New Fish Question

[420reefing]

Is there a way to ensure your tank is disease free? My tank has been up for 2 years with now issues like ick, brook, etc. I want to start adding fish again and am wondering if it worth buying QT’d fish. Do I risk putting them in and then them catching something my current stock is able to fight off.

Looking at fish from marine collectors. So I trust they are truly the healthiest fish I could find.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Is there a way to ensure your tank is disease free? My tank has been up for 2 years with now issues like ick, brook, etc. I want to start adding fish again and am wondering if it worth buying QT’d fish. Do I risk putting them in and then them catching something my current stock is able to fight off.

Looking at fish from marine collectors. So I trust they are truly the healthiest fish I could find.

While quarantined fish are of less risk, through shipping, you want to assume they are carrying something and still do your own short cycle quarantine (14-21 days) If your tank has been running for than 8 weeks without fish, with no host, there should be no disease that will have survived without a host for reproduction.

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

Is there a way to ensure your tank is disease free? My tank has been up for 2 years with now issues like ick, brook, etc. I want to start adding fish again and am wondering if it worth buying QT’d fish. Do I risk putting them in and then them catching something my current stock is able to fight off.

Looking at fish from marine collectors. So I trust they are truly the healthiest fish I could find.

Some people will say there is no such thing as a “disease free” tank. That is true for chronic issues like mycobacterium and some internal protozoans. It is NOT true for metazoan parasites (flukes) and sone protozoans - these cause acute infections if they get into your tank. We advocate all fish are quarantined. Here is our process:

Current Quarantine Protocol

2024 Quarantine Procedures Jay Hemdal David Scarborough Protozoans (Cryptocaryon/ich, Amyloodinium/velvet) and Metazoan trematodes/flukes are by far the most common parasites found on newly acquired fish. A carefully managed, proactive quarantine process can effectively eliminate these...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[420reefing]

My question isn’t so much should I QT. It’s more if my tank has been running with no fish getting sick, for two years. Is there a chance I still have something in my tank like ick or brook?

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

My question isn’t so much should I QT. It’s more if my tank has been running with no fish getting sick, for two years. Is there a chance I still have something in my tank like ick or brook?

Yes:

I've had ich come and go in intreated tanks for months and even years. It can sort of fester as a sub-acute infection, and then, if the fish get stressed, it starts to become more active.

I'm not sure with brook, velvet, flukes, etc. but ich can hide indefinitely on fish until something stresses them - this is why some people buy apparently healthy fish or have apparently healthy fish for years, and then (seemingly from nowhere) ich pops up (see the second and third quotes below).

For more discussion on this:

QT: copper/prazi everytime? Or is visual observation enough?

Recently I have been QTing all my fish and medicating them with copper and prazi regardless of if they look sick or not. I am wondering when observation alone is enough? Sometimes I wonder if I am medicating them for no reason at all and if that’s bad for them. Any advice on when/if it’s...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

My question isn’t so much should I QT. It’s more if my tank has been running with no fish getting sick, for two years. Is there a chance I still have something in my tank like ick or brook?

Brooklynella is almost a zero chance. Ich is also near zero, unless you have been managing it and have seen a few trophonts on the fish now and again. Flukes can persist as a chronic infection for a good amount of time, but I only have a couple of cases where flukes were active in a tank (with now real symptoms) for more than a year.

 

[420reefing]

Brooklynella is almost a zero chance. Ich is also near zero, unless you have been managing it and have seen a few trophonts on the fish now and again. Flukes can persist as a chronic infection for a good amount of time, but I only have a couple of cases where flukes were active in a tank (with now real symptoms) for more than a year.

No signs of anything. Everything eats great no visual signs no scratching on rocks.