is quarantining necessary?

[Squidward]

I just read Jay's recommendation on Qt...in the disease forum...I'm not going through a 62 day process like that EVER.. What I do works well for me..

You can do what I did. TTM with prazipro. 12 days can't beat that.

 

[Hot2na]

The QT crew loses alot more... BTW..if anyone wants a sealed unopened Gal of NFP's PRAZIGOLD ...lmk , cheap.. pm me

 

[Squidward]

The QT crew loses alot more... BTW..if anyone wants a sealed unopened Gal of NFP's PRAZIGOLD ...lmk , cheap.. pm me

I wonder how many have given up the hobby after a huge crash? That's more painful than losing fish in qurantine. I know when I had velvet, I was utterly bummed and depressed and downgraded for a few years. After that I was determined to have an ich free tank. And here I am.. happier than ever knowing I would never have to worry about parasites suddenly appearing instead of taking risky chances and hoping for the best.

 

[Paul B]

Brandon, here is a post I added in Hudu's thread not long ago. If you like I can refine it exactly what I would do step by step. I also did not mention my reef once here.

I don't know where that thread is where you want me, Atoll and Lasse to respond.
(I hate to go there because of the stupid arguments that will follow from members that will keep saying it is not possible)

Hello there Hudu. Sorry, I didn't even know this thread existed.

Contrary to popular opinion I don't spend all my waking hours on here searching out interesting threads. Much of my time, but not all of it. I normally just check if there is anything new on one of my threads then go outside and count cicada's in the dirt.

I did just read quite a few of the threads and it seems we are looking to start a new tank with dry rock. My advice would be to get another hobby.

Sorry. I started my tank with dead rock that I collected live in the sea in the tropics, and bleached in my hotel room to carry it home on my lap. I had many problems at first. Dry rock with nothing added from the sea is most often a disaster weather you quarantine, don't quarantine or offer up tea leaves to the moon.

If you want to do this and have some sort of success try to get at least some live rock. The more you get, the more successful you will be. I realize live rock is expensive but it is more important than controllers, dosers, oxidators, ozonizers or fish.
I don't know what boxed salt costs but you won't have to change the water very often so buy rock instead.

It is probably the most important thing you can do. Bacteria in a bottle won't do it so leave that in the store and buy live rock.

One important aspect of having a healthy and hopefully immune tank is the have the fish feel secure and they won't in a tank with new, white, dead rock. They will get sick, Sorry, but it is what it is.

I even say it in the beginning of my book (that Noobs should not read) That new tanks with all new, white dead rocks will be a disaster.

If I were to start a new tank with new rock, which I would not do, I would set it up and add a lot of hermit crabs, shrimp, arrow crabs etc. Creatures that don't care much about the surroundings but they will poop. They are also very interesting and usually cheap.
They will be your best friend for a year or two to stabilize the tank and add some needed bacteria.

You will however have to add "something" from the sea besides those to seed the bacteria and much needed pods.

Feed this tank heavily a little to much. Yes the parameters will suffer. Don't worry about it the crabs won't care. You are trying to build up a bionome (I can't spell that so work with me)
You are trying to get some growth on the rocks weather it be hair algae, cyano or Godzilla Larvae but you need growth. You can change the water later, don't worry about it.

Eventually you will have pods all over the place and a little algae growth on the rocks. It may take two years, in the meantime collect stamps, play golf, pop pimples, do something but don't start adding Achilles tangs or they will get ich and die, guaranteed. Then you will blame me and say that Paul B doesn't know a pod from a cockroach. ;Bucktooth

You can't start a successful, immune, healthy tank by using dry everything and put in a bunch of fish and corals in a week. It ain't gonna happen no matter how much oxygen, bottled bacteria, test kits, medications or Fairy God Mothers you have.

This takes time. After you have those shrimp and crabs in there for a while (Ok you can add a couple of cheap fish but if they get sick, don't medicate them)

Then you can add some fish, not a moorish Idle. Maybe some wrasses, gobies etc.
If you see some spots, close your eyes and you won't see them. Fish need to get infected to become immune.

I will try to finish this later. I have wife stuff to do.

 

[fish farmer]

What do folks who quarantine do regarding snails or other CUC critters? Do those sit in a QT tank for months before going to DT to do work?

