Gang, Please Quarantine New Fish!

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FishGuest5123

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I understand. Weā€™re so excited to get our new fish home and in the community tank. So we put them in. Stop! Big mistake!!! I canā€™t tell you how many posts we get from members who are trying to save their beloved fish because a new fish brought a disease into the tank. Iā€™ve been there. Last year I did quarantine some new neons for 5 days. One had a tiny spot on his tail and I decided it wasnā€™t ich and placed them in the community tank. Soon over 50 neons were covered with the worst case of ich I had ever dealt with. Took over a month to clear the ich and lost several tetras and a Cory as a result. After cycling a tank, quarantining new fish is the single most important thing you can do for your fish. Iā€™ve heard all the excuses there are for why a person didnā€™t quarantine. None of them made sense. If you donā€™t have a QT tank, then donā€™t buy the fish. Get a cheap plastic food safe container, a small cheap heater, and a cheap sponge filter to keep on hand for quarantines. Keep some extra sponge in the back of your main filter and just pop them in the quarantine filter when needed. It will give you a cycled tank pretty quickly. You may say, ā€œI never quarantine and Iā€™ve never had a problem.ā€ I tell you, your time will come. So please, please quarantine all new fish for at least 2 weeks. It will save a lot of heartache and expense down the line. :fish::thanks::fish:
 
I fully agree...
It can wreak havoc with your tank if you get some serious infections..
Loss of beautiful fish, loss of money, stress, etc, etc...

You may even have to restart your tank all over again....
It's just too risky....
You just need a single parasite to create havoc in your tank.
 
Unfortunately I never understood the need of a quarantine tank until recently. Thankfully, however, I haven't had a problem before. With that being said, you are 100% right that it only takes once until a quarantine tank would have been the thing saving the rest of your fish. I know now why a quarantine tank is necessary and I feel that this should be more widespread of a piece of information. Thanks for starting this thread, it is very important for people to understand why it is so necessary.
 
I would like to say. Have a tank as your Quarantine tank, fully set up planted and working as a miniature of your main system. When you buy new fish, take the fish from that tank and put them in the main tank. Then you can quarantine your new fish without them getting stressed, so often fish in quarantine are put in containers that are like prison cells and then the fish just freak out. Give them a nice home to be in while they wait to go to there permanent setup.
 
If you donā€™t have a QT tank, then donā€™t buy the fish. Get a cheap plastic food safe container, a small cheap heater, and a cheap sponge filter to keep on hand for quarantines. Keep some extra sponge in the back of your main filter and just pop them in the quarantine filter when needed. It will give you a cycled tank pretty quickly.
@Deanasue
. ā˜†ā˜†ā˜†ā˜†
Thanks for the thread topic.

Dollar store tub $1-3...or just look around the house
Air pump $6-10
Air line tube $3-4 .... and there is plenty
Sponge filter $5-7
Heater I got a small one on sale for maybe $7 - depends on size.
(May be optional depending on fish snd season)
(I've also used a small space heater thoughtfully placed and safely operated).

Bacteria is free, yay!

Best thing is you will have all these parts around later. Sell some shrimp, fry, plants to someone or trade to LFS and eventually you'll break even.

Sure, you could get a small tank kit on sale for that amount....but only for nano fish quarantine. And eventually you will decide to start a shrimp colony and will need to go the first route anyway for your next fish QT ?

Edit: These are Dallas prices.
 
Quarantine or no quarantine: that is the question. Oh boy do I know from experience that one diseased fish can just about kill off an entire community tank. The problem was at the time I didn't know better. I had great luck in getting my community tank established, with cories, danios, and neons, and a dwarf gourami. Everything went great even after putting together this community tank with fish from different places at different times. My community tank did great for about six months until I decided to up the neon count. After added six more neons, the community was hit by several problems, ick, bloat, and mysterious dyings. I lost almost the entire community, had to start all over again.
 
A lot of the quarantine question is about the species being added and the source they come from. I have posted before that at your LFS you can walk around and then eliminate about half the tanks just because of dead fish etc. If you are buying on line you have no idea where these fish are coming from so you have no choice but to quarantine everything.
 
Great Advice as there can be a fair risk with 'new' fish. The only time not to separately quarantine fish is when setting up a new tank, in which case the main tank is the quarantine tank.
I cover quarantine and hospital treatment in detail in an article that also features a great video by Irene of Aquarium Co-op:
 
Agree 100%, "Thanks" for posting a reminder with your experience.
Just 4 years into keeping "Wet Pets" and "Underwater Gardening". Have to admit when I started, I would just Plop/Drop. As mentioned, have read too many posts of problems, when most can be avoided.
After that 1st year, now I always "Quarantine" any new acquisitions fish or plant, even from breeders I trust.
Also, it's odd how some members say they "Quarantine" but after a few days they post a pic of their new purchase in a tank with other fish. Then a few days to weeks they are posting, "Help".
Have some "Patience", take the time to "Quarantine"
I participate on another forum, running a poll "Do you Quaratine?"
Right now only 25% of those responded say they do, most of the time.
Just my .02.

Good Luck!
 
@Deanasue
. ā˜†ā˜†ā˜†ā˜†
Thanks for the thread topic.

Dollar store tub $1-3...or just look around the house
Air pump $6-10
Air line tube $3-4 .... and there is plenty
Sponge filter $5-7
Heater I got a small one on sale for maybe $7 - depends on size.
(May be optional depending on fish snd season)
(I've also used a small space heater thoughtfully placed and safely operated).

Bacteria is free, yay!

Best thing is you will have all these parts around later. Sell some shrimp, fry, plants to someone or trade to LFS and eventually you'll break even.

Sure, you could get a small tank kit on sale for that amount....but only for nano fish quarantine. And eventually you will decide to start a shrimp colony and will need to go the first route anyway for your next fish QT ?

Edit: These are Dallas prices.
"Bacteria is free, yay!"

It most certainly is, but people continue to waste their $ on the bottled stuff (often at the suggestion of LFS employees, who are there to make a buck, and usually don't have a clue about fishkeeping)
 
Iā€™ve actually used Tetra Safe Start+ in the past and it did speed up the cycle. Keeping extra sponges in filters is faster and cheaper though. :)
 
Iā€™ve actually used Tetra Safe Start+ in the past and it did speed up the cycle. Keeping extra sponges in filters is faster and cheaper though. :)
Or extra ceramic media...... ;)
 
Mature media didn't work for me at the end of 2019. It would seem I have few bacteria in my filter media. So next time I set up a quarantine tank I used floating plants and eldodea (anacharis) instead of mature media which worked great.
 
I definitely agree.
Quarantine any new ingabitants for 2 weeks is surely the best way to prevent many issues. It also save the purse ?
 

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