# Quarantine: best practices



## abnormalsanon (Jun 6, 2006)

I'm curious to hear what practices folks use for quarantine of new fish purchases. A few questions:

1) How long do you quarantine for? How did you decide on that particular length of time?

2) Do you have an extra planted tank for quarantine, or do you set up a temporary tank on the spot?


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## abnormalsanon (Jun 6, 2006)

To answer my own questions...

1) I leave them for 3-4 weeks, depending on where I got them and how patient I'm feeling.

2) I wish I could afford to set up another planted tank just for quarantine, but I know it would turn into a project in and of itself! I set up the 10gal quarantine the day before or day of my fish purchase, throw in some established tank water, some rocks, and a few plastic plants, and put the fish in. There's not much in the way of cover and it has to be stressful.


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## JanS (Apr 14, 2004)

I'm glad to hear you follow such good quarantine practices. 

For me:
1. I leave them in for at least 3 - 4 weeks, and longer if I'm still not positive everything is perfect.

2. I have 2 planted tanks that I keep set up for quarantine. One is a 20 long that's bare bottom with things like Anubias, driftwood and caves in there. The other is a 10 gallon that I set up to be pretty basic, but I keep upgrading it (lighting, substrate, etc.), so now it hardly resembles a q-tank, but it's still functional...
I also keep things like snails in the tanks to keep the bacteria somewhat built up when it's not being used.


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## finfollower (May 27, 2004)

yay for QTs

1. I usually leave my fish in a 10 gal for about 2-3 weeks depending on where I got them from and also how patient I am (I'm pretty impatient, so usually 2 weeks), but sometimes I get too lazy to move the fish to their new tanks so I leave them in the QT a little too long lol.:doh: 

2. My QT has a sand substrate and 3 pots setup for hiding and such. It used to be my old planted tank but that was before I found this site and it was pretty much a wreck, so I tore it down.


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## JanS (Apr 14, 2004)

Wow, I'm surprised not to see more responses here.....

I thought a bigger percentage than this faithfully quarantined their fish.

I'd be interested in hearing about your procedures and tank set-up/s too.


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## K20A2 (Aug 12, 2006)

When quarantining your new fish do you dose the tank with any meds just to be on the safe side? Or, do you just isolate them in the tank until your are reasonably sure that they are not carrying any diseases?

Oh, and Hi to everyone. Im new around here. Just gathering all the info I can before I get started on my tank.


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## JanS (Apr 14, 2004)

Welcome to the board K2OA2!

No, I don't ever recommend adding any sort of meds unless it's absolutely necessary and you're 100% sure what the problem might be. Just isolating them in a q-tank and watching them is the best safeguard you can have.


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## erik Loza (Feb 6, 2006)

K20A2?... You got RSX-S?


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## Zapins (Jul 28, 2004)

Hmm, not sure if this is a thread open to everyone or just those who quarantine... but...

I do not quarantine my fish. I prefer to go to pet stores that keep their fish in adequate housing, and spend a good amount of time observing their behavior/health. Once I am sure the fish is healthy, I purchase it and put it straight into the display tank.

So far I have had very very very few deaths or problems on any new purchases. If any problems do start to manifest, the affected fish is quickly removed to a "quarantine tank," it is more of a treatment/recuperation tank though. 

After all, there seem to be only a few diseases that spread so rapidly that can't be spotted/treated from one day to the next. The only exception is cardinal tetra disease, but that only affects tetras, so why not enjoy your fish from day one if they will receive medical treatment if they get sick either way?


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## standoyo (Aug 25, 2005)

Okay please take a deep breath. :lol: 
Hmmm, I would think without quarantine you run a risk of losing your precious fish.
The funny thing is some fish can be carriers of a disease that it is resistant to but deadly to others. I made a mistake of putting my discus together with altums two years back. The discus has just recovered from velvet disease. The altums got sick quickly and died a couple of days later.

