To Quarantine Or Not To Quarantine - That Is The Question!

[Libbyd23]

I have a 39litre tank setup for about 3 months now. I originally bought 5 neon tetras which were all healthy for 2 weeks then introduced 4 guppies. All the guppies died within 24hours and after that lost 3 tetras over time of no known cause (bought the guppies from LFS that I won't be going back to as in hindsight I'm not sure how healthy they were).

So now I have 2 neon tetras and about 6 weeks ago I noticed a small white tip to both of the fish's tails. I started treating with fin rot as looked fungal. 2 weeks of that treatment I noticed no improvement and one has a whitish slimy looking patches over it's sides. No colour loss though. They are still feeding and swimming fine. Ammonia, nitrite and nitrate levels all 0 since treating (yes I know it's unusual getting nitrate as 0 - I have tested and tested again, shook the bottle very vigorously etc etc but still comes out as 0).

So throughtout the whole time I've been doing continuous research and a lot of people suggest having good water chemistry to heal the fish instead of using medication, and seeing as the medication I used didn't work, I stopped it. Quite a few weeks have gone by and they're still the same. Looking at it again I think it's actually bacterial and not fungal.

What I would like to know is:
1. Should I treat the fish in my main tank although I know that bacterial medications will ruin my biological filter? Do I take the filter out? If so - do I leave my tank with no filter?
2. Should I set up a quarantine tank and treat them away from my cycled tank?
3. If I set up a QT - can I do this in a bucket with heater only?
4. I have 6 snails - are they ok with medications?

Any advice is welcome as I'm really stuck as to what to do next.

Thanks in advance,
Libby

 

[TiffanyJayne]

Personally for 2 small fish i would remove the filter and put it in a bucket of tank water, keep it running though, remove the smails..some times these can be the cause of disease but they don't do well with treatment and then treat the tank. most treatments are day 1,2,3 and 6 so on the 7th day do a large water change, pop the filter back in and then see how they go. snails don't need a heater.it may be an idea to get a small plastic tank, pop a heater in it and use that to house new fish for 14 days before placing them in your main tank, then you save on the amount of deaths in your main tank and the amount of treatment you need to use, up the temp to about 30 in your tank and instead of having your lights on for 8 hours drop it to 6.

If your worried your LFS isn't offering healthy fish put a post up looking for info on FS in your area that way if others have had bad experiences you know not to bother with that shop.

 

[Libbyd23]

Ok, thanks TiffanyJayne.

A couple of questions:

1. Do I stop feeding the fish during this time or just continue as normal?
2. I don't have a carbon filter - should I add some carbon after treated to remove any remaining medication?

Thanks!