Do you quarantine? - Everything?

[I don't. Not in 6 years. I'm only recently getting on the bandwagon, and with the last 5 fish I put in quarantine, 3 didn't make it.

:cry:

When I've added new fish to my tank directly, I took a big chance of adding disease to my livestock, but I didn't suffer that many losses over the years.

I had two different Anthias die, one still in the bag and anther within 12 hours of acclimation.
I had a Copperband Butterfly die after 7 days, presumably of starvation.
And then 3 Anthias died in the q-tank two weeks ago.


The rest of my livestock has always done well.]
 
[Fish always! but nothing else.

Problem is most people don't have the time/space/money to set up 2 reef tanks with proper lighting movement, etc. which is what you would need to quarentine the corals.

For the fish I bought a 20G for $20 an HOB and sponge filter (I keep with a fresh sponge in my sump when the q-tank is down) for $20 an air pump and I'm there. So $50. To set it up to be able to support most corals it would be at least $300 and that is if you don't have a skimmer! I know that the author makes it sound cheap but are you going to put your acros under a 20W standard output light for any more than a day or two. Not I. VHO or PC would do but then you are looking at some real money!]



Edited By kwl1763 on 1097037537
 
[Well, if you don't like to get red acro bugs, better start quarantine new purchase corals - especially wild acro colonies. Not much information is there about how the bugs get spread. It's a hassel to treat for red acro bugs.

I have mixed feeling about quarantine tank. I lost two tanks full of fish when I got impatient - and added several new fishes to my display tank.

Having lost a regal angel recently while it is in Q-tank, I think I'll probably quarantine fish for 1 or 2 weeks - then off to the display. I think if the fish is not healthy, or diseased to begin with - it'll probably die the first few days.]



Edited By peterlin on 1097041504
 
[I dont QT corals or inverts for alot of the reasons listed above.
I do QT fish in a reef style QT, because I feel it minimizes stress. Qting them for two weeks is better than no weeks, but ich and on occasion velvet can still show up in the third or fourth week.]
 
[QT nothing :) It seems the QT is more stressfull than some of the diseases that will go away in a healthy stable system. I have only had bad QT experiances and have a much higher success rate just dumping them into the tank.]
 
[I have never QT since I started and knock on wood!! Never lost anything yet.....On this setup. On my 30 gal bow front I lost all fish but it was due to several problems at once, one of them was the water source I was buying in Plano....hmmm and I purchased fish from same store, wonder who that could be? The other factors were my inexperience mixed with lack of patience. Usually I stalk my fish in the store for a week or two before I buy it. I waited 2 weeks before buying my sail fin and the shortest time was 2 days but my wife surprised me with a gift of a copper band. Which by the way is alive and well due to the chicken bone dance? :smart: The only thing I do is get them use to the salt level and temperature before dumping them into tank, 30-60 minutes.]
 
[I do not quaratine anything. I do try to make sure that the fish looks to be a very healthy before I buy it. I have had no problems with doing this yet. As far as corals I do not see how you could realistically quaratine them in another duplicate reef tank. For a precaution you could dip all corals before putting them into your tank.]
 
[All right...to add fuel to the fire. I've only tried to QT once - and it died after 14 days. Not due to starvation, not due to stress. Due to an ammonia spike. I had a BEAUTIFUL powder blue tang that was eating, active, fat and healthy. My QT was an 18-gallon rubbermaid with some live rock and water right out of my 120 display tank, so I know it was cycled. I ran a Penguin filter on it big enough for a 75-gallon tank.

I was going to release him into the main tank on the day it happened. I left in the morning to run some errands...he was fine. I came back 3 hours later and he was flipping out. Tested ammonia and it was SKY HIGH. Wham, bam, dead fish.

I put a copperband straight into my main tank, flipped off the lights and the next morning, he was just a tiny bit icked up (only 5-6 spots). But otherwise active and healthy. My yellow tang chased him a little, but he adapted well. I didn't QT him in the first place due to the starvation issue, plus I had just had the bad QT experience. He icked up a couple of times over the next week, but some days it would be there, some days there would be 5-6 spots again. The butterfly was fat and happy until the now infamous tang killed him - I was watching so I know that this is what happened.

I'm getting another butterfly this week and will not QT him as I believe that with this particular kind of fish, the double move will cause more stress than harm and also because of the starvation factor.

My personal MO is that I will QT or not depending on kind of fish, what's already in my system and special needs. Right now, there is nothing in my tank to cause a new fish stress - no bullies, etc. But I know that my display tank is a lot more stable than I could make any QT system. I'll go with those odds first.]
 
[I do freshwater dip all my zoos and I usually dip my sps in Lugols. May need to look into doing an Intercepter dip on all the acros with all the red bug problems!

Knock on wood, I have never lost a fish in the q-tank or when I transferred to the main display. I think that making sure the fish is healthy and eating when he is by himself is very important but as Misty pointed out the water quality has to be monitored very closely! I find myself testing the water on my q-tank and my 20G reef tank 10 times as much as I test my 135!

I do at minimum a 20% change weekly on my q tank. It doesn't take much to spike a 20G tank! I was gone one weekend and for some reason 2 big turbos died in my 20G zoanthid and ricordia tank. Came home and everything was closed up and looked like crap. Several massive water changes later most of the zoos made it but I lost some nice ricordia! Things change fast!

I do wrestle with how long to keep them in there. It's no big deal for the "easy fish" but for the tangs, butterflies etc a 20G is not big enough to keep them to long. Maybe a "reef" q-tank is the way to go. Fishless except for your new arrivals but with some live rock and substrate. Not sure. I'm thinking of getting a powder blue so I'm struggle greatly with this!]
 
@misery wrote:
[Rick said:
[I personally do not dip any corals, but like Keith said, you can do a freshwater dip or use a lugols solution. And as far as I have heard the only way to prevent getting red bugs in your tank if you have sps. Is to dip every sps coral that you are going to put into your tank with that Interceptor.]
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