High Tide Aquatics

Quarantine Fish?

Cruz Mc5

Cruz Mc5

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Hi all,

I’m just curious what the consensus is locally reagarding using a QT for new fish, if there is one. I have a 20L that I bought to be used as a QT if needed, but I’m probably not going to use it for most of my fish. I’m going to be getting most of my fish from Jeff at LTK. He puts his fish through a QT process before selling them (at least he currently does) and he’s also setting up a tank for my new fish to run through. On top of that, several of my fish are going to be from ORA, so they should be disease free.

I’d like to avoid having to do the super rigorous QT process that they seem to push on R2R and immediately treat with copper and prazi. At the same time, I really don’t like the idea of having something wipe out my tank.

I know this can be a touchy topic at times, but I’m curious what others locally are doing. I’ve seen people have success both ways, so I’m not sure there’s a right or wrong answer. Thanks in advance.
 
Nothing touchy about this subject. Simply a choice whether to roll the dice and not QT or be safe and QT. It's a choice -- not a controversy. As to the question of proactive treatment I can relay to you what Rich Ross's opinion on this was from last years Potluck. It was simple -- don't. QT and observe carefully and treat if there's actual issues. You're putting the animal through stress that's not needed and might be harmful and have no idea if there's an issue. But -- you can ask him about this at the potluck next Saturday. He was pretty expansive with his answer and loves addressing this issue.
 
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It's really not ambiguous. Qt if you want to do it right and be as safe as possible. Pretty simple.
Sourcing fish from quality sources is always smart, but not a substitute. Many people do not qt. But they should.
 
Regardless of what you do, IMO never ever ever ever ever trust a supplier that says they QT fish. For stores almost always all fish systems are interconnected so, so even if they say the fish has been there for months that means nothing. Fact is many fish can be "infected" in some way but not show any symptoms but they still carry the parasites and can dump them off into the tank.

As a result if you are going to QT, you should probably actively treat regardless of symptoms, otherwise it just looks fine for a couple months then bam "how did all my fish get ich?"
 
Coral reefer said:
It's really not ambiguous. Qt if you want to do it right and be as safe as possible. Pretty simple.
Sourcing fish from quality sources is always smart, but not a substitute. Many people do not qt. But they should.
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This is where I see some debate. Some have the view that putting fish in a qt causes more stress and makes them more susceptible to disease, effectively disabling their natural ability to protect themselves. I guess it comes down to whether you want to attempt to prevent anything bad from ever reaching your tank vs keeping the fish in a position where they can naturally fend off the nasties.

And then even if you do qt, what you do during that time frame is also debatable. It seems the “safest” way is to proactively treat the fish with copper and prazi (and perhaps others), which would help to make sure nothing bad ever touches your tank.

Does this stuff seem overwhelming to anyone else at times?
 
sfsuphysics said:
Regardless of what you do, IMO never ever ever ever ever trust a supplier that says they QT fish. For stores almost always all fish systems are interconnected so, so even if they say the fish has been there for months that means nothing. Fact is many fish can be "infected" in some way but not show any symptoms but they still carry the parasites and can dump them off into the tank.

As a result if you are going to QT, you should probably actively treat regardless of symptoms, otherwise it just looks fine for a couple months then bam "how did all my fish get ich?"
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In my case with LTK, I know that my fish will be in a separate system that is not connected to anything else. At least that’s the plan at this point.
 
Cruz Mc5 said:
This is where I see some debate. Some have the view that putting fish in a qt causes more stress and makes them more susceptible to disease, effectively disabling their natural ability to protect themselves. I guess it comes down to whether you want to attempt to prevent anything bad from ever reaching your tank vs keeping the fish in a position where they can naturally fend off the nasties.

And then even if you do qt, what you do during that time frame is also debatable. It seems the “safest” way is to proactively treat the fish with copper and prazi (and perhaps others), which would help to make sure nothing bad ever touches your tank.

Does this stuff seem overwhelming to anyone else at times?
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The only thing that will cause more stress is if you don't have a good qt setup. I'm not trying to "speak down" to you or anything. It can be a tough thing to setup and maintain a qt that will have good stable parameters more or less identical to your display. I think that is a very large reason many people don't qt like we should. That said, it sounds like it's important to you, so I would encourage you to do what it takes.
In your case I could see setting something up in your sump area where water from your main system gets pumped into the qt tank then drains to waste on a slow constant basis or like 1 gal at a time several times per day. It will not prevent your incoming fish from anything that's already in your system, it they're going in there anyway right? Let's you feed them in isolation, get them acclimated to your tanks conditions and photoperiod, and inspect them for an extended period.
It's really up to you wether to treat always regardless of outward signs or not. Personally this seems overkill, and definitely stressful, and for most fish not really needed, but that's really a personal decision.
You can also look into tank transfer method, but that's a bit of a pain in the butt timewise.
 
