how long do you quarantine all your fish?

doox00

doox00

Premium Member
Just curious how you all quarantine your fish, do you always no matter what quarantine for 4-6 weeks? Or if they look perfectly healthy for x days/weeks then move to your display tank? I was just curious how most people go about doing it..
 
My LFS says if its going to develop anything that you should see signs of it within 7 days.

Seems a bit short to me.
 
I qt all new fish for 6-8 weeks. If the qt tank has to be treated for any reason, then the qt time starts over when the treatment is done. Its better to be patient and safe than sorry if something breaks out in your main tank. From everything I have read, the life cycle of ich has many stages that can live undetected for weeks, so I play it safe and keep them in qt past the cycle stage. If no signs of illness by then, they go into the big tank. Jolene
 
this is how I do it. After loosing a lot of money to marine velvet I set up a QT tank.

I float the bags in the qt tank. Test the water in the bags. Make my qt tank equal that. Usually i leave about 5 gallons out of the top so I can just turn on the ro/di to dilute it down or add salt to bring it up.

Once the fish are swiming around for 2-3 days i start to lower the salinity to 1.009 to perform Hypo-salinity. This kills ich. If for any reason they develop anything other than ich I raise salinity back to 1.025 and switch to copper treatment or whatever is needed for that particular condition.

I will qt fish for 4-6 weeks in hypo, if nothing shows the tank goes back up to 1.025 and the fish are ready for the display.

If they show anything at all they are left in the qt for atleast 4-6 weeks after the treatment has ended.

I do not want any more disease in my tank. Loosing 10 fish in 12 hours was no fun. The last two went carpet surfing so they didnt meet the same fate as the others who got ate up by the crabs b4 i could get them out.

I had to flush a powder brown alive. Sucked but he couldnt swim on his own and was beeing ate alive by hermits. Had no choice by the time i found him. Talk about a shame
 
I did not realize you left the salt level at 1.009 for 4 weeks, I presume this is not stressful to the fish? Is 4 weeks required, once it hits 1.009 won't the ich be dead right away?
 
no it takes time. what 1.009 does is breaks their reproductive cycle so it cant reproduce, eventually it all dies. If they show ich during the inital treatment i leave them at 1.009 for 6-8 weeks then 4 at normal sg to make sure nothing comes back.

It doesnt hurt fish if you take it down slow. You MUST use a refractometer to be succesfull. Also some fish are sensitive to copper like angels. For them Hypo is the way to go for an ich free tank


Yeah I wish people would qt properly. I wish I had. Lost 3 tangs, a fire fish, lawnmower blenny, royal gramma, black cap basset, pigmy angel, and two others I cant remember at the moment.

It came from a kole tang purchased at a reputable lfs. 3 days after he went in........ it took 12 hours from the first dieing fish to the last dead one.

The LFS I deal with now some people find very rude........ I would rather have rude and honest than covered in fluff any day. Ask them if you need to QT the fish..... if they say no then i probably wouldnt shop thier unless they qt them for you. but i doubt that.

The LFS I deal with now says it doesnt matter were you get the fish or coral. I has to be quarenteened. They tell it like it is. I like that
 
acrouse said:
I qt all new fish for 6-8 weeks. If the qt tank has to be treated for any reason, then the qt time starts over when the treatment is done. Its better to be patient and safe than sorry if something breaks out in your main tank. From everything I have read, the life cycle of ich has many stages that can live undetected for weeks, so I play it safe and keep them in qt past the cycle stage. If no signs of illness by then, they go into the big tank. Jolene
Click to expand...

Does this apply to ALL fish...like fish such as scissortail dartfish...maybe jawfish, blue assessors...?
 
tkeracer619 said:
this is how I do it. After loosing a lot of money to marine velvet I set up a QT tank.

I float the bags in the qt tank. Test the water in the bags. Make my qt tank equal that. Usually i leave about 5 gallons out of the top so I can just turn on the ro/di to dilute it down or add salt to bring it up.

Once the fish are swiming around for 2-3 days i start to lower the salinity to 1.009 to perform Hypo-salinity. This kills ich. If for any reason they develop anything other than ich I raise salinity back to 1.025 and switch to copper treatment or whatever is needed for that particular condition.

I will qt fish for 4-6 weeks in hypo, if nothing shows the tank goes back up to 1.025 and the fish are ready for the display.

If they show anything at all they are left in the qt for atleast 4-6 weeks after the treatment has ended.

I do not want any more disease in my tank. Loosing 10 fish in 12 hours was no fun. The last two went carpet surfing so they didnt meet the same fate as the others who got ate up by the crabs b4 i could get them out.

I had to flush a powder brown alive. Sucked but he couldnt swim on his own and was beeing ate alive by hermits. Had no choice by the time i found him. Talk about a shame
Click to expand...


Question...so my fish are rainfords goby, scissortail dartfish, yellow clown goby, blue assessor, yellowheaded jawfish, fat head sunburst anthia, tanakas pygmy wrasse and tail spot blenny...I am currently quaranting the scissortails for 6-8 weeks...lets cut to the point for these fish how long would you recommend me quarantine them for? 6-8 weeks seems like a long time...but maybe I'm wrong.
 
12 weeks currently, but I'm changing my practices soon. Current practice looks like this:

2 weeks obs
1 week prazi
1 weeks obs
1 week prazi
2 weeks obs
1 week metro
1 weeks obs
1 week metro
2 weeks obs

I think I'm going to go to TTM and formalin dips followed by metro which may end up shorter.
 
I have been burned by Ich before after waiting 6 weeks with just observation. Over the past few years I have been prophylactically treating all new fish in quarantine with prazipro and cupramine but I still wait 6 weeks before transferring to the display tank. I know some reefers are against prophylactic treatment but it has worked well and my fish have tolerated it well.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
If a fish has been at the LFS for 4-8 weeks with no signs of sickness, should you still QT them when you get them home? I saw that my LFS writes the dates on the tank when he got them and some have been in there for around a month and look healthy.
 
scooter31707 said:
TTM upon arrival, and 8 weeks after that in observation tank.
Click to expand...

+1, anything less than 72 days total leaves you with a risk of introducing an infection into your display tank. Yes it is a long time, but if you have a nice fish you do not want to run the risk of anything shorter. You may get lucky with shorter quarantine periods, but sooner or later you will get burned.
 
I just throw them in my DT and hope for the best. My QT is watching them closely for weeks while praying that I beat the odds again. Of course, I don't recommend this course of action, lol.
 
72 days minimal. Coppersafe the entire time. Three 100% water changes from reef water and coppersafe redosed each time. Last fish stayed in there for 80 days.
 
thegrun said:
+1, anything less than 72 days total leaves you with a risk of introducing an infection into your display tank. Yes it is a long time, but if you have a nice fish you do not want to run the risk of anything shorter. You may get lucky with shorter quarantine periods, but sooner or later you will get burned.
Click to expand...

Why 72 days, is that the cycle for ick?
 
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