QUARANTING NEW ADDITIONS

[jetskisteve]

OK bit of a poll! were all guilty of it.... introducing new fish without quaranting, I know I've always done it . Anyone else??????????????

[Drifty]

I will be in the future, never have before just chucked em in

[Brianemone]

ideally i would have one but have no space for it.

from experiance i have learnt about who's fish i trust and who i am cautious with. personally ive only lost one fish on introduction to the tank. i will be very selective with the fish i introduce to the new tank.

[cracker]

good thread steve....

[lduncan]

Usually only expensive ones, or those that are known to be shy eaters at first.

[cookie extreme]

learnt the hard way. my first ever saltwater tank which was a "massive" 85 liters. chucked 11 fish in and killed 10 of them with white spot. only the neon damsel survived (don't thing that any illness kills them). ever since i keep low fish numbers, and try to feed them as best as possible. but have to admit that i still don't quarantaine them.

[jetskisteve]

You pretty much all answewed as expected, Its just all to hard for most hobbiests, I know I dont have the time or patience!

[Ira]

I don't really have a place for a quarantine tank and then that's ANOTHER tank I have to maintain. At my current rate of adding fish maybe once every 9 months...

[Fay]

No I don't, thinking twice at adding anymore fish.

[reef]

It might seem a hard thing to do but in reality it is a good idea as most fish are stressed and have been in a few tanks before arriving to its final home, so chances are that it will carry something.

All you need is a bare tang with a heater and air stone.

Change 50% of the water every few days. I would use your main tank water and mix fresh water for the main tank.

It is also a good time to feed the fish lots as it is easy to clean up.

You could add Salifert stop parasite or try seachem cupramine which is copper. But be careful as copper sucks as it affects the fish’s digestive system.

I go with the theory that white spot is in a tank and causes problems when fish are stressed.

[jetskisteve]

I agree, In reality tho hardly anyone does it.

[rossco]

I have recently set up what I intended to be a refugium and what rapidly turned into an isolation/hospital tank for my blue tang that came down with white spot. I can isolate the refugium from main tank, and main tank has run well so far on its own 'filter' power, so intend to use it as a quarantine tank in the future once I get over the current drama.

What is the main purpose of the quarantine?

I know to prevent putting disease into your main tank but if we purchase a fish that is a carrier, eg is harbouring sub-clinical form of the disease, not enough to be seen by us, but enough to keep the parasite cycle going in the quarantine tank, won't it still introduce it to the main tank?

Do we isolate to: 1. allow fish to acclimatise to our tank environment 2. observe potential clinical signs and 3. treat with something like Salifert in case the fish has sub-clinical parasites?

I guess my uncertainty comes from seeing some fish with what could be white spot that stays in the same place on fish for several weeks ie how do we definitely confirm 'whitespot'?

[chimera]

I can isolate the refugium from main tank

this is what im planning on doing (or having the capability of doing) when i get a new skimmer usually though dont quarantine

[suphew]

I'm not really sure how well the refuge/QT would work. surely there are two reasons for QT 1) to check a fish and not let bad stuff into your tank 2) to be able to treat your fish in ways that you wouldn't be able to in the main tank (i.e. use non-reef safe treatments, like copper).

Assuming point 2) how would you do this in a tank that was also your refuge? If you used copper etc you would pretty much have to chuck out everything (sand rock etc) from the refuge and start it again, and of course you can't not treat the refuge now because what ever the fish has will also be in the refuge tank??

What sort of time should QT be run for, does it make sense to just do a full treatment instead of waiting two weeks then having to do it away?

[HelifaxNZ]

My question is, how big does the QTank need to be. I do have a spare small tank about 300x 260 x 260mm. Wouldn't QT stress them, then moving them to the main tank?

[Feelers]

I know that with an octopus copper is incredibly toxic, and you cant even use a tank that has been treated with copper in the past - no matter how much you wash it out. I think the silicon absorbes it or something.

I dont know how succeptable corals and shrimps are to copper compared to and octopus but I would say if your going to use copper it should be in a completly seperate system, with no transfer of equipment between the tanks.

[slappers]

yes that's what i think too,?? so if you get them from a trustworthy supplier should be all OK, apart form when one off your fish in the tank becomes sick

[hazymranch]

Every book I read as I did my homework recommended a quarantine tank. Fenner said it was just about a requirement for a healthy system. I have a 60L up and running with very little substrate, one live rock, a ceramic pot, a small power head, heater, and sponge filter. I have not used it yet, but it is so easy to maintain that it is almost an afterthought. I use change water from one of the other tanks with the same volume of aged fresh water to get the SG down to around 1.013. So, when I get new fish, they can acclimate to the lower SG while any parasites can't. I can also get used to the fish and vice versa before letting it loose in the main tank, from which it would be very hard to retreive it.

The LFS I use in Dunedin (Pet Warehouse) is great, but they don't keep any stock on hand to speak of so everything is by order. That means that the fish are also coming straight from the supplier to me for the most part.

I reckon it is one of those things where I don't want to be in a situation where I wish I had one running.