 

[Paul B]

It seems almost everybody in this hobby weather you quarantine or offer tea leaves up to the moon is missing. It doesn't matter to the fish what you want to do. Quarantining isn't new. I was here when "us Geezers" invented the thing and I was one of the original advocators of it so, yes, I know all about it and I also used it because we tried everything to keep fish from dying as we didn't know what we were doing and there were no medications, internet, experts or anything else.

This was almost 20 years before Burgess and that other guy came out with that parasite life cycle chart.

(When I discovered that feeding live worms to salt water fish would allow me to stop quarantining I kept doing that. No one at the time was feeding worms to salt fish as that was in 1971-2 when the hobby started)

You can of course keep a tank like that and if your goal is to have a "healthy " tank for a few years, maybe 8 or 10, then do that and you will be successful. There are no old quarantined tanks so maybe you will be the first to have one.

I don't see many reasons why quarantined tanks can't last a long time, they just don't. I think I know why but I don't want to get into it because of the arguments especially from people with 5 or 6 year old quarantined tanks, which I said many people have.

But that doesn't matter. Even if you want to quarantine, medicate, dip etc, you can still keep the fish healthy forever but IMO you should, at some point get some living bacteria into those fish.

Fish don't have to live with parasites and if you quarantine, they won't. I feel that in time, you will inadvertantly get a parasite in there, but if you are very careful, forever, you may be fine.

It is hard for fish to live like that but if you at least get living bacteria into the fish they will have some level of immunity even if it is much weaker than a fish in the sea will have.

So I think after you quarantine or do whatever you feel is necessary to keep diseases away from fish feed some live food a few times a week and never feed dry foods.

I think that would go a long way towards keeping healthy fish. Quarantined fish can't be exposed to parasites (or anything else) so use live worms because they won't have parasites that can live in salt water.
I would not feed what I feel is the best salt water food, fresh or freshly frozen clams because they could harbor parasites that could infect your fish.

I don't know if worms alone will have enough or any of the correct bacteria to keep fish healthy for what I feel is the "only" measure of a successful tank where the fish die of their presumed old age or close to it.

8 or 9 years old for a fish like a tang, is not a success. Not bad, but not a success. Sorry, it just isn't.

Remember keeping fish away from diseases, including bacterial diseases will certainly leave the fish open to infection to them at some point due to lack of immunity.

If you like scientific studied just Google search Probiotics in fish, or Keeping fish healthy through Pro biotics or Gut bacteria in fish and how it effects the immune system, or how the immune system works in fish.
Good luck with your tanks and I hope your fish live longer than Yoda.

 

[brandon429]

Paul that was really a neat summary above it relays the highlight of yours and Atoll's / the maturation style approach really well and its attainable materials for those with new starts. there is more than one place to secure truly matured live rock now agreed, and the feeding quality can be upped at any supermarket just like we do for humans when its time for dietary workover. sounds great. if someone was going to branch off from the standard of qt and fallow that seems to be the direction to head in vs just skipping the approach and still having an all dry start.


There's certainly a strong relationship between endless dinos battles and white rock starts; doesnt sound unheard of for the issue to manifest in other ways/ fish health.

You're saying just because we can control free ammonia does not mean the other twenty missing absolutely vital links in the chain wont show up in various ways, quickly.

 

[Iggy305]

A cheap QT setup can save you a fortune. I have 2 small tanks setup, one for inverts, one for fish, very plain no frills. Does the waiting suck, yes it does, but you know what sucks even more, losing 6-7 fish within a couple weeks. My experience in reefing is still limited, but even in my freshwater days I would QT. The reality is you never really know what disease you are importing till it’s too late, usually at least. Let’s not forget that it’s also a heck of a lot cheaper to medicate a 10-20 gallon QT than a 110 Gallon display.

Outside of diseases it give you a great opportunity to really inspect and know your new animal. I can’t tell you how many times I’d bring home a peacock, put him in QT and realize oh man this fish is developing HITH or already has cloudy eye. At that point I can at least decide ‘back to the store’ or ‘I can cure this.’ At the end of the day you are protecting your investments past & present.

 

[Paul B]

You're saying just because we can control free ammonia does not mean the other twenty missing absolutely vital links in the chain wont show up in various ways, quickly.

Brandon my friend. I don't think I mentioned free ammonia anywhere and I certainly am not an ammonia expert as I don't set up tanks all the time. But as to live rock, I personally would not set up a tank with all dead rock.