On another case my discus were jumping out of the tank because of gill flukes contracted presumably from one of the many additions to the tank that were not quarantined. [cories, rummies etc] All these has been pretty heart breaking considering a discus would be hard to replace, just because of some cute cory or others. :grr:
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About quarantine: Bare tank with aeration and powerhead top-filter.
1. it's 3 days salt bath 1 ppt,
2. 5 pills metronidazole+3 tblsp Epsom salt per 100 liter 3 days skip one day.
3. Lastly 7day antibiotic treatment which I only use on the fish I intend to put in breeding stock tanks.
4. An optional bath of formalin or potassium permanganate after step 2. [not recommended for fish with open sores]

Normally, in non precious fish tanks I only do step 1 or not at all. 

A dewormer like prazi or levamisole is recommended for fish that is wild caught but I've yet to find a suitable source for these meds.

IMHO think most of you who don't medicate need not worry too much. 
I mean medicating a whole hospital tank just because of two new cories seems excessive but the risk is there.

Lastly, healthy fish can fight off disease!

R

Stan


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## erik Loza (Feb 6, 2006)

Zapins got it right... None of our aquaria are like a hospital room in terms of sterility and pathogens like ich, etc. are omnipresent. Healthy fish kept in a healthy tank have strong immune systems and are resistant to infection. In many of our minds, we take the visible manifestation of symptons to mean the presence of of some disease. This is backward. The pathogen was always around, only that your fish were strong and not affected by it until water quality took a dive, there was a stressor like aggression, etc. 

It would be a different story if each one of us had some little laboratory and magically spawned our own tetras, cichlids, or barbs that had never seen any pathogen in their lives until they left our facility but the reality is that 95% of the fish that you and I keep all come from the same sources and have always been exposed to all sorts of bacteria and protozoans. 

No exaggeration: I probably handled 2-3 million tropical fish during my 15 years in the industry at both the independent fish store and big box retail fish store level and feel pretty safe making the following statements:

1. If the fish store you shop at has lots of quarantine tanks, you might want to consider shopping someplace else. 

2. "Don't buy from that tank if there's a dead fish in the tank" is a scare-tactic advice and doesn't help anybody. You lose fish in a retail environment on a daily basis and as long as the majority of the fish look good or the species you're buying looks good, you're probably safe. 

3. In my experience, THE LAY-AQUARIST runs a greater risk of losing fish in some home-made quarantine tank than if they would just put it into the primary tank to begin with. That's just one more place for water quality to crash, fighting to happen, feedings and water changes to be forgotten between Points A and B. 

There was a point in time when I had trained pretty much all the aquatics personnel for Petco in northern California (well, back when that sort of thing was more of a priority than it is these days, anyway) and the advice I told them was, "You're a rancher who raises cows. A cow here and a cow there will have problems and there's nothing you can do about it, so there's no point in worrying. Your job really is to make sure the grass in pasture stays green because as long as it is, you can keep cows for as long as you like. If the grass dies because you were too busy fussing over one or two cows, then you're really screwed. This room full of tanks is your pasture." 
Most of them got it. 

Anyway, I guess my point is that healthy fish are tough and if you shop wisely and keep your aquarium in good shape, there may be no benefit from quarantining new aquisitions. My 2-cents worth, for what they are. Good luck to all.


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## DataGuru (Mar 11, 2005)

With long lived fish like goldfish, I typically QT for a couple of weeks. I routinely treat new fish with praziquantel for flukes. and only treat with other meds if they have symptoms. For instance... I recently adopted 11 sick fancy goldies from a club member who'd rescued them from sick tanks at Walmart. They ended up getting prazi for flukes, formalin/malachite green for other parasites (they were covered with white slime) and then medikoi food. Even with that protocol, I still lost 3. They'll be in QT for three more weeks while I make sure they're happy. No way am I putting any new fish in with my goldfish without making sure they are healthy.

Prazi is available from pondrx, drs foster and smith, goldfish connections and other places and jungle includes it in their parasite tabs (they don't give the dose in their meds tho). I haven't found a good source for levamisole.

I get most of my tropical fish from local club members, so I'm not too worried about diseases with them.


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## kotoeloncat (Mar 17, 2006)

I quarantine only discus and when I do I put them into the 45 gal, with any other cichlids I never quarantine, they are extremely hardy when their requirements are met


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## Zapins (Jul 28, 2004)

erik Loza made some really good points. 

