Fish death in quarantine question.

[gwand]

If you have a single fish in quarantine and it dies, how do you treat the tank in preparation for another fish?

If you have multiple fish in quarantine and one dies of unknown causes, how do you proceed from there regarding the welfare of the remaining fish?

 

[GaryE]

Unknown causes.
That you can't treat, so if the fish was alone, I drain and refill the tank and don't worry about the filter. The things I can treat are things I can see. If I didn't see the cause, then the tank can wait for the next arrivals.
If I were totally inexperienced I might disinfect everything and restart a sterile filter to re-seed it. A newcomer could miss Camallanus nematodes, or flavibacter/flexibacter/columnaris.
If a few die, I do a partial water change after I remove the bodies, and I wait to see if I can identify known causes. If I can, I try to treat. There's no med for shipping injury (which can be chemical injury), airport tarmac chilling or boiling, or fighting during shipping.

Is this a form of Russian roulette? A bit, but how can you treat unknown causes? Quarantine should be a time when you try to observe problems and treat them if they can be identified. I've saved a lot of fish with prompt treatment when I could see what was needed, but when you can't identify the cause you realize how weak our ability to diagnose properly is.

 

[Gertrudae]

And sometimes you can't get hands on the proper medication without a vet. If you are able to find a vet who is familiar with fish deseases ...

Unknown or untreatable cause of death in quarantine - I would start over if I would need it again soon. Otherwise I keep it running without snails and can use it again after a couple of weeks. Snails can be hosts für some nasty parasites.

 

[Back in the fold]

An interesting question which deserves some thought .

 

[fishorama]

I'm more paranoid about QT deaths. I shoot for 4 weeks of health. For me the clock starts over after a death or signs of disease, with big water changes & possible meds if I can guess what might be wrong.

I "won" some fish that seemed to have mycobacteroisis (fish TB). I knew they all weren't healthy after several weeks. 1 or 2 died, the rest looked ok. ...for a while. I ended up euthanizing them all. Very distressing, but at least I had not introduced a "plague" into a regular healthy tank.

Depending on what disease signs I've seen in QT, it informs how I deal with my now empty QT tank. Sometimes it's bleach the heck out of it with filters running & wait or even dry them out...quite different than how I deal with ich. A few weeks without fish & I feel safe enough.