It's just not natural and not me. Live rock will introduce so many useful things into a new tank that it is "almost" essential to a long lived, healthy system. The problem, and I don't know the answer is that live rock, if it is really live rock from the sea will have bacteria as well as parasites and you can't introduce that into a quarantined tank full of fish without a functioning immune system and fish can't have a functioning immune system if they are not in constant contact with pathogens.

As I said, I don't have a clue as to how you would do that but maybe someone with a fully quarantined system has the answer. I assume you can quarantine the rock for 70 or so days until you are sure there are no parasites in it but you can never eliminate bacterial diseases that may be hiding in rock no matter how long you quarantine it for.

I think if you want to keep a completely quarantined tank you will need to start it from scratch with nothing living from the sea and I would not be the person to offer any advice for that as I just don't know how to do that.

It is totally against my methods and the two methods can't be combined as I can see.

 

[brandon429]

It is going to take an aligned and logged effort to undo the retention percentages quarantine and fallow offer.


percentages...meaning nobody earns totality in the game its a race of wins vs losses and currently qt wins, but that doesnt mean permanently. for a replacement of QT and fallow, with the end goal of better fish health and life retention, someone needs to start a build along these lines stated above and we need twenty more logged alongside with updates, its the only way to shape new change. a concerted, logged effort in a work thread of several tanks.
this thread would be a neat place to log some tanks that arent very old, but have old/aged/matured rocks

and they can focus on quality feed and water vs the qt approach, its a legit venture. we need several willing to run those builds and keep the updates then we'll have something.

My friends who kept marine fish twenty years ago in reefs didnt have to do this qt and fallow dance for sure, it was all live rock back then.

This angle is worth inspecting.

 

[Paul B]

Brandon, if you are looking for ideas, I thought about it and I do think you can start a quarantined tank with dead rock and keep it going for a few months or a year and then gradually add some real live rock and one or two un-quarantined fish to add some bacteria and maybe some parasites. The existing fish may get sick and I feel that would be good as then they can be removed to cure. But not fallow or quarantine. My favorite cure for parasites is copper for a few days with a diatom filter. I like copper and quinicrine hydrocloride better as it will clear a fish of parasites in a day but I don't want to get anybody crazy here and I can already see people rolling their eyes.

The copper will cause the fish to exude more slime and remove many parasites and a diatom filter will eliminate them. (Thats what I do if I get a half dead fish from an LFS that is receiving last rites from an angelfish)

Then re-introduce those fish to that tank and at that time, they will have immunity and hopefully live long enough to die of old age.
That seems to have the best of both worlds.

I know some people feel that quarantine is the best thing in the world but those fish are IMO doomed eventually. I am not sure how many, or if any fully quarantined fish in a quarantined tank died from old age. I didn't say there are none, I said I don't know of any. If we are talking about a tang, that would be about 12 or 15 years with no disease but I would consider about 9 years sufficient for a home aquarium.
Most other smaller fish only live 5 or 6 years which is not bad for a home tank.

 

[Sharkbait19]

Necessary? Absolutely not.
Highly recommended? Definitely.
I used to not quarantine anything, and then I lost all my fish. I now consider it to be an essential part of building a tank, to monitor the health of every specimen, and to treat them for possible parasites. It really just eliminates potential problems in the future. Of course, you may buy a bunch of things without quarantining, but get lucky and have no problems. Because of that possibility, QT is not 100% necessary. However, based on past experiences, I think it is important to do so, because even if the store quarantines things, you can never be certain of their health unless you yourself treat them.

 

[Uncle99]

I only treat fish if there’s a specific reason.
Otherwise they just go in.

I got ick once in 30 years, 5 years ago, treated my friends, fallow for 72 days....all back in.

It was a challenge

That being said, I would never do that for online purchases.

All my fish come from the same source and my system, stable and mature.

If you want to be absolutely safe, QT.

 

[Ro Bow]

It seems almost everybody in this hobby weather you quarantine or offer tea leaves up to the moon is missing. It doesn't matter to the fish what you want to do. Quarantining isn't new. I was here when "us Geezers" invented the thing and I was one of the original advocators of it so, yes, I know all about it and I also used it because we tried everything to keep fish from dying as we didn't know what we were doing and there were no medications, internet, experts or anything else.

This was almost 20 years before Burgess and that other guy came out with that parasite life cycle chart.

