Can I skip quarantining?

[ca1ore]

In answer to the OP .... can you skip QT, certainly yes. If you’ve not done QT previously then there’s likely stuff like ich in your tank already. Hard to ‘trust’ any of these places, so should you skip QT is more the question. I would not personally.

 

[Brew12]

Can you skip quarantining if you order from an online place that pre-quarantines for you? Is this effective/safe? For example, this site: https://drreefsquarantinedfish.com/quarantined-fish/


Thinking about ordering from them. Anyone have any thoughts/experience with this?

When I first got into the hobby around 4 years ago I was prophylactically treating everything. I had pretty good results once they got into my DT but I lost a lot of fish in the QT process. A little over 2 years ago I came across an article on the Seattle Aquarium. They were having serious issues with ich in their system and knew they couldn't eradicate it. They switched to an observation QT and only treating fish that have symptoms.
Remember, the presence of a parasite, bacteria or virus is not a disease. It is only a disease if it negatively impacts the health of the fish.
From that point on I stopped prophylactic treatment. I have added fish to my DT that came from systems with known velvet and ich issues. I have cut my fish losses dramatically since I stopped prophylactic treatment.

Otherwise, my opinion is that if you want fish that are treated prophylactically, you should learn the best practices and do it yourself. I wouldn't trust anyone else to do it.

 

[Sharkbait19]

It depends on if you trust your lfs/website. Honestly, you can't really 100% trust their methods. For example, liveaquaria supposedly quarantines and medicates, but many people get fish with disease. Not every fish can become 100% pest free. It's your job to make sure they are.

IMO, you should quarantine. I once thought I could get away with not quarantining, and everything died. Now, I can't even imagine not quarantining my fish.

 

[TangGang]

Can you skip quarantining if you order from an online place that pre-quarantines for you? Is this effective/safe? For example, this site: https://drreefsquarantinedfish.com/quarantined-fish/


Thinking about ordering from them. Anyone have any thoughts/experience with this?

Never trust any site, always quarantine in my opinion. It’s just incredibly risky and unwise to me at least, to not quarantine. Your risking so much, considering velvet dinospores can be undetected in the new fish’s water- not to mention ich trophonts can be undetectable, it makes absolutely no sense to introduce a new fish without at least putting it through a copper treatment, or any other treatment like TTM that also treats for ich and velvet. Quarantining is a great idea, I still don’t see any good argument against it.

 

[Hydrored]

When I first got into the hobby around 4 years ago I was prophylactically treating everything. I had pretty good results once they got into my DT but I lost a lot of fish in the QT process. A little over 2 years ago I came across an article on the Seattle Aquarium. They were having serious issues with ich in their system and knew they couldn't eradicate it. They switched to an observation QT and only treating fish that have symptoms.
Remember, the presence of a parasite, bacteria or virus is not a disease. It is only a disease if it negatively impacts the health of the fish.
From that point on I stopped prophylactic treatment. I have added fish to my DT that came from systems with known velvet and ich issues. I have cut my fish losses dramatically since I stopped prophylactic treatment.

Otherwise, my opinion is that if you want fish that are treated prophylactically, you should learn the best practices and do it yourself. I wouldn't trust anyone else to do it.

I agree with @Brew12 , I just put them in an observation tank for 30 days now. I've lost far too many fish in copper for reasons unknown to me. I will treat them if they show signs of anything.

 

[Michael White]

I would say know yourself. Look up proven methods from respected sources like Humblefish, etc. If you trust yourself to follow the treatment, testing and observation methods to the letter so as not to kill your fish through the treatment, and also effectively eradicate disease and parasites, then I recommend quarantining. If you don’t think, or have doubts that you’ll keep up with it all, than find a good source that yo can confirm follows a strict regimen and buy from them. No sense complying with the quarantine police and missing out on your “it” fish because you don’t have the space or time to diy. There are some good online suppliers like Marine Collectors and TSM Aquatics who are well respected for their quarantine practices. I’m sure there are som good LFS who do actually quarantine as well. I have only known 2 LFS out of 20+ in my 14 years of being an aquarist that did proper QT though. Use your better judgement but hey, life is too short-buy the fish!

 

[kenchilada]

It depends on if you trust your lfs

I was at a store near me (Aquatic Sealife) and a customer told an employee cleaning a tank that there was a sick green chromis floating around in another tank. The employee looked and told him "yeah we got those in yesterday, sometimes they do that for a couple days and turn out fine so we leave them in". The chromis was breathing rapidly and clearly was dying. My daughter noticed there was also a dead foxface stuck in the overflow grate.

In this same visit, I asked an employee if he could feed the copperbands so I could see if any of them would eat. They would not feed the tank. I asked another employee later and he was going to feed it, but he came back and told me he was instructed not to do so.

