Common causes of a failed quarantine

[GoldeneyeRet]

This has been done before, but let's do it again. What has caused you or others to have losses in qt?

Two big ones I see are overcrowding the qt and trying sensitive or difficult species before you have your qt procedure down pat.

When I started quarantine many years ago I made both these mistakes over and over and over again. Slow learner I guess.

Hopefully this will help some people get through qt with better success.

 

[Lizfrank1234]

My first two QT attempts failed killing 6 fish. My next two have been successful. At first i had no idea what i was doing wrong and asked advice on here. There was various suggestions but the one that i think was the problem was salinity problems. I keep my DT at 1.026 and use the water from that to fill my QT. I discovered that most LFS keep there salinity low,around 1.020. We had also travelled to different shops for the first few fish without checking how they set their salinity. I now order the fish,go to see them in the shop,get them to check the salinity of the tank they are in,come back home and adjust the QT to match and go back for the fish. Its worked so far so i think that was probably the mistake i was making

 

[Gmj4409]

Overdosing copper - thank God for the Hanna checker (& thank you Hotrocks for doing the legwork on this device)

 

[AcroNem]

In professional quarantine I've seen a lot of losses that showed really no reason after necropsy and was accepted as stress related. During treatment periods it can be overcrowding, trying the wrong drug for sensitive species, too much of even the right medication, ammonia poisoning (check at least once per day, best if 2x, same with copper). There's a lot that can go wrong, but that's why there are written protocols to follow for everything, because strict and proper quarantine is essential. Some get lucky, some for a long time, but it's essential.

 

[drstardust]

Overdosing copper for sure. The Hanna checker is a lifesaver.
Not monitoring ammonia/not seeding with bacteria in a bottle.
And then, sometimes you do everything right and fish still don't make it. Such are life's challenges.

 

[pecan2phat]

I've found the best success for me was to keep an active QT running without medication and let new fish settle in for a week before doing any prophylactic treatments.
When I medicate immediately, it always ends up in appetite suppression and if I do a pop up QT tank, I'm always fighting ammonia even if I use established bio-media running in the DT sump.
And then there's the whole salinity matching conundrum. Why does it matter especially if you are doing a fresh water dip to check for flukes before placing into the QT?

 

[AcroNem]

I've found the best success for me was to keep an active QT running without medication and let new fish settle in for a week before doing any prophylactic treatments.
When I medicate immediately, it always ends up in appetite suppression and if I do a pop up QT tank, I'm always fighting ammonia even if I use established bio-media running in the DT sump.
And then there's the whole salinity matching conundrum. Why does it matter especially if you are doing a fresh water dip to check for flukes before placing into the QT?

This^ as well. This is why protocol is at least 30 days, the first few days-a week is getting the fish eating and healthy. Rushing a (prophylactic) treatment is a fast way to make a fish worse.

 

[Brew12]

I find the order to apply medications to be the biggest challenge. If a fish has velvet and you start by treating for internal parasites it lowers the chance of success. If you treat immediately with copper but the fish has an internal bacteria infection or urenoma, you can make it worse. If you don't start by treating for internal parasites and those keep it from eating your chances go down immensely.

My opinion is that the supply chain is such a mess that getting a fish through QT takes some luck along with best practices. My opinion is that not putting a fish through QT first is a recipe for tank wide disaster for most of us.

 

[AcroNem]

I find the order to apply medications to be the biggest challenge. If a fish has velvet and you start by treating for internal parasites it lowers the chance of success. If you treat immediately with copper but the fish has an internal bacteria infection or urenoma, you can make it worse. If you don't start by treating for internal parasites and those keep it from eating your chances go down immensely.

My opinion is that the supply chain is such a mess that getting a fish through QT takes some luck along with best practices. My opinion is that not putting a fish through QT first is a recipe for tank wide disaster for most of us.

I agree with most of this. Getting down which med to use first is difficult by sight alone. We should all buy a good microscope (; The wholesale supply chain is a mess for sure, I'm lucky to be able to order everything from collectors. Harder to get eating and they still always have something, but they haven't sat in holding for a week or so stewing in all the parasites and diseases of a bunch of other fish from different regions.

 

[SDK]

Additional vote for the Hanna checker being invaluable. I tried very hard to dial in my copper using formulas when a shipping problem delayed my checker.

I was positive I had my copper in the 180 to 200 range, but it tested out at 1.25. I would have wasted 30 days under dosing two fish and maybe lost both if I just went with the formulas.

Overcrowding seems to be another common one. A lot of QT failure threads seem to involve multiple tangs and/or butterflies being added to newly setup QT tanks in groups...