(When I discovered that feeding live worms to salt water fish would allow me to stop quarantining I kept doing that. No one at the time was feeding worms to salt fish as that was in 1971-2 when the hobby started)

You can of course keep a tank like that and if your goal is to have a "healthy " tank for a few years, maybe 8 or 10, then do that and you will be successful. There are no old quarantined tanks so maybe you will be the first to have one.

I don't see many reasons why quarantined tanks can't last a long time, they just don't. I think I know why but I don't want to get into it because of the arguments especially from people with 5 or 6 year old quarantined tanks, which I said many people have.

But that doesn't matter. Even if you want to quarantine, medicate, dip etc, you can still keep the fish healthy forever but IMO you should, at some point get some living bacteria into those fish.

Fish don't have to live with parasites and if you quarantine, they won't. I feel that in time, you will inadvertantly get a parasite in there, but if you are very careful, forever, you may be fine.

It is hard for fish to live like that but if you at least get living bacteria into the fish they will have some level of immunity even if it is much weaker than a fish in the sea will have.

So I think after you quarantine or do whatever you feel is necessary to keep diseases away from fish feed some live food a few times a week and never feed dry foods.

I think that would go a long way towards keeping healthy fish. Quarantined fish can't be exposed to parasites (or anything else) so use live worms because they won't have parasites that can live in salt water.
I would not feed what I feel is the best salt water food, fresh or freshly frozen clams because they could harbor parasites that could infect your fish.

I don't know if worms alone will have enough or any of the correct bacteria to keep fish healthy for what I feel is the "only" measure of a successful tank where the fish die of their presumed old age or close to it.

8 or 9 years old for a fish like a tang, is not a success. Not bad, but not a success. Sorry, it just isn't.

Remember keeping fish away from diseases, including bacterial diseases will certainly leave the fish open to infection to them at some point due to lack of immunity.

If you like scientific studied just Google search Probiotics in fish, or Keeping fish healthy through Pro biotics or Gut bacteria in fish and how it effects the immune system, or how the immune system works in fish.
Good luck with your tanks and I hope your fish live longer than Yoda.

wow. thanks for spending so much time on that! Well said!

 

[Greybeard]

IMHO, we're all arguing the wrong point.

It's not whether or not we should quarantine, the right question is this:

WHY DO WE ACCEPT VENDORS THAT SELL US SICK ANIMALS?

We, as consumers, need to DEMAND healthy animals, from wherever they're coming from. Just that simple. If I buy a puppy from a breeder, and it arrives full of parasites, that is UNACCEPTABLE. If the batch of chicks I bought from the Cackle Hatchery had arrived riddled with disease, I would DEMAND that it be made right. What, I should be nice about it?

Ok, no problem, I understand... you can't be expected to take care of the animals you're selling. Yeah, half or more are going to die, and I'll accept responsibility to quarantine them, medicate them, etc. Can you ship me some more next week?

NO BLOODY WAY!

How on earth did we end up just throwing up our hands and saying, well, that's how it is... The vast majority of the animals we purchase, from whatever source, are going to be parasite and disease riddled. The only way to go is for US, THE CONSUMER to implement expensive, time consuming, and often ineffective quarantine procedures for the SICK ANIMALS that are being sold to us.

Ridiculous.

Quit buying sick animals. Refuse to buy animals from vendors unwilling to take whatever steps are necessary for them to be able to provide healthy animals to their customers.

Period.

Shut 'em down. AFAIC, any vendor that sells sick animals should be run out of the business... the online equivalent of tar and feathers. There is a source to this problem, and it MUST be addressed THERE.

 

[Paul B]

wow. thanks for spending so much time on that! Well said!

See now DweltAlloy. I like that reply. I would also like it if you didn't agree with me as I disagree with 90% of what is on these forums. But you said what you wanted with no argument or telling me how wrong I am and I don't know a Possum wrasse from a poodle, or that I should go and stick myself in the eye with a tuxedo urchin

You realize that is my opinion as I realize even if you don't like my methods, Or hair style, I know that is your opinion.
Thank you.

Greybeard. I wonder why that is your name? Good afternoon. I know what you mean about sick animals but I think it's different than a sick dog. To me, and me alone, I feel fish keeping is a hobby and a dog is a pet. I know many people feel fish are pets and part of their family but I don't. Most fish in my life are dinner

It is true that many times fish come in sick. But I feel all fish in the sea are sick and carrying something. We as educated buyers just have to pick through them to find healthy ones.

