is quarantining necessary?

[Smirkish]

@Paul B Will have to purchase your book. I’m sure you’ve answered this many times, but what are your water change practices and thoughts on aged water? I believe I recall you saying you don’t change your water more than a few times a year. I know aged water is probably another highly debated topic here.

 

[cryptodendrum]

As both a 30 year reefer and a 30 year CyberRisk Management professional... It's about as necessary as making 3x+ backups of your computer and all your data. There will always be some people who pay only for 1 or 2 cheap butt USB disks for backups, thinking 3 is unnecessary or too expensive. There's even some that will rely only on a single backup. I also get a lot of these people as my customers for very expensive data recovery from those failed harddrives/ssds/single point backup disks. And when they pay my bill, there is often much gnashing of the teeth and comments like "I've learned my lesson."

This is not unlike this hobby and Quarantining. There are always those who think they can get away without QTing, incorrectly thinking "it's too expensive" or "too laborious" or "too time consuming". And they get away with it maybe for months or even years. Then *boom*, it was all great until suddenly it wasn't and velvet, Ich, flatworms, or RTN rips through the tank, destroying months or years of labor and investments in just hours or days.

It does not have to be laborious or expensive to standardize on QT for all incoming specimens. For 95% of my incoming QTs, I have 2 x 10 liter tanks with just 10w LED lights (for corals) and a tiny powerhead and heater each. No filtration system, because I use an AutoDoser to perform gradual water changes on my QT's daily, so filtration isn't necessary. For fish in QT I drop in a Seneye sensor to monitor Ammonia, so I get warnings of ammonia spikes way before they become lethal / risk to the fish. Corals I use dips and Fish I use Hyposalinity in QT. Everything stays in QT a min of 8 weeks, just to have an extra margin of safety. Besides, everything usually does extremely well in my QT setup, so there's never any rush to move things.

I've been following this protocol since 2005 and have only appreciation for it. I have watched again and again as people without QT battle mysterious illnesses, parasites and mass die offs. I've even watched some of the more popular YouTuber Reefers come onto the scene, laugh QT's off, and then years later, see them on YT talking about how they lost all their super expensive fish and/or corals & now they endorse QTing.

I too am on a tight budget. In order to continue to afford my hobby for the last 15+ years (and wife's approval), I needed to optimize my growth rates so I could resell my frags and baby clownfish to retail shops and other hobbyists directly. Not only does QT'ing protect my investment, it has also become my value add to my customers. Retail shops that buy from me report that fish / frags from me have zero mortality in their stores (unlike international shipments) and low incidence of issues from customers; so they resell at a premium.

You might never do any farming of your tank and never had this need; but QT will still protect your investment in and the lives of your livestock; not unlike annual vaccinations for your dogs or cats.

And BTW, my Yellow Tang and my oldest clownfish are now 23 years old this year. I have several other clownfish that are now well over 15 years old. I would be heartbroken if these guys/gals would were wiped out by some disease or parasite I introduced into my system.

 

[WVNed]

As both a 30 year reefer and a 30 year CyberRisk Management professional... It's about as necessary as making 3x+ backups of your computer and all your data. There will always be some people who pay only for 1 or 2 cheap butt USB disks for backups, thinking 3 is unnecessary or too expensive. There's even some that will rely only on a single backup. I also get a lot of these people as my customers for very expensive data recovery from those failed harddrives/ssds/single point backup disks. And when they pay my bill, there is often much gnashing of the teeth and comments like "I've learned my lesson."

This is not unlike this hobby and Quarantining. There are always those who think they can get away without QTing, incorrectly thinking "it's too expensive" or "too laborious" or "too time consuming". And they get away with it maybe for months or even years. Then *boom*, it was all great until suddenly it wasn't and velvet, Ich, flatworms, or RTN rips through the tank, destroying months or years of labor and investments in just hours or days.

It does not have to be laborious or expensive to standardize on QT for all incoming specimens. For 95% of my incoming QTs, I have 2 x 10 liter tanks with just 10w LED lights (for corals) and a tiny powerhead and heater each. No filtration system, because I use an AutoDoser to perform gradual water changes on my QT's daily, so filtration isn't necessary. For fish in QT I drop in a Seneye sensor to monitor Ammonia, so I get warnings of ammonia spikes way before they become lethal / risk to the fish. Corals I use dips and Fish I use Hyposalinity in QT. Everything stays in QT a min of 8 weeks, just to have an extra margin of safety. Besides, everything usually does extremely well in my QT setup, so there's never any rush to move things.

