfer via nets, hands, algae cleaning equipment, siphon hoses, etc. Not to say the store is dirty, but it only takes one instance to add as a variable and hence an unknown.

I always QT, it is absolutely necessary and completely irresponsible not to. Esp. in your case with Africans, there is some nasty bacterial infections that will cost you your whole tank in a matter of hours if it gets in. An LFS around me is selling such infected fish and friends are pissing and moaning about the fish's mouth rotting off within days of adding a new fish.

While I agree, that true qt conditions are harder to achieve in the store environment a lot of good fish that have been qted can be found at store if you know who you are buying from. These things are spread by word of mouth, there are numerous posts on here saying is X dealer any good especially online etc. where the risks are greater.
Why are your friends buying fish from a seemingly poor dealer/importer and then not qting the new fish, that makes no sense, if you don't know what your getting qt is the obvious thing to do rather than as you say risk the whole tank.

plus the stores water sytems which go from tank to tank to tank help spread bacteria quickly throughout all of iits tank and thye sell them not knowing alot of times.

Have you ever walked in a store and saw the ign sayiong none of these fish are for sale.

Many, many times, most shops over here operate a closed loop system on the tanks, the qt fish are removed from the system until they are clear, once qt, they re-join the system. I agree that this could spread any disease that happened in any fish afterwards, but you would see a lot of sick fish through out the store

 

[bigspizz]

Ok my question to the guys that use QT tanks....do you keep some sort of fish in there to keep the BB in the filters alive? Even when not QT'ing any fish? Because, if there are no fish to provide a source of ammonia any BB will die of....??

You can either have fish in it that can be moved, or run the QT filter on another tank and put it on the QT only when needed...All new water just prime, match temp, and start filter....

 

[Acer]

My LFS quarantines their fish before they are put on sale, which I think is awesome of them.

It depends though... I don't quarantine fish going into my fw community tanks (they are quarantined at the LFS), but when it comes to my goldfish, I have separate nets, siphons, pails, etc.

I love those goldfish, so I won't take chances