I will never go back there. Find an honest LFS that will work with you, talk to them, make friends with them, hang out there.

 

[Dr. Reef Verified Sponsor]

As the owner of www.drreefsquarantinedfish.com or www.wholesale-aquatics.com
I dont want to brag about myself and my business but i can be transparent about things which will help you make a wiser decision.

In 15+ yrs i have been qting fish for people (last 4 commercially) i have never seen ich or velvet from my sources. so it makes my work easy. In last 4 years i have had only 3 incidents where some prazi resistant flukes made it through to clients tanks.
There has been maybe 3-5 reports of ich but in ALL cases, client added something of non quarantined source into the tank like they added corals or frags or rocks etc. Cause was never determined to be my fish.
Again i am not saying my protocol is perfect, No qt is perfect or 100% guaranteed.

My best advice is to observe in a separate tank for minimum 2 weeks before introducing to main tank.
Shipping stress can bring nasty's out. some nasty stay hidden or suppressed in medicated tanks like lympo or bacterial infections or viral till they get into normal non medicated tanks.
Best to observe if you can.

 

[Sharkbait19]

I was at a store near me (Aquatic Sealife) and a customer told an employee cleaning a tank that there was a sick green chromis floating around in another tank. The employee looked and told him "yeah we got those in yesterday, sometimes they do that for a couple days and turn out fine so we leave them in". The chromis was breathing rapidly and clearly was dying. My daughter noticed there was also a dead foxface stuck in the overflow grate.

In this same visit, I asked an employee if he could feed the copperbands so I could see if any of them would eat. They would not feed the tank. I asked another employee later and he was going to feed it, but he came back and told me he was instructed not to do so.

I will never go back there. Find an honest LFS that will work with you, talk to them, make friends with them, hang out there.

Yeah, I've been to some pretty horrifying LFS's before. One time I wanted to get a crab for my freshwater tank. I went to the LFS, and asked for a freshwater crab. When they lifted the rock, their only one was dead and moldy, basically fell apart. It must've been dead for days. This was an LFS that went downhill over the years. I hear it was once a good place.

 

[Tamberav]

Can you skip quarantining if you order from an online place that pre-quarantines for you? Is this effective/safe? For example, this site: https://drreefsquarantinedfish.com/quarantined-fish/


Thinking about ordering from them. Anyone have any thoughts/experience with this?

meh people are saying not to trust anyone else but Dr Reef likely does a better job then most people on the forums.

I would not hesitant to buy from him. If something got through his QT than it would have gotten through mine too.

 

[Brew12]

meh people are saying not to trust anyone else but Dr Reef likely does a better job then most people on the forums.

I would not hesitant to buy from him. If something got through his QT than it would have gotten through mine too.

My issue isn't about what gets through his or similar QT protocols, it is about what doesn't get through. The probiotics and microbiota in a fishes gut are absolutely critical to the proper operation of its immune system. You can find numerous research studies that connect which gut parasites and bacteria boost different immune functions.

The issue is that treatment with CP, copper, and especially metronidazole destroy those important gut contents. It isn't at all unusual to have fish die after harsh chemical treatments for what seems to be no reason. For some reason we like to say that it is symptomless velvet because it acts quickly. The much more likely answer is that they are gram negative bacteria infections that are easily held at bay by a healthy fish. When a person is treated with high doses of metronidazole, doctors must do gut biota replacement therapy as part of their recovery. We don't have a simple process to do that with fish other than letting them eat the waste of untreated fish which is defeating the purpose.

The main reason I would recommend a person who wants to do it to do it themselves is that instead of being exposed to the viruses and bacteria that are airborne in multiple locations, they are only exposed to what is in the hobbyists house.

 

[JGT]

This made me chuckle. Depends on whose opinion you favor, the ‘various’ crowd or your own. Unless, of course, you’ve done extensive testing to support yours.

Depends, I suppose, on what is meant by disease. Every tank contains a large variety of bacteria which can opportunistically infect fish. If you mean something like ich, then I suspect more tanks have it than not, particularly if you’ve not used any kind of QT. It is not unusual for a tank that is asymptomatic to suddenly display ich upon the introduction of a canary.

Glad I could bring a little amusement to your day .
Not my opinion but certainly plenty of folks on R2R. I’m not really sure which side I’m on. Feel like I haven’t read anything conclusive one way or the other.
I was referring to ich vs. bacteria and your example is exactly what I was referring to.

 

[Tamberav]

My issue isn't about what gets through his or similar QT protocols, it is about what doesn't get through. The probiotics and microbiota in a fishes gut are absolutely critical to the proper operation of its immune system. You can find numerous research studies that connect which gut parasites and bacteria boost different immune functions.

