Bringing home fish from mature tank

[ErikVR]

Hi all,

I’m looking to bring home some 20 fish from a running and mature tank. The hobbyist is moving and can’t bring his fish with him.

My question is, should I treat all these fish the same as individual fish I bring home from the store? Which means following the quarantine protocol. Or should I treat them as a healthy group of fish and put them straight into a tank?

My gut feeling tells me to quarantine as I would with any new fish. But on the other hand it could stress out fish that have been healthy and thriving together for years.

What would you do?

 

[gbroadbridge]

Hi all,

I’m looking to bring home some 20 fish from a running and mature tank. The hobbyist is moving and can’t bring his fish with him.

My question is, should I treat all these fish the same as individual fish I bring home from the store? Which means following the quarantine protocol. Or should I treat them as a healthy group of fish and put them straight into a tank?

My gut feeling tells me to quarantine as I would with any new fish. But on the other hand it could stress out fish that have been healthy and thriving together for years.

What would you do?

The stress of the move could lower the fish immunity and allow opportunistic infections to occur.

I would suggest using normal QT protocols. Better safe than sorry.

 

[Dbichler]

Also make sure your tank can handle that increase of bioload. Best to add them slowly over the course of a couple months unless you have a monster sized tank.

 

[ErikVR]

Also make sure your tank can handle that increase of bioload. Best to add them slowly over the course of a couple months unless you have a monster sized tank.

That’s tricky to know for sure. It has been up for some 8 months. 180 gallon system. Loads of rock and 20kg of bio media in the sump. Only housing 8 (including a blue tang and fox face) fish at the moment that will move to my office tank.

 

[2020 Worst Year]

why would you QT them?

 

[ErikVR]

The same reason why I would quarantine any fish I bring home. Because I don’t want to bring potential parasites into my existing system. Moving causes stress and stress Lowers the immune system. Making them even more vulnerable to infections.

 

[ryanjohn1]

That’s tricky to know for sure. It has been up for some 8 months. 180 gallon system. Loads of rock and 20kg of bio media in the sump. Only housing 8 (including a blue tang and fox face) fish at the moment that will move to my office tank.

Seems like your plan to move the fish in current tank out and new fish into it correct?

 

[2020 Worst Year]

QT is stress though

 

[ErikVR]

Seems like your plan to move the fish in current tank out and new fish into it correct?

Correct.

 

[ErikVR]

QT is stress though

Agree. That’s why I’m asking what you all think is the best of two options that both have risks.

 

[2020 Worst Year]

idk if the fish have been healthy for multiple years in his system i see no need to QT that's just me though

 

[ryanjohn1]

Old boys out new boys in. I mean. I wouldn’t qt in a bare tank with doing that

 

[Tonycass12]

My vote is for quarantine. You never know how the old owner managed things. They may have just been managing things rather then doing a quarantine. Those fish are only under minimal stress from a short move, much less then they would receive being shipped to your local fish store, acclimated to those tanks them being pulled to be taken to a new system within a week.

I always quarantine, even fish I get from local guys. It's not worth having something make it into the tank just so i can rip my display apart to catch all my fish and put them into quarantine again.

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

That’s tricky to know for sure. It has been up for some 8 months. 180 gallon system. Loads of rock and 20kg of bio media in the sump. Only housing 8 (including a blue tang and fox face) fish at the moment that will move to my office tank.

Its your tank, but I wouldn't add 20 fishes at once, maybe 4 or 5 monthly at a time.

Even with QT, I would still get a several tanks to QT them, can't add 20 fishes to a QT tank at once.

 

[ErikVR]

Its your tank, but I wouldn't add 20 fishes at once, maybe 4 or 5 monthly at a time.

Even with QT, I would still get a several tanks to QT them, can't add 20 fishes to a QT tank at once.

I have multiple QTs. Two 40 gal tanks up and running in my quarantine room. And two 30 gal tanks in storage. Canister filters to go with them as well.

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

Hi all,

I’m looking to bring home some 20 fish from a running and mature tank. The hobbyist is moving and can’t bring his fish with him.

My question is, should I treat all these fish the same as individual fish I bring home from the store? Which means following the quarantine protocol. Or should I treat them as a healthy group of fish and put them straight into a tank?

My gut feeling tells me to quarantine as I would with any new fish. But on the other hand it could stress out fish that have been healthy and thriving together for years.

What would you do?

As a public aquarium curator, I would quarantine all new fish, even those from other public aquariums. I might modify the process, or shorten the time depending on circumstances, but I would ALWAYS tank the fish away from my main collection for some time. The reason is, as mentioned, transport stress can bring out chronic disease issues that can then become acute. These chronic issues, if present, may not be present in my collection.

The classic example I give is this: I had a population of Midas cichlids in a stream exhibit. They had lived there for years, even growing second and third generations. I rarely lost any fish from that exhibit. Another aquarium took 100 of them that I had surplus. I got a call a few months later telling me I sent them fish that had gill flukes and that were dying like flies. I thought, no way, but I sampled some of our cichlids. Sure enough, they had gill flukes. Our naturalistic stream exhibit was large enough, and good enough of an environment for those fish not to show symptoms until they were moved to smaller aquariums at another facility.

Jay

 

[vetteguy53081]

Hi all,

I’m looking to bring home some 20 fish from a running and mature tank. The hobbyist is moving and can’t bring his fish with him.

My question is, should I treat all these fish the same as individual fish I bring home from the store? Which means following the quarantine protocol. Or should I treat them as a healthy group of fish and put them straight into a tank?

My gut feeling tells me to quarantine as I would with any new fish. But on the other hand it could stress out fish that have been healthy and thriving together for years.

What would you do?

This would be a huge load on your tank and you will want to consider aggression and temperament/compatibility with your existing fish. While a sweet deal, you may want to consider a second tank to split them up although not always feasible.

 

[ErikVR]

This would be a huge load on your tank and you will want to consider aggression and temperament/compatibility with your existing fish. While a sweet deal, you may want to consider a second tank to split them up although not always feasible.

The current fish will move to my office tank. And I also have a tank in my home office that only has two fish at the moment.

My main DT is a little bigger than their current home. And if they don’t get along in my main tank, I can always move some over to the home office and office tanks.

I currently have a total of 500 gallons (spread over 3 tanks) but only 13 fish in total

 

[MnFish1]

That’s tricky to know for sure. It has been up for some 8 months. 180 gallon system. Loads of rock and 20kg of bio media in the sump. Only housing 8 (including a blue tang and fox face) fish at the moment that will move to my office tank.

1. I would QT the fish.
2. Though the rock you currently have is probably enough, as a cheap insurance policy if you were to treat with say Fritz 9000 would be a cheap insurance policy. It also depends on the size of the fish you're adding.