Are quarantine tanks worth the effort?

[peterhos]

Evening all. I am sure I will get shot down here, but,… Are quarantine tanks worth the effort. In 20 years I have not bought a sick fish from my LFS. Just lucky? Yet others have sick fish in quarantine. Just makes me wonder. Any opinions on this?

 

[Slocke]

The Other Way to Run a Reef Tank (no Quarantine)

The other way to run a reef tank (No Quarantine) I was asked by my friend Humblefish to start a thread on my practices of running a tank with no quarantine, hospital tanks, medications, dipping or almost anything else. It is "not" just to take a fish from a store and drop it in your reef...

www.reef2reef.com

My controversial opinion on this is that you should be as careful as possible but that quarantining everything leads to a more susceptible population. But then my education comes from ecology not medicine and we have always had big difference in opinion when it comes to disease.

 

[william Lutman]

Depends on value and attachment to your fish.

 

[Tamberav]

Evening all. I am sure I will get shot down here, but,… Are quarantine tanks worth the effort. In 20 years I have not bought a sick fish from my LFS. Just lucky? Yet others have sick fish in quarantine. Just makes me wonder. Any opinions on this?

Not sure what you are wondering?

There are wipe out of display tanks you can find in the disease forums. Sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn’t.

There are likely factors that increase or decrease the chance… age of tank, aggression or other stressors, population of fish, and even what suppliers your LFS uses.

 

[ReefHunter006]

I’ve tried QTing everything in my own for about a year and half. Lost in total about 40 fish. It’s stressful, time consuming, resource draining, and last but not least imperfect. Things still get through and then trying to QT large amounts of fish at once just amplifies the above.

Fast forward to trying to add coral to the tank… it got incredibly annoying.

I am a huge proponent for QT, but my .02, better to just have someone do it for you.

I just buy QTd fish and maintain a 15 gallon tank that is for inverts and coral only. They spend 76 days in the 15 gallon then go to the frag tank and onward to the display.

QT is great, but it is much more challenging to accomplish on your own than most people think. On top of that, most medications are in a grey area of might or might not work. Anyone treating Uronema in chromies with metro will tell ya that eradication success isn’t high.

 

[Slocke]

The Other Way to Run a Reef Tank (no Quarantine)

The other way to run a reef tank (No Quarantine) I was asked by my friend Humblefish to start a thread on my practices of running a tank with no quarantine, hospital tanks, medications, dipping or almost anything else. It is "not" just to take a fish from a store and drop it in your reef...

www.reef2reef.com

My controversial opinion on this is that you should be as careful as possible but that quarantining everything leads to a more susceptible population. But then my education comes from ecology not medicine and we have always had big difference in opinion when it comes to disease.

Saying this and that I almost never quarantine myself I will pay a lot more for a quarantined fish as not only is it hopefully disease free but also I know it has successfully been kept in a tank for a good period in time and has hopefully recovered from any potential cyanide poisoning from collection.

 

[JGT]

You feeling lucky punk ? Don’t QT.

 

[doubleshot00]

QT are worth it but need to be cycled unless you have plenty of time to mess with it. Ammonia will creep up on you quickly.

 

[AKG]

Evening all. I am sure I will get shot down here, but,… Are quarantine tanks worth the effort. In 20 years I have not bought a sick fish from my LFS. Just lucky? Yet others have sick fish in quarantine. Just makes me wonder. Any opinions on this?

Luck and experience have nothing to do with eachother unfortunately these diseases definitely exist and some vendors are less scrupulous than others imo.

Start quarantining and buy a lottery ticket, you got some serious luck.

 

[mfinn]

In close to 40 years in the hobby I have had 2 outbreaks.
First one was in about 1995. Brought home a fish and ended up losing all 12 fish.
Since then I quarantined all fish that I have brought home, but unfortunately I stopped using a quarantine for corals.
Why IDK.
That one got me too. Brought home some corals from a online ( FB) buy and the guy neglected to tell me he was losing fish.
I don't put anything in my tank that haven't been quarantined.

 

[Lavey29]

I was paying extra top dollar for QT fish from a well known vendor here. Even went and picked the fish up but strangely they would not let me look inside the shop to look at their tanks. Bring the fish home and 24 to 72 hours later dead. Tried this vendor 4 times. 80% of the alleged QT fish died. Went to my local LFS who runs copper in his tanks and will isolate with prazi too. Started buying the exact same fish from him with 100% survival rate now over a year later. Paying high dollar to these specialty shops for alleged proper QT doesn't always yield positive results. I'm pretty sure it's a scam operation as others have voiced failures too. I'll stick with my LFS light QT in house for normal fish prices and 100% quality so far.

