Lesson Learned

[mrguppy]

First I would like to thank Reef Central Online Community for this web site and their sound advice, and every one for sharing their experiences of success and failures .

I just wished I have been following the advice of one very important subject, the use of a quarantine tank (QT) for ALL new tank mates. Let me explain. I have been in the reef hobby for at least 6 years. And, have recently started back into it about 8 months ago, and worked my way up to a 125G reef. I purchased about 8 fish to start off with and all was going very well for the first five months. In the past 3 month I bought another 7 fish. Thinking my tank was bullet proof so far, I added the new 7 fish to my DT, and this is when the disaster started. One of the new fish introduced ich. Now out of the 15 fish 6 survive. I have managed to catch four and QT them, I'm still working on catching the last two. So far, the ich is clearing up on the fish in the QT.

I just wish I hadn't been so stubborn and pride-full in neglecting following a simple now golden rule to me, QT ALL new fish. It just goes to show no matter how great your water parameters are, and how stable the reef environment is, it just takes one carless mistake in neglecting a simple procedure that practically wiped out all my fish.

Sorry for the long post. I just hope every one else beginner to expert, Doesn't make the same mistake I have over something as simple at having a QT tank.

 

[avandss]

Well its great that you fully understand the consequences, unfortunately some people just never learn.

you can help by posting and trying to convince some of the newcomers the importance of a proper QT procedure before they destroy their tank and more importantly harm all the fish.

it absolutely infuriates me when i read a threat title like "do you really need to qt???" and then they try to convince everyone including themselves that a Qt procedure is not a necessity.

 

[lagatbezan]

The samething happened to me a long time ago when I was first starting out thinking it wouldn't happen to me and that fresh water dip before placing in the dt would be sufficient. Big mistake and ended up losing 13 of my fish. Lesson learned and now everything goes through a full qt. this hobby gets a lot more enjoyable when you know your fish are disease free and healthy. Qt is well worth it and a must in my opinion.
It's great you starting to qt your fish. Remember that your display needs to be fish less for 10 weeks before adding your fish back into it and the clock starts when you catch the last fish. Also when you catch them, if you add them to the same qt as the other fish, it resets your qt timeline.

 

[Coelli]