How Long Do You Quarantine?

[attibones]

I just got some new fish to add to the 38 gallon on Thursday, but I've put them in the quarantine tank first. I was thinking two weeks would be a good period of quarantine. I'm checking for ich or parasites, you know, but I haven't seen any sign of Illness like that yet. So how long do you all quarantine and why?

 

[LyraGuppi]

I personally don't quarantine, (lack of space and time ) but I think two weeks would be just fine.

 

[Lillefishy]

4-6 weeks as some diseases can take a few weeks to show themselves

 

[star4]

If I am confident in the shop I purchased from 3-4 weeks, rescue's and other fish 6 -8 weeks. It can take a while for some problems to show up.

 

[attibones]

Most of the fish I buy don't to into community tanks so I don't quarantine often, but I'm doing a community for the first time in a long time and I don't want anything to happen to my beloved gudgeons. What sort of problems take longer to pop up? I know ich can take a little while (though none of the fish from the tanks I bought had any ich symptoms), which is part of the reason why I run bare bottom QTs. What else takes time though?

I've never lost a fish from this store, as I tend to special order from them and buy before the fish are introduced to their tanks, but this time I got five emperor tetras (I got all they had) who had been there for about a week. They and the new female gudgeons are in the QT. I was hoping to hold them for two weeks, move them to the display tank, and then get five more emperors to finish the school. I'd be okay to wait, but the fish are nipping at each other in these smaller quarters.

 

[Byron]

I see you are in the US, so I am going to suggest you do a decent QT period, like 5-6 weeks.  Especially as Emperors are commercially-raised fish (not wild caught) and in my experiences over the past 3-4 years, commercially-raised fish are much more likely to bring disease with them.  I have a lot of wild-caught fish and never have I had disease from them.  But three times I have had very serious issues, and all with "common" commercial fish.
 
Ich is what most of us generally look for, and I have had it occur during the second and into the third week of QT, once or twice.  Ich is a frustration, but I am much more concerned over internal protozoan which are completely undetectable until the fish shows serious symptoms with death a day or two following.  By then it is too late, as the protozoan has spread.  Twice I have lost half my tank, and I know it was the new fish that brought in the protozoan because in both cases, they all died fairly rapidly once this began.  Once i had quarantined for three full weeks with no sign, and foolishly I move the new fish, only to have a bacterial infection spring up two days afterwards, on all the new fish and then it quickly spread through the tank.
 
Healthy fish in the tank itself is not reliable, as most stores have circulating systems now, and any disease in one tank quickly spreads throughout.  Also, while I do rely more on a couple "good" stores, I still don't know where the commercially-raised fish may have come from.
 
Byron.

 

[stanleo]

Most of the fish I buy don't to into community tanks so I don't quarantine often, but I'm doing a community for the first time in a long time and I don't want anything to happen to my beloved gudgeons. What sort of problems take longer to pop up? I know ich can take a little while (though none of the fish from the tanks I bought had any ich symptoms), which is part of the reason why I run bare bottom QTs. What else takes time though?

I've never lost a fish from this store, as I tend to special order from them and buy before the fish are introduced to their tanks, but this time I got five emperor tetras (I got all they had) who had been there for about a week. They and the new female gudgeons are in the QT. I was hoping to hold them for two weeks, move them to the display tank, and then get five more emperors to finish the school. I'd be okay to wait, but the fish are nipping at each other in these smaller quarters.

Can you put a divider in the tank while you wait for the quarantine to finish? 
 
I have never done a QT because I lived near enough to a fantastic store and I never had any issues with thier fish. Now, the only stores near me are Petco and Petsmart and this awefull mom and pop place downtown that smells like a deceased barn. When I bought my fish for my new tank I lost 2 corys, 7 harlequin rasporas and 2 tetras in the first week to fin rot because ONE fish had it. So now I am going to get some more rasporas to up my school to 12 and I do not want the same thing to happen. Guess I will do a QT for 6 weeks. 

 

[attibones]

The divider would just make the tank too small. It's a ten gallon. If I have to, I'll just set up the other ten gallon with another spare filter and heater and get that running. 
 
Sorry to hear about your issues with your LFS. We had one of those kinds of stores out here (half the store was set up to sell records, CDs and cassettes, and the other half sold reptiles, rodents, and fish) but they didn't make it but one or two months after we got our PetSmart. Of course I should have done my own research, but they should have known better than to sell an 18 year old a goldfish and two male kissing gourami for an unheated five gallon. I've learned quite a bit in four years, to say the least.