Particularly 
"2. "Don't buy from that tank if there's a dead fish in the tank" is a scare-tactic advice and doesn't help anybody. You lose fish in a retail environment on a daily basis and as long as the majority of the fish look good or the species you're buying looks good, you're probably safe."

I used to work in a very good petstore for years, and fish losses are very common with new arrivals. In fact, we would go around and scoop out the dead fish every morning after a big order. Some fish simply die regardless of what you do in business, so having a dead fish in a tank is not indicative of the rest of the fishs' health. If a person went by that advice (and knew how many were scooped out that morning) they would not buy any fish at all!


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## standoyo (Aug 25, 2005)

Zapins said:


> Some fish simply die regardless of what you do...


Haha... I get that a lot with Discus. Have had one or two mishaps with PP[potassium permanganate].
Altums that get here also have recorded very poor survival rate from air freight.

At the shop much must be said about choose the stronger and happy swimming about ones and leave the weak. Dead fish in the tank? Could be ammonia poisoning or some non-parasitic cause of death.
Healthy and happy fish normally would react positively to a raised hand near water level by coming to have a look see.


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## DJKronik57 (Apr 17, 2006)

I recently set up a QT tank only because I saw a bunch of obviously sick Blue Rams at a big box pet store and they were cheap and they had females which I needed. I also had experience treating them for internal parasites and knew what to do. It's just a 2 gallon tank with a sponge filter in it and some floating najas grass. The two females I bought got a treatment with Jungle Labs Parasite Clear and there were nasty worms all OVER the tank bottom the next morning. They have since completely recovered. However, once they recovered they started to fight each other (never seen female blue rams fight each other before...) and cause damage, so I moved one out to a recently vacated (RIP Cherry Shrimp ) 10 gallon. I think I'll QT any new fish I get now that I've built up a stock of fish I really like and have grown attached to.


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## K20A2 (Aug 12, 2006)

erik Loza said:


> K20A2?... You got RSX-S?


Why yes,... yes I do.


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## Bert H (Mar 2, 2004)

Just read through all the posts here...I find it very interesting. Just another facet of the hobby where there appear to be a variety of 'correct' answers depending on who asks the questions.  Seriously, though, I liked Erik's post, a lot of good points there. There's also a lot of good points throughout the rest of the posts as well. When you de-worm some fish and find a bunch of dead worms the next day, it certainly is telling. 

Personally, I don't have a q-tank. I should say, I no longer have a q-tank. I had originally set up my 10 gal with the idea of using it as a q-tank. Over time, it's become another planted tank with Endler's and a bunch of cherries. I figure, now I can't really use it to treat any sick fish, because I would probably kill off all the cherries. 

Different strokes for different folks. YMMV!


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## erik Loza (Feb 6, 2006)

K20A2 said:


> Why yes,... yes I do.


You on clubrsx? If not, you should join us.


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## Astral (Sep 24, 2004)

I don't quarantine because currently I only have a 15G with a few cherry barbs, but I may turn the 15G into a Quarantine/hospital tank when I get my 4ft tank going.

I've read somewhere that other reasons for quarantine lies in fish poop. The author noted that certain algae and snail eggs etc. can be found in fish poop for up to a few weeks and therefore introduced to your tank. Anyone here quarantine for these reasons?

To Erik and Zappins - I had a good laugh about the "dead fish scare". When I first started out in this hobby last year all the books told me to "immediately leave any fish store if you see a dead fish in their tanks" I followed this advice and ran out of fish stores. 

Frank


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## JanS (Apr 14, 2004)

DJKronik57 said:


> I think I'll QT any new fish I get now that I've built up a stock of fish I really like and have grown attached to.


Exactly.  Fish and plants both included. It's no fun to have to start medicating your show tank, which is most likely much bigger than a q-tank, and why put your established healthy fish and plants through something like that if you don't have to....



Bert H said:


> I should say, I no longer have a q-tank. I had originally set up my 10 gal with the idea of using it as a q-tank. Over time, it's become another planted tank with Endler's and a bunch of cherries.


Funny how that keeps happening, isn't it??  I've gained a few tanks that way...


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