I've been following this protocol since 2005 and have only appreciation for it. I have watched again and again as people without QT battle mysterious illnesses, parasites and mass die offs. I've even watched some of the more popular YouTuber Reefers come onto the scene, laugh QT's off, and then years later, see them on YT talking about how they lost all their super expensive fish and/or corals & now they endorse QTing.

I too am on a tight budget. In order to continue to afford my hobby for the last 15+ years (and wife's approval), I needed to optimize my growth rates so I could resell my frags and baby clownfish to retail shops and other hobbyists directly. Not only does QT'ing protect my investment, it has also become my value add to my customers. Retail shops that buy from me report that fish / frags from me have zero mortality in their stores (unlike international shipments) and low incidence of issues from customers; so they resell at a premium.

You might never do any farming of your tank and never had this need; but QT will still protect your investment in and the lives of your livestock; not unlike annual vaccinations for your dogs or cats.

So you have done all that since 2005 and I have done nothing since 2007 and we have had the same result.

I do not have a few fish in a tiny tank either.

Yes I have seen other people lose a tank full of fish. Many of them QT them all before they put them in there too.

I should leave these threads alone. I don't care how you keep your fish if you would stop telling me I am lazy, a liar or just lucky.

 

[Smirkish]

@WVNed & @cryptodendrum

Would be interesting to swap fish and see what happened, hmm? I think the contributing factor to both of your success stories is that you have both given the tanks a great deal of stability.

 

[cryptodendrum]

So you have done all that since 2005 and I have done nothing since 2007 and we have had the same result.

I do not have a few fish in a tiny tank either.

Yes I have seen other people lose a tank full of fish. Many of them QT them all before they put them in there too.

I should leave these threads alone. I don't care how you keep your fish if you would stop telling me I am lazy, a liar or just lucky.

My reply was to the OP, not you.

Of course, Risk Aversion (what you are advocating) always works for awhile, until it doesn't. Risk Management however goes much further towards managing the risks, hence it's name.

So yeah, maybe if you want to engage in risk aversion, like going without QT, or drive without a seatbelt, or skip vaccinations for your pets, without people telling you are just lucky, maybe you should stop inserting yourself into other people's conversations. Just a thought.

 

[cryptodendrum]

@WVNed & @cryptodendrum

Would be interesting to swap fish and see what happened, hmm? I think the contributing factor to both of your success stories is that you have both given the tanks a great deal of stability.

Swapping tanks wouldn't be a scientific way to test the results.

By not engaging in QT'ing, he's taking risks every time he introduces a new fish. If he has Ich, he's just managing it at this point. Even if he doesn't have Ich in his tank, he's vulnerable to Marine Velvet, Brook, Ich and other viruses or parasites being introduced.

To test it, I'd be 100% comfortable (barring the ethical issues towards the fish themselves) with giving us each an infected Tang or other fish. I'll QT and he can introduce straight away and we can compare results. Rinse and repeat 100 times, and try all parasite infections. And then see who's tank still has all the original occupants still swimming.

 

[Paul B]

. It's about as necessary as making 3x+ backups of your computer and all your data. There will always be some people who pay only for 1 or 2 cheap butt USB disks for backups, thinking 3 is unnecessary or too expensive. There's even some that will rely only on a single backup.

LOL, I also don't have any backups except for pictures of Grand Kids. But I also don't keep anything important on my computer. I am old so I still have spiral notebooks. And they never crash.

@Paul B Will have to purchase your book. I’m sure you’ve answered this many times, but what are your water change practices and thoughts on aged water? I believe I recall you saying you don’t change your water more than a few times a year. I know aged water is probably another highly debated topic here.

Smirkish (cool name) I don't really have much of a water change schedule but for the last 3 years I live by the sea so I now only use NSW that I collect, but for most of the life of my tank I had to use fake seawater like everyone else.

I change water probably 4 times a year but if I don't feel like collecting, it could be 3 times a year.

