Most of the remaining shops in my area do not seem to do any kind of quarantining of the fish that come in in their shipments.I have observed them simply slice the shipping bags with a blade and basically dump the fish into the display tanks...what do you all think of them handling new arrivals that way?
Quarantine New Fish
- Thread starter H]-[H
- Start date
If they drop the water and all into the display tank, I think that is excessively lazy and probably introduces a bunch of crap (literally poop) into their displays. But as far as not quarantining the fish goes, I have worked at multiple aquarium shops and none of them quarantined fish from the distributors before selling them. It logistically would be a nightmare having to have that many spare empty tanks. The best store I worked at would QT the tank if they saw one spot of ich and wouldn't sell any fish out of that tank until it had been treated. I feel like this is acceptable, and is all we can expect. The other stores would take out the fish with ich and sell the rest of the fish right out the tank. It's a business at the end of the day, they want to make their money.
My LFS doesn't quarantine their incoming shipments of fish. I understand that though because not every store can afford the space (and money) to QT weekly shipments of fish. However, I once walked in to see random bags of an assortment of even more random fish (african cichlids, angelfish, bichir, rainbow sharks, gouramis, tetras, etc..) and they told me some guy was moving so he gave them all their fish. Seems like it must have been an intense battle catching the fish & breaking down the tanks because the bags were filled with crap and brown water. They proceeded to cut open the bags and empty it all into the tanks.. That's just laziness imo.
IMO every tank in every LFS is a QT tank. One would be wise to remember that when purchasing their fish.
Agreed, that's a good thing to remember. I'd still quarantine my fish even if I hadn't witnessed that incident. That was just more telling of the LFS's attitude towards fish husbandry, at least on the freshwater side. They are more saltwater focused so I wonder if they'd be willing to do the same thing if someone had dumped a bunch of saltwater fish on their hands..
The only time I haven't quarantined was when I first got back into the hobby and only had one tank. Got a few fish within 2-3 weeks of each other as an initial stocking and got ich + camallanus worms. Thankfully didn't lose anything. Now, after buying more tanks, upgrading sizes, etc., I always have a spare 5.5g/10g/20g to quarantine new fish, but of course I haven't had any issues since. I personally do it for a minimum of ~3 weeks but don't treat with any meds.
![H]-[H](/forums/data/avatars/s/44/44128.jpg?1463640742){kind=avatar}
I run an air system with individual tanks. The only risk of contamination is using the same net. If something nefarious did enter my tank it would be relatively easy to treat. Theoretically, each tank is a permanent quarantine. That said, I don't quarantine in the traditional sense. But I don't add the bag water.