Honestly, I’m not sure what to do at this point, which is why I was curious what others experiences were. I figured here was a better place to have the discussion since it’s a smaller group than R2R and it’s local. I want to try and do what’s best for the fish, but some of it seems a little overkill and a little too intense for me.

In looking at the “recommended” quarantine procedures, it seems like every single thing going into the tank needs to be QT’d for rather lengthy periods of time. Macro algae and anemones for 16 days, corals for 76 days, snails for 76 days, and molting invertebrates for 76 days (or until their first molting). I realize my thread title was specific for fish, but it also has me considering other things as well.

Right now I’m leaning towards not QT’ing ORA fish since they are captive bred and should be disease free as long as they aren’t ever mixed with wild caught fish. LTK is going to order the fish and will make sure there is no contact with water shared with non-ORA fish. For other fish, QT in the 20L and observe for any symptoms, holding off on any treatments unless some signs pop up. Still no clue what to do with other things and I’ve already thrown some cheato in my sump. I did a 5 minute ro/di dip, but that’s it. I can wait for 16 days before I add fish to my tank though, if that’s really needed.

I like the idea of using water from my main tank for starting water and for water changes. I will probably put the QT in one of my kids room though so there is 10 distance between both tanks (I guess things can transfer from the air?!?).

I appreciate everyone’s thoughts so far and would still like to hear about others practices, whether it be using a QT or not, and maybe the process you use.
 
Ha - I am in the same boat as you - overwhelmed by fish QT! My tank is a couple years in and still no fish except one from a BAR buddy, which has gone missing (the fish, not the person).
Dang - you mention snail QT. I started a sort of coral QT but never even thought of snails. Oops.
What company is LTK?
 
Cruz Mc5 said:
Honestly, I’m not sure what to do at this point, which is why I was curious what others experiences were. I figured here was a better place to have the discussion since it’s a smaller group than R2R and it’s local. I want to try and do what’s best for the fish, but some of it seems a little overkill and a little too intense for me.

In looking at the “recommended” quarantine procedures, it seems like every single thing going into the tank needs to be QT’d for rather lengthy periods of time. Macro algae and anemones for 16 days, corals for 76 days, snails for 76 days, and molting invertebrates for 76 days (or until their first molting). I realize my thread title was specific for fish, but it also has me considering other things as well.

Right now I’m leaning towards not QT’ing ORA fish since they are captive bred and should be disease free as long as they aren’t ever mixed with wild caught fish. LTK is going to order the fish and will make sure there is no contact with water shared with non-ORA fish. For other fish, QT in the 20L and observe for any symptoms, holding off on any treatments unless some signs pop up. Still no clue what to do with other things and I’ve already thrown some cheato in my sump. I did a 5 minute ro/di dip, but that’s it. I can wait for 16 days before I add fish to my tank though, if that’s really needed.

I like the idea of using water from my main tank for starting water and for water changes. I will probably put the QT in one of my kids room though so there is 10 distance between both tanks (I guess things can transfer from the air?!?).

I appreciate everyone’s thoughts so far and would still like to hear about others practices, whether it be using a QT or not, and maybe the process you use.
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I thought corals would be safe if dipped?
 
Jeff Rehling said:
I thought corals would be safe if dipped?
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My understanding is that dipping won’t kill any eggs that happen to be on the coral or plug. So if there are any eggs on the frag or plug, then a dip won’t be enough. The dip will only kill free swimming stuff that is still on the coral.
 
Cruz Mc5 said:
In my case with LTK, I know that my fish will be in a separate system that is not connected to anything else. At least that’s the plan at this point.
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Ok so a store claims this, do you have visual verification? Also what is the QT process at the store? Simply watch the fish and only treat if they see disease? Because that's usually not enough.
 
So each fish shipment is kept together and isolated from all other shipments? I don't know how a shop can do that. I have heard of filters between tanks on the same system, but I did not think that would be enough.
 
sfsuphysics said:
Ok so a store claims this, do you have visual verification? Also what is the QT process at the store? Simply watch the fish and only treat if they see disease? Because that's usually not enough.
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I have spent more time in that store than I’d care to admit, lol. I have seen his set up for new fish, and have seen the tank that is set up ready for the fish he orders for me. I have also seen several fish waiting in the back while he gets them eating and healthy. I can’t say for sure what he does treatment wise, as we haven’t talked about specific fish. I can say that he currently doesn’t run copper in his system and every fish in his sale tank has been there for a while before hitting that tank and is eating.

I don’t want to speak for him as far as his treatment method, but I will say that he has always been very open and honest with my wife and I. I have nothing but nice things to say about him and his store. So what he claims to do, as far as I can tell, he actually does. He will be getting in ORA fish shortly as well, and I believe he’s going to keep them separate from his wild caught fish, although I don’t know that for sure. Anyways, I highly recommend checking out his store and talking to him if you have questions. It’s a very quality operation.

As far as watching vs proactive treatment, I think that’s part of the reason for my thread. There seems to be differing opinions on what is best for the fish.
 
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