You are correct I feel changing to much water is not good. This is another subject where people will say that is ridiculous and I didn't come up with this on my own. It was from the masters who started this hobby a few years before me in the 50s.

Sea Water takes on some benefits as it ages and it gets that from algae, bacteria and corals.
(Guido Huckstead, "Advanced Chemistry for Marine Aquarists")

It is common sense. If new water was so good, why do brand new tanks look so bad and unhealthy? Why don't we change 100% of our water all the time?

New water for some reason is irritating to our fish and corals especially if it's ASW or fake water. ASW has come a very long way in the 50 years since it was invented. By the way, Instant Ocean was invented by a chemist who owned STP oil company.

ASW has "almost" all the chemicals in real sea water but not all of them. Real seawater has every element on earth and near space in it and we really don't know if say Kryptonite or iridium is needed unless you don't like Superman.

Sea water is not just a mix of chemicals. It is a mix of chemicals that was heated, boiled, frozen, mixed with dinosaur sweat etc. Many of those chemicals change when they are heated or evaporated. Much of the minerals in real water came from deep in the earth through volcanoes and that process is still happening.

Original ASW was evaporated and sold in dry form for salt tanks. It wouldn't keep anything alive so it was short lived.

Anyway, Smirkish more than 100% of the profits from my book go to Multiple Sclerosis research in my wife's name and I don't get a nickel from it.

 

[Smirkish]

 

[Lowell Lemon]

Is that to say that you don't believe that the supply chain is in fact loaded with diseased fish?

Knowing that 80% of fish will die before hitting the LFS, I thought it was something we just accepted as fact. Wild caught fish bring their diseases into a very new and stressful environment (the distribution supply chain) which helps it get into the system of other fish with lowered immune capacity.

Where did you 80% loss rates? At that rate each live fish would have to sell for thousands of dollars each. In practice 30% was too high so my customers hired me to design systems that lowered their loss rates to less than 3%. I never saw or experienced the loss rates you suggested anywhere in the industry. Perhaps, loss rates were elevated from cyanide collected fish and that probably killed a few collectors as well.

 

[Paul B]

And BTW, my Yellow Tang and my oldest clownfish are now 23 years old this year. I have several other clownfish that are now well over 15 years old. I would be heartbroken if these guys/gals would were wiped out by some disease or parasite I introduced into my system.

This is great and good to know.

 

[Paul B]

To test it, I'd be 100% comfortable (barring the ethical issues towards the fish themselves) with giving us each an infected Tang or other fish. I'll QT and he can introduce straight away and we can compare results. Rinse and repeat 100 times, and try all parasite infections. And then see who's tank still has all the original occupants still swimming.

I add infected fish all the time. If you read any of my posts over the last 25 or so years I have posted all of them. The latest was last week. So I think we should put ich infected fish in all tanks for a test and see which tanks crash.
I still have some 30 year old fish which have gone through not only disease introductions but all the hurricanes and black outs for those years.

 

[Lost in the Sauce]

Where did you 80% loss rates? At that rate each live fish would have to sell for thousands of dollars each. In practice 30% was too high so my customers hired me to design systems that lowered their loss rates to less than 3%. I never saw or experienced the loss rates you suggested anywhere in the industry. Perhaps, loss rates were elevated from cyanide collected fish and that probably killed a few collectors as well.

I've gotten this figure from three sources who buy direct from the LA fish market. One of which owns one of the distributor warehouses. From wild collection to the store, they Average 80% death rate on salt fish.

 

[Smirkish]

Swapping tanks wouldn't be a scientific way to test the results.

I said swap fish(singular). A fish. Though I would feel bad for the fish(plural). Curious to see how the swapped fish would react to each tank. And how the tank might react.

To test it, I'd be 100% comfortable (barring the ethical issues towards the fish themselves) with giving us each an infected Tang or other fish. I'll QT and he can introduce straight away and we can compare results. Rinse and repeat 100 times, and try all parasite infections. And then see who's tank still has all the original occupants still swimming.

Would also work, I suppose. You’d have to introduce to DT at the same time though? Correct me if I’m wrong. Or run two experiments, one introducing at the same time (you would have to quarantine beforehand), and one where you qt and he introduces directly.

