What if you can't quarantine?

[onux20]

Everyone knows the positive reasons to quarantine fish before adding them to the DT. What if you lack a QT? What steps do you take in order to reduce the risk of introducing disease?

 

Thoughts please.

Ron

[jason the filter freak]

Run a sterilizer on your system, strive to not introduce sick or overly stressed fish. Add fish in the "proper" order IE don't add highly aggressive territorial fish before the more timid community ones. make sure your system its self is in good shape before adding any fish, and buying fish from a well established tear down can often be a better choice than from online or your LFS though you need to remember to support your LFS

[L8 2 RISE]

Observe any fish, especially the "super discounted" ones for quite a while in the store and don't bother getting it if it has any abrasions, etc.

[Jan]

I went out a purchased a 5 gallon eclipse. When I need to QT I dump 5 gallons of water in it from my main display and then add 5 gallons of fresh mix back into the display. Then i have a temporary QT. When i'm finished I empty the water and put the tank back in the box and back in the basement. I have a couple of pieces of PVC pipe for fish. QT should not have LR or LS.

 

Everyone knows the positive reasons to quarantine fish before adding them to the DT. What if you lack a QT? What steps do you take in order to reduce the risk of introducing disease?

 

Thoughts please.

Ron

Edited December 2, 2009 by Jan

[Der ABT]

I went even cheaper with one of the 5 gal buckets i use for water changes, just run a bubbler and a spare heater and a small powerhead and did just fine.

i have also used a pet food bin (aka safe plastic as well) that was a 15g+ container with wheels i think i got at petsmart.

 

just my savings of 2 cents, i have kept fish in those for over 2 weeks before.

 

I went out a purchased a 5 gallon eclipse. When I need to QT I dump 5 gallons of water in it from my main display and then add 5 gallons of fresh mix back into the display. Then i have a temporary QT. when i'm finished I empty the WT put it back in the box and back in the basement. I have a coupel of pieces of PVS pipe for fish. QT should not have LR or LS.

[davelin315]

Proper water conditions and a great feeding regimen will help to alleviate most problems with stressed out fish. You'll find that many diseases and parasites will be dormant or fought off by healthy fish while unhealthy fish exhibit the signs more and are unable to fight it off.

 

QT means a lot of different things to a lot of different people, for some it means aggressively treating all fish no matter whether they are symptomatic or asymptomatic while to others it means simply observing the fish for any signs of disease while yet to others it means to simply fatten the fish up and get it healthy and eating before introducing it. Whatever your regimen is for QT, though, unless you're treating aggressively for everything under the sun you're not going to prevent pathogens from entering your system. My tank certainly has ich in it, but it rarely if ever surfaces because the fish are fat healthy pigs.

[quazi]

Buy only from F&F or BRK (I am sure there are others) that QT all the fish they get. I have had few problems with this method.

[Sikryd]

Buy only from F&F or BRK (I am sure there are others) that QT all the fish they get. I have had few problems with this method.

 

 

 

+1

[onux20]

What about FW dips? How long?

 

Hypo? How long/low?

 

Or other methods?

 

Just curious to see what people do when they dont QT.

 

Thanks for the input so far.

Ron

[Glenn]

I went even cheaper with one of the 5 gal buckets i use for water changes, just run a bubbler and a spare heater and a small powerhead and did just fine.

i have also used a pet food bin (aka safe plastic as well) that was a 15g+ container with wheels i think i got at petsmart.

 

just my savings of 2 cents, i have kept fish in those for over 2 weeks before.

 

I've never used a bucket, but I do have a 5g aquarium (5-1/2 ??) that I do the same thing with. The one thing that I wanted to add to this thread was that I have a sponge filter just sitting in my sump of my Frag Tank to use for filtration in the QT when I need to set it up.

 

--------------------------

gds

[traveller7]

Everyone knows the positive reasons to quarantine fish before adding them to the DT. What if you lack a QT? What steps do you take in order to reduce the risk of introducing disease?

 

Thoughts please.

Ron

Simple: Don't bring the fish or coral home if you dont have QT. There is no instant dip, or bath, for the potential pathogens short of killing the new specimen. Anything short of 4-6 weeks in QT is gambling.

[paul b]

Proper water conditions and a great feeding regimen will help to alleviate most problems with stressed out fish. You'll find that many diseases and parasites will be dormant or fought off by healthy fish while unhealthy fish exhibit the signs more and are unable to fight it off.

 

I agree with Davelin.

 

Just feeding fish so they are fat does not mean they are healthy. If I ate ice cream all day I would also be fat but not necessarilly healthy.

Fish are not like us, we can eat potato chips and drink beer every day and still "look" healthy and "breed". Fish can not.

In the sea different fish eat a different diet because thats what they were made to do and they can not live for long on a diet not suited to them, even if it is varied. . For instance, mandarins, seahorses and lionfish will not live on algae but a tang will.

If fish are given the proper diet that they were designed to eat, they will be healthy and "almost" immune from disease.

How do I know that?

Good question. My tank used to be an ich magnet, that was before we invented reefs and they were in a FO tank with dead coral skeletons and no live rock. Since then, from observation and many hours spent underwater I have learned how to keep fish healthy.

Many people feel that a varied diet is the best thing to feed fish. I disagree. A varied diet may be OK to keep a variety of fish alive but not all fish need variety. Some fish need certain foods and only these foods. They were designed to utilize everything in certain foods to thrive.

Most fish in the sea eat other fish. The fish they eat have everything in them in the correct proportions to keep them healthy and disease resistant.

You never see sick fish in the sea. Yes I know they will be eaten but that is not the reason you don't see them.

Fish in the sea eat what they are supposed to eat. Orange spotted file fish eat coral polyps. mandarins eat pods, seahorses eat tiny fish and shrimp, tangs graze "all day" on algae.

For this reason I personally do not have to quarantine. I can't anyway because I add all sorts of "stuff" from the sea but I have not had ich in my reef for about 30 years.

My fish are breeding and I know that if they stop breeding, they are in failing health and will undoubtly get ich.

So to make a long story a little shorter. If your fish are not in breeding condition, you should by all means quarantine.

They are almost quaranteed to get sick if they are not in optimum health as most imported fish have quite a few paracites hitchhiking on them into your tank.

Merry Christmas

[F&Fmgr]

What about FW dips? How long?

 

Hypo? How long/low?

 

Or other methods?

 

Just curious to see what people do when they dont QT.

 

Thanks for the input so far.

Ron

 

 

The treatment depends on the disease. I.E. Youd use hypo to treat what looks like Ich, but what if its velvet(which happens to flourish in hypo)? then you'd need copper. We use copper sulfate chelate and 3x2day prazi treatments simultaneously, and then observe for another 2-3 days. when we acclimate them we dip them in malachite green and formalin specifically to knock off uronema and fish lice. It works for us. In between shipments, we sterilize each system with a heavy dose off potassium permanganate. like I said, we get positive feedback on our fish and Ive only had 2 outbreaks in 6 years of business.

 

Sean

[bluefunelement]

I went out a purchased a 5 gallon eclipse.

 

I have the same and throw an extra biowheel in the frag tank so it's seeded - just add tank water and no dangerous QT cycle.