Quarantine fish before introducing them into your tank !

[Maize-N-Blue-D]

This may sound stupid,  but is this something that everyone should do?  At this point in time, I have only one tank going.  I do not have the luxury to quarantine a fish!  Sounds like I should go out and get a 10 gallon set up just for this purpose!

Plus I only purchase fish from a LFS that (seems) IMHO to have healthy fish.  If I see any fish that looks like it may be sick, I immediately walk out of that store, unless it is a tank that is marked "NOT FOR SALE".  Only then do I know that that LFS is reputable enough.

[Helloitsme]

I never quarantine. I've set up quarantine/hospital tanks in the past and they always just end up as another display tank.

[danielratti]

I never qt either. No issues yet if a fish looks ill I dont get it

[hezekiah]

there is a few schools of thought here. 1. why do you need to. i have a 300 gallon show tank. that have over 50 african cichlids in it there value is large if only for me why risk all them getting sick. but adding fish after quaratine can throw the balance off anyway. i just bought 2 large peacocks and 4 bumble bees from the pet vendor. the peacocks i knew was coming from his show tank, so i felt they had no problems. everything i bought from wet thumb or the oyers i never quaratined. i saw the living conditions and saw the fish healthy. never had any problems. 2. where i would is if i had got wild caughts or f0 in and i introduce them to an established colony of lets say trophs and when i say f0 i mean coming from the lake. not something someone had in there tank like 3 years and decided to part with them. but if i am getting f0 i dont want them to be stressed by the current tankmates. so they would probably get their own tank. i think the most important thing people overlook is the stability of the water conditions ph, ammonia, nitrates and temp and if they change much. after all that my 2 cents is i usually dont. but i will if they are wild caught. not cause they cost more but the fish may have parasites from the lake or river that yours cant handle.

[Maize-N-Blue-D]

I have never done this but just read another post where it was recommended ... Just thought I'd ask to see who out there is doing this..

[four_by_ken]

I have a quarenatine 10 gallon tank, but I only use it for fish that look sick, or stop eating, etc. 

I then take them out to watch them closer and if there is something wrong, hopefully it wont get to the other fish.

As far as bringing a fish home, they go right in the tank.  If I have doubts... I dont bring it home.



I think every house should at least have a 10 gallon tank tucked away for emergencies.

[Maize-N-Blue-D]

So with no substrate and running on a sponge filter ?

[four_by_ken]

So with no substrate and running on a sponge filter ?

Thats how I do it.  I also have a penguin hang on the back with no carbon in it.  For my hospital tank... I want it as clean as possible.

[Maize-N-Blue-D]

Hey Riche - I need a 10 gallon tank as well.   Just add it to my list for pickup on Monday...

[Steve]

I have two 55g tanks at the moment. One is a peacock tank which I got all 12 fish from a very good online Cichlid shop and stocked all those fish all at once. So since they all came from the same place and were stocked at the exact same time there was no need to quarantine anything because it was like they were basically quarantined together. My other 55g tank I stocked over about a 3 week period, with Mbuna from three different, yet clean and trusted local pet shops.

The Mbuna tank which had no quarantine of the fish I have had one beautiful $30 Mbamba bay male die suddenly of bloat. One yellow lab die of unknown reasons (read my other thread) and still have one yellow lab that has a swelled belly yet is doing "okay" still.

I'm VERY careful about water parameters. My PH, is rock steady and other parameters are very steady, I do PWC twice a week, so the strange illness in some of the fish is not from anything to do with my water parameters. My Thoughts are that it is to do with not quarantining the fish. Can I prove 100% that is the reason? No, but it seems to be the reason if you ask me.

I now have a 20g which is now my quarantine tank and every fish I buy from anywhere no matter how trust worthy will now be quarantined for at least 3-5 weeks. IMO I learned a hard yet valuable lesson.

[linuxrulesusa]

I can echo Steve's experience.  I had no issues with fish - bought from various LFS and except for 'feeder' fish all did pretty well.  Then I bought a platy from Petco (for my wife) and the whole tank got ich.  So I tried to do better about QT for a while. I got lazy about it and right after Christmas bought several catfish from Pet Supplies Plus.  Apparently one of the species of catfish had a nasty strain of columnaris or something else.  Since I hadn't encountered it before,  I thought it was ick at first, and treated it accordingly.  Wrong diagnosis + other fish being susceptible because I hadn't kept up on tank maintenance over the break = disaster.  I lost all four of my Australoheros oblongums as well as half the catfish. 

So, I am definitely working to make sure I have a 10g on hand to QT new fish.  Specifically those I'm not sure about (e.g. from PSP/Petco/Petsmart).  And I try to have a designated net and bucket to use with sick fish so I don't cross contaminate. 

IMO, It depends a lot on where you get your fish and whether you sometimes take the risk of buying a fish that may have a minor disease (e.g. run of the mill ick) because it's hard to find.

[four_by_ken]

I don't but fish from the big stores, and avoid anything else I can.

Shop local, privately owned everyone!!!! 

[RichE]

when ever i buy fish at a "chain store" that are on sale and I cant pass Up I put them In a bare tank for a few days just to be safe

[Ron]

I don't but fish from the big stores, and avoid anything else I can.

Shop local, privately owned everyone!!!!

Hard to argue with that great advice!

[Steve]

I don't but fish from the big stores, and avoid anything else I can.

Shop local, privately owned everyone!!!!

Hard to argue with that great advice!

Mine all were from local privately owned shops, still caused problems though.