 

[Smirkish]

So I think we should put ich infected fish in all tanks for a test and see which tanks crash.

 

[zalick]

What I can be sure of is that all of the people telling you how bad ich is, don't have a tank as old as @Paul B

Before Paul started using bleach in his tanks, everything died of ich.

“All newcomers to this hobby should quarantine everything, even rocks. If I started a new tank tomorrow with new water and gravel, I would definitely have to quarantine. It takes time, sometimes years, for a tank to become mature and fully cycled.” - Paul B. (ReefKeeping Magazine)

Reefkeeping Magazine - Paul Baldassano’s Reef - 40 Years in the Making

Reefkeeping ...an online magazine for the marine aquarist.

reefkeeping.com

​

​

There was no one in the hobby when I started because I bought the first fish available in New York in 1971.

Don't you think by now if I felt quarantining was better I would do that?

See quote from you above.

My system depends on pathogens living alongside fish just like in the sea. My fish "NEVER" die or suffer from "ANY" pathogens.

Your cardinals did.

But also what people don't get is that you can't just buy fish and throw them into your tank. They will probably die which is why so many people have a problem and say my system doesn't work.

How do you add new fish then and keep them alive? Via the quarantine method you advocated above for all new reefers? When you do buy a new fish, isn’t this now your fish and you are responsible for its wellbeing? If it dies of disease, then your fish died of disease.

The only old healthy tanks use some form of a natural system. There are I think 3 or 4 on this forum including Lasse, Sub sea, Atoll etc.

Can you define “old healthy tank”? Also, Lasse and Les both use 24/7 h202 dosing (a known parasite control).

I am getting kind of tired of people saying how my fish are suffering from being bitten by parasites when I have probably the oldest, healthiest fish in the oldest tank on any forum in any country you can find.

outside of your fire clown that is 27yrs old+ (it’s ages varies a little by forum) how old are the rest of your fish?

Paul - how many times have you had a total death of all your fish or close to it? As you can see from some of the quotes above, you’ve advocated quarantine for new tanks this century. You’ve advocated the use of bleach much more recently than 35 years ago. (Within the last 10 yrs). You even said that if it weren’t for bleach, you would have quit the hobby.

The fact is that you have advocated quarantine, you have engaged in aggressive parasite control, and you have suffered near total losses of your fish on multiple occasions in the last 25yrs. Without a lab autopsy and analysis the your wipes could be zinc or disease. It’s speculation to say a definitive answer. (I know what you believe: zinc x3 and a fish died killing all the rest).

I’m not denying you have a successful tank and healthy fish and your method works for you. I’ve been fascinated with your method and read many of your posts on the various forums over the last 15yrs). I myself have never medicated any fish in my DT in 23 years. I just recently purchased pre quarantined (medicated) fish and they arrived as the roughest fish I’ve ever purchased and half died. If I’d seen them at my LFS I would not have bought them. I won’t do that again.

But I bring up your past, and recent comments because many new reefers try to emulate your method and it’s important for them to have the whole picture. They read your current posts and assume your last fish issue was 1970, not 2008. They don’t have the mature system you do nor the skill to identify a healthy fish to purchase etc.

 

[ReefRxSWFL]

That's an interesting way to look at it.

Knowing biology would mean that it would be better to expose a lifeform to as many strains of an infection as possible, as to build up their immune system, not to tear it down by underutilizing the immune system. But hey... what do I know...

I am not sitting here saying "Hey, lets kill a bunch of fish!! Sounds like fun!!!" What I'm saying is that

I would prefer my tank, pets, family, etc have immune systems as ready for anything as possible. I have read that this may be a reason that greater Apes pick their nose and eat it, as this is a safer way of introducing various pathogens to the immune system, especially airborne pathogens.

While one or two people may have the perfect QT system and are able to follow it to a 'T', even then they can introduce an unknown pathogen to their systems. It just so happens that this pathogen is carried by a fish or invert that has the proper antibodies to fight it, introduce this fish and the rest of your tank has no antibodies to defend against the pathogen, and poof you have a bunch of sick and dying fish.

