Are quarantine tanks worth the effort?

[killer2001]

Remember Bubble Boy. If you have no immune system, you must live in a bubble or else the common cold will kill you. I think the argument is, stripping the fish's immune system then forcing them to live together in groups of fish who also have their immune system's stripped in hopes a random parasite or pathogen never makes it into the tank, is a ticking time-bomb.

What's the longest living fish that was quarantined at an early age?

 

[MT. Reefer]

I'm running a 150 with 60 gal sump. I also have a JBJ 28 gal nano which holds a few rocks, a couple dozen frags, snails, a few starfish and a Purple Firefish. Every fish I purchase gets to play with the Firefish for a month before going into the display tank. I tried quarantine tanks and the fish really didn't like it and neither did I. This works sooo much better and is so much easier on the fish. I keep the parameters the same in both tanks so when it's time to transfer, it's a piece of cake. And, I have the two tanks 4 feet apart, so they get to look at each other for a month before making new friends.

 

[kenchilada]

Remember Bubble Boy. If you have no immune system, you must live in a bubble or else the common cold will kill you. I think the argument is, stripping the fish's immune system then forcing them to live together in groups of fish who also have their immune system's stripped in hopes a random parasite or pathogen never makes it into the tank, is a ticking time-bomb.

What's the longest living fish that was quarantined at an early age?

Call and ask a public aquarium.

 

[WRB]

I've had a Fowler tank running full time sine 1982, I have lost fish but have never had a mass die off.
I use an observation tank for 30 days.
For me having a relationship with my supplier is worth more than my very limited success at saving any fish that's sick. In short I haven't used the medication tank in years, if a fish looks questionable I'm fortunate to have a supplier who will step in and do all he can to save the fish and even he's not always successful.

 

[leon.1980]

The answer to the most Common thing brought up is insanely simple. From the start of any tank I have about a gallon of bio media in my sump at all times. This way whenever qt is needed I have instant disposable media for keeping the cycle going in a qt tank.
mad far as qt yes I qt everything but I use no chemicals. I spend two weeks in a observational period for the fast acting and obvious killers. If everything seems all right I then perform a 6 week hypo treatment to catch the parasites and worms. I equate copper to fish chemo therapy and my fish always come out no different from hypo. with copper they just seemed sickly and didn’t even seem right after the copper was over.

 

[Julbra]

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?

In my view QT is a must. My lesson was learned early with the first fish I brought home, a beautiful royal gramma.

I thought “well at least it can’t infect anyone else” so I put it straight into DT. He died a few weeks later of Brook.

The whole family suffered watching him slowly die, LFS was no help. I admit it was a tough introduction to this hobby, I almost gave up… never again!

Since, I’ve changed LFS and had about 1 in 4 fish come with something.

So I think you’ve been lucky so far. Velvet scares the hell out of me: why risk years of effort and hundreds of dollars in the DT just to save a few weeks of observation.

 

[atoll]

Never had a torture chamber for my fish.

 

[ScubaShane]

I fresh water dip my fish. It's called osmotic shock. I use it to remove parasites.

 

[littlebigreef]

If you don’t want a QT tank then you’re sort of obligated to have hospital tank.

 

[MWFoster]

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 use Quarantine tank not so much as to weed out sick fish but to keep Copper out of my reef tank. Quarantine tank is a 10 gallon that doubles as a hospital tank. For the first week the fish are in the quarantine tank and I do water changes during the week a gallon here and there. I've whipped out a good selection of sold coral and clams to introducing new fish that I did not segregate the water.

 

[SoundsDigital]

I never had a quarantine tank for tropical fish and never had any problems.

When I went saltwater I initially set up a quarantine tank but fell in love with a couple of maroon clownfish in my lfs that they were desperate to sell as they couldn't keep them in a tank with anything else. They now live in my quarantine tank and ironically are the only fish that ever got sick, though responded well to treatment and are now a lot less aggressive to the extent I've been considering getting them a tank mate.

 

[TWYOUNG]

I have lost lots of fish in QT to disease or parasites. I've never lost a fish in my DT to disease or parasites. You do the math.

I'm curious as to your experience with disease in your DT. Have you never had it or do you just "manage" it? I'm experiencing a low level of parasite activity in my young tank, (a couple of fish, and a limited amount), and wonder when I should be concerned. I decided early on to go with, "ich management", and run a fairly large UV, supplement food with Selcon, feed Nuri regularly, and try to minimize stress. I'd like to add cleaner shrimp but fear they would become a meal for my Flame Hawk.

 

[Tjm23slo]

QT is only worth it after you have had a bad experience. I just went through AEFW. I wish I had a QT and spent the 3 month watching.
3 months of dipping and rearranging, I think this episode is over and not I have setup a QT. Now I have to use it.

 

[brandon429]

anyone whos tank is wrecked by chrysophytes wishes all peers recommended evaluation qt in the least vs making it always about fish disease

 

[alabella1]

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

I wondered the same.

 

[Paul B]

Call and ask a public aquarium.

I volunteer at a public aquarium and a home tank is completely different. A public aquarium is very much like the sea as the fish are not stressed and have access to natural foods that are available all the time. The small tanks in public aquariums don't fare as well.

To me, and I have been doing this for quite a while, the best all around thing is to keep your fish in an immune condition. If your fish ever got infected with any of the common communicable diseases in this hobby, it's because you did not keep them immune either using the incorrect food, the wrong aquascape for health or you medicated or quarantined them forcing the fish to lose it's immunity.

There is a reason there are no old fully quarantined tanks or fish. None that I have found in decades. For a fish to live out it's normal lifespan which could be 10-20 years in many fish, they need a fully functioning immune system.

If your goal is just to keep fish a few years and watch them swim around seemingly healthy then quarantining and medicating whenever you see an ailment would work fine.

To me, a tank is not a success until all the animals are in a state of health where they are never affected by any disease just like in the sea and they only die of old age or jumping out, bullying, starving etc. All fish that can spawn are also spawning as all female fish in the sea are pregnant.

Just my senile opinion of course and you should keep your fish any way you feel is right for you and them.

 

[doubleshot00]

It just really doesn't take that much effort if you know how to do it right...(the way some members commented on this thread)...plus you can always use it as a hospital tank in an emergency

I moved biological media over, sponge and dosed a whole bottle of bacteria and have ammonia spikes after 3-4 days. QT tanks unless completely cycled are a royal pain in the A. I absolutely hate emergency QT tanks. Nothing but problems.

If i can limp this fish through ill be cycling this tank and never taking it down again b

 

[doubleshot00]

I wondered the same.

Thisx1000

 

[Mark Gray]

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 am still learning I have been in the hobby since the 70s. At one point I had 7 tanks with the largest was a 300 gallon. I do not QT and have never OTed.

 

[livinlifeinBKK]

I moved biological media over, sponge and dosed a whole bottle of bacteria and have ammonia spikes after 3-4 days. QT tanks unless completely cycled are a royal pain in the A. I absolutely hate emergency QT tanks. Nothing but problems.

If i can limp this fish through ill be cycling this tank and never taking it down again b

Yeah, i just keep a cycled 5 gallon tank set up personally but didn't want to take away from the advice of reefers who have been at it much longer than myself. I just have live rock and sand in it and a HOB filter. If I go a while without any fish in there at all, I can always just add a drop or two of ammonia along with some Fluval Cycle a week before getting the fish. Honestly though, I just do short term non medicated QTs.