 

[Tamberav]

I was paying extra top dollar for QT fish from a well known vendor here. Even went and picked the fish up but strangely they would not let me look inside the shop at their tanks. Bring the fish home and 24 to 72 hours later dead. Tried this vendor 4 times. 80% of the alleged QT fish died. Went to my local LFS who runs copper in his tanks and will isolate with prazi too. Started buying the exact same fish from him with 100% survival rate now over a year later. Paying high dollar to these specialty shops for alleged proper QT doesn't always yield positive results. I'm pretty sure it's a scam operation as others have voiced failures too. I'll stick with my LFS light QT in house for normal fish prices and 100% quality so far.

That sucks to pay top dollar to have so many problems. Unfortunately being a vender I believe just means paying the fee and not necessarily being held to any specific standard they may claim

 

[Lavey29]

That sucks to pay top dollar to have so many problems. Unfortunately being a vender I believe just means paying the fee and not necessarily being held to any specific standard they may claim

I agree and I should have stopped trying them when I was not even be allowed inside to view the cleanliness of the operation.

 

[ninjamyst]

Completely and totally up to you. I say try it and see if you can tolerate it. I did and quickly stopped.

 

[exnisstech]

I never did until I lost almost all of my fish to velvet. Now I QT almost all new fish. I say almost all because I purchased a CBB 7 months ago and I did not QT it. Reason for not QTing it is because I have had trouble keeping them alive before and I was placing this fish into a tank that contained no other fish as they had been removed. I have mixed feelings on QT as I believe exposure can create resistance just like vaccinations etc but after almost being wiped out I'm paranoid. I do not QT coral. Why not? probably because I'm a slow learner and haven't had my corals wiped out yet. I do tend to cut frags from plugs and dip.

 

[FSP]

Obviously doesn't excuse the poor quality fish, but I know of two vendors who had their facilities compromised by "customers." Not sure I'd be open for visits either

 

[flashsmith]

I have 2 large systems and I never quarantine. But then again I have a trusted source for fish. They are hand picked and treated and acclimated to 1.025. Always eating as well. All I do is float and transfer. It's been months since I've even added a fish and I can't really remember when the last fish I had died. With that if you buy from LA or any other online supplier I think you should almost expect some issues.

 

[SpyC]

I was paying extra top dollar for QT fish from a well known vendor here. Even went and picked the fish up but strangely they would not let me look inside the shop to look at their tanks. Bring the fish home and 24 to 72 hours later dead. Tried this vendor 4 times. 80% of the alleged QT fish died. Went to my local LFS who runs copper in his tanks and will isolate with prazi too. Started buying the exact same fish from him with 100% survival rate now over a year later. Paying high dollar to these specialty shops for alleged proper QT doesn't always yield positive results. I'm pretty sure it's a scam operation as others have voiced failures too. I'll stick with my LFS light QT in house for normal fish prices and 100% quality so far.

Curious who the vendor is. Can you pm their name to me please?

 

[Steph72]

Evening all. I am sure I will get shot down here, but,… Are quarantine tanks worth the effort. In 20 years I have not bought a sick fish from my LFS. Just lucky? Yet others have sick fish in quarantine. Just makes me wonder. Any opinions on this?

I get the different schools of thought on this but choose to err on the safe side. Yes, it’s very stressful for the new fish and yes I’ve lost a few fish in this process. It’s utterly heartbreaking losing these precious lives but I would rather risk one than many.

When I had my first tank I experienced a total population loss because of velvet. It happened so fast and was so aggressive. I added a “healthy looking” new fish and within 24 hours he was gasping and dying. I was a new reefer and just didn’t know how nasty that stuff is. I had to run the tank fallow for months before adding any more new fish. It hurts to share this but I think it’s important to put it out there for others to learn from.

 

[Hitchhik3r]

I'm in the same boat. I am a new reefer and trying to do everything by the book. I bought a 13 gallon fluval tank just for QT but I am really fumbling with my attempt. A few times I let the ammonia climb dangerously high almost killing my fish. I've increased my water change frequency since then but then now my copper levels are all over the place, once I let it climb to almost 3.5 before I quickly did another water change late at night. I feel like I am putting my fish through an incredible amount of stress when they are about as healthy looking as they could be with a voracious appetite. I'm on the verge of just giving up and transferring them to my main tank.