When this happened to me ~10 years ago with a fresh water tank that I never let anything in without proper QT, and by proper I do mean proper, 50-90 days in QT, Metronidazole, erythromycin, Praziquantel, ich-x, etc... Running the tank through these cycles multiple times, doing everything in my power to not introduce anything unhealthy, sickly, or possibly carrying anything bad to my tank. Added these fish to my tank, and a couple days later... entire tank (save for the added fish) are sick, and start dying off.... It happened very rapidly, and I didn't have time to catch it. It was through this experience that I came to my current beliefs.

We each have our own experiences, and I respect yours. However mine doesn't jibe. From my standpoint, you can do what you want, do what you feel is best, more power to you.

I don't disagree with your point regarding fish developing a strong immune system, and that will happen in your DT. So tell me. Did you and your family run around this last year without a mask asking random people to cough on you to boost your immune system? Do you have unprotected intimacy with any rando you meet in some dive bar to boost your immune system? Im going to guess probably not. Im not sure of your professional background but you may not understand that boosting your immune system is not acheived by exposing ones self to every pathogen out there.

Also, there are way more than one or two people out there doing some good quarantine practices. Heck, even the LFS i go to in the Ft Lauderdale atra runs Copper in their fish systems at 2.0, and maintain it using a Hannah Copper Checker.

The thing about opinions is they can be wrong and based in ignorance. Some folks think heroin is ok and vaccines cause autism in children. Both of which are wrong. And experience doesn't always equal good or correct.

Quarantine is as much about taking a fish that has been ripped from a healthy environment stuck in a box and sent half way across the planet, then bounced from filthy system to filthy system until you bring it home. So look at quarantine as a way to boost the health of the fish that has been through the equivalent of a Cambodian POW camp. Then not to disturb the health of your DT. One way you boost immunity is by feeding frozen seafood, which contains the flora or probiotics that boost their immunity in the wild. Not by picking their nose and eating it.

 

[cryptodendrum]

I said swap fish(singular). A fish. Though I would feel bad for the fish(plural). Curious to see how the swapped fish would react to each tank. And how the tank might react.


Would also work, I suppose. You’d have to introduce to DT at the same time though? Correct me if I’m wrong. Or run two experiments, one introducing at the same time (you would have to quarantine beforehand), and one where you qt and he introduces directly.

So I had a read through his tank history, and already I see the differences between his opinion of "So you have done all that since 2005 and I have done nothing since 2007 and we have had the same result." and mine, which I think is not the same result.

In one single post he documents: "So far my total fish losses since setting this up are a hippo tang,chocolate tang, yellow tang, 3 lyretail antius, and 2 blue reef chromis. They all just disappeared. I never found any of them. All of them had been in the tank weeks to months before they disappeared."

I haven't had that many loses - not even in my QT tanks - of fish since 2005. So we have most definitely NOT had the same result, he wants to think we have.

What's kinda mind blowing is I just explained how to automate the QT process; and looking at his setup, he's not afraid to build good infrastructure, including generators - he even mentions using RaspberryPi's, which is how I made my own Aquarium Controller & totally automate my QT processes. Yet he posts about "All these new people generate so much angst" regarding people who wake up to discover an Ich outbreak or dead fish.

So I think it's clear - his measure of 'success' and mine are two very different things; which is fine, but he shouldn't be making uninformed assumptions and claims based on those uninformed assumptions about what other people are saying.

 

[ReefRxSWFL]

I've been lucky to not get velvet doing my 12 days TTM. I've had chromis with uronema die in qurantine but never got into the display.

Fish selection is important. Chromis get uronema, Powder and Achilles Tangs are Ich bombs waiting to go off, etc. Its hard enough with the conditions these fish get shipped and held in without selecting less hardy fish.

 

[cryptodendrum]

LOL, I also don't have any backups except for pictures of Grand Kids. But I also don't keep anything important on my computer.

Those customers who come to me for data recovery? That's how they often begin - "originally I/we never used this computer for anything important, but now...I really need my data back." Further, that became the income generator I never even thought of / expected when I went freelance & started my own cybersecurity firm. But there it is - these people exist, and lots of them.

 

[ReefRxSWFL]

I cant believe the number of people who thumb their nose at the value of quarantine. I guess I shouldn’t. There’s usually a long line at the McDonalds drive through. If you are treat your own body like that......