The issue is that treatment with CP, copper, and especially metronidazole destroy those important gut contents. It isn't at all unusual to have fish die after harsh chemical treatments for what seems to be no reason. For some reason we like to say that it is symptomless velvet because it acts quickly. The much more likely answer is that they are gram negative bacteria infections that are easily held at bay by a healthy fish. When a person is treated with high doses of metronidazole, doctors must do gut biota replacement therapy as part of their recovery. We don't have a simple process to do that with fish other than letting them eat the waste of untreated fish which is defeating the purpose.

The main reason I would recommend a person who wants to do it to do it themselves is that instead of being exposed to the viruses and bacteria that are airborne in multiple locations, they are only exposed to what is in the hobbyists house.

All I can say is I ordered a Copperband that was fully QT and it was the best decision. It came eating voraciously and lively and I put it in my DT which is not disease free and it has not gotten sick regardless of whatever treatments it went though.

I would never be able to easily get such a fish at LFS.

TSM treats their fish and they have so many happy customers.

These fish arrive eating and healthy looking with low risk of adding velvet. That’s a fantastic thing for people who don’t want to or can’t QT.

My friend can’t QT as he has lots of little ones and is a busy dad and wife probably doesn’t want more tanks around the house. He just lost his tank to velvet so he is starting over and going to use online QT venders. I think it’s awesome he still has a chance to enjoy this hobby.

I guess everyone should do what they feel most comfortable with and it’s not a bad thing for people to have options.

 

[don_chuwish]

My take on it is either go to the time, expense, and stress of doing QT properly yourself or pay someone to do it for you. Don't do both - just harder on the fish.
@Dr. Reef posted a great reply above - perfect middle ground is to just observe his fish for a couple of weeks and then add to DT.

- D

 

[Brew12]

All I can say is I ordered a Copperband that was fully QT and it was the best decision. It came eating voraciously and lively and I put it in my DT which is not disease free and it has not gotten sick regardless of whatever treatments it went though.

I would never be able to easily get such a fish at LFS.

TSM treats their fish and they have so many happy customers.

These fish arrive eating and healthy looking with low risk of adding velvet. That’s a fantastic thing for people who don’t want to or can’t QT.

My friend can’t QT as he has lots of little ones and is a busy dad and wife probably doesn’t want more tanks around the house. He just lost his tank to velvet so he is starting over and going to use online QT venders. I think it’s awesome he still has a chance to enjoy this hobby.

I guess everyone should do what they feel most comfortable with and it’s not a bad thing for people to have options.

I agree, people should have options. They need to have informed options though.

I find it very frustrating when people prophylactically treat fish but then don't properly QT every coral and invert that goes into their systems. If you don't do everything properly you are likely better off not doing any prophylactic treatment.

I do think there are some advantages to prophylactic treatment. The biggest one is that you don't have to worry about fish aggression as much. If you are going to stock a large number of tangs for your tank volume, for instance, it is almost mandatory to prophylactically treat. Your fish are also less likely to have issues if you have equipment fail causing water quality issues.

For me, the big advantage on focusing on fish health is that I don't worry about adding parasites into my tank. I'll take coral from a local hobbyist and put it straight into my system. Fish showing some signs of velvet but still feeding ok? He's welcome in my display. For me, that is enjoying the hobby.

 

[AZMSGT]

OP, buying a fish from Dr Reefs was perfect when I did it a year ago and I have every bit of confidence that today fish from him would not need QT.

What you need to realize is there are places that “qt” and there are places that ”QT“.

Knowing what method is used and knowing the seller helps in making the correct decision on if you need to QT or not. A proper preQTed fish will be safe to put straight in your system.

Learn what it takes to QT fish then if you‘re willing to pay the price get them PreQTed by a reliable provider. Dr Reefs is one of these.

Unfortunately the title of your thread eludes to skipping all together and people don’t even read what you wrote.

 

[Daniel@R2R Verified Admin]

I got fish from @Dr. Reef and I can say that the fish were the healthiest I've seen come in from shipping anywhere. Came out active and eating. I highly recommend him and will be getting more through him in the future. I trust him more than myself.

 

[Jeff Jarry reef]

I don't but I should. Never had a sick fish but it could happen. If you can then I would

 

[HigherStandards]

I feed all my fish with Focus/metroplex/selcon/garlic guard for 2 weeks with the addition of any new fish. Pretty good chances so far

 

[Angel_V_the_reefer]

I do not quarantine but it is recommended especially if you are buying fish that are shipped and you have not seen their eating or breathing behaviors prior to arrival. This turns to risk.
Risk is not only with new acquistion but all others in the tank that are subject to disease or parasite.

I gave a clown to a friend of mine with known ich in his tank, it survived. My clown was a very healthy fish, they would eat as if there was no tomorrow.

Anything I say is only opinion and experience, but I think it’s important to see the eating habits and overall movement of the fish before acquiring.

I think stress kills, and diet matters too.