I helped start 3 aquarium stores and am good friends with others and many of their fish come in dead or almost dead. They put the live ones in their tanks to see if they get better so they can sell them but the fish business is not profitable at all and of all the LFS owners I know and have known, they are all barely surviving.

If they didn't accept sick fish from their venders, they would hardly have anything to sell. The owner doesn't want his fish to be sick and tries very hard to cure them as it isn't very good for business.

We can of course not buy from certain stores, but there are very few stores left anyway and I don't think we can afford to lose any more.
LFS could of course not sell sick fish and only sell healthy ones but most of us won't buy a copperband for $300.00.

I myself don't mind fish with some parasites as long as it is not gasping from the surface. I would rather that then have the store drug the fish so much so we don't see any parasites but the fish will never recover.

Of course I get what you are saying and agree with you and we all should be able to get healthy fish.

Just my opinion of course as I know many people will disagree with my opinion.

 

[MichaelReefer]

Maybe it's luck, maybe its not. I have never QT one of my fish, coral or inverts. *knock on wood* I have never had any problems. I think a big part is who you're getting your stuff from...I go to an amazing LFS with massive turn around (Fish are rarely in the store for more than a few days), and good distributors.

 

[tc3driver]

Being new to the reefing world, my opinion holds little water. However, in the many years that I have been keeping all sorts of freshwater tanks, fish illness (especially Ich) has always been associated with a stress event of some sort. Power going out and the water getting colder than it should, things like that. Ich would pop up on the fish for a couple of days, their immune systems would take over as they de-stress, and poof gone. When it comes to Ich, I am of the school of thought that there really is no way to have a tank with water in it that doesn't have Ich... I am sure someone will want to debate me on this front, from my personal experience even trying the crazy quarantine procedures of multiple tanks separated by more than 10 feet with their own media... etc... etc... etc Ich still showed up in the DT.

Where quarantining becomes more of a necessity, at least to me is in bacterial and viral infections. If a fish comes in with a new strain of bacteria to which the fish in your tank have never been subject, that can be a massive problem, and cause a death event. Though I have found this to be very rare in my time of fish keeping. When this happened in the past I would put anti-bacterial into the tank to help to fight it off. However I would not move the fish to a hospital or quarantining tank as that induces more stress.

Really the way I approach this is that I have certain fish stores that I shop from, knowing that all of these fish have been exposed to the same bacteria as all of the other fish in the store (or at least the vast majority), reducing my personal need for quarantine. I also come from the school of thought that it is better to expose fish to more bacteria to strengthen immune systems than it is to try to sequester them from exposure to bacteria. I have seen fish get sick after a year with no real changes to the tank... kind of like you or me gets a cold... it happens.

I can hear the "What about the other parasites?" already... well again most of these, at least from my experience, can be thwarted with lack of stress, healthy diet, and a solid water change schedule. Bottom line for me is that I have not needed, nor felt the need, to quarantine fish for a long time.

 

[brandon429]

also thought of this recent angle

to deviate from current tank transfer method, quarantine and fallow is to instantly leave the top % retention group and become part of the beta release test group.


not saying that's bad, that's the heart of adaptation and evolution, that branching out. but it can be costly

as of today, this minute, for any group of 20 tanks being set up the undeniable highest fish retention will be earned by qt and fallow practices we can see it each day in the disease forum.


they show up needing help and leave using qt/fallow because that's risen to the top of current trending for highest %.

start incorporating the live rock and feed component, skipping the feed component is like paying for a personal trainer and then not altering one's diet...a human needs the diet component to be healthy and so do fish, makes send

but still continue qt and fallow while adding live rocks until better means have been funded and shown by someone else is my recommend

 

[boeingn747]

Consider qt as necessary as the display tank parts, if can’t be bought then don’t buy fish they’ll just die in eight months. No qt = no fish, coral only.

Now that is completely false and total BS. I hope you don't tell that to everyone that wants to get into the hobby. I have been into freshwater for over 15years been keeping freshwater stingrays for about 5 years, been into reefing for about 6 or so years. I have never had a designated quarantine tank until about a year ago or so. I have never lost a fish do to not QT. I think 100% more important than a qt tank is a hospital tank that can be used at a mo.ents notice to medicate fish/corals etc. Under no circumstances does not having a qt tank Meen that your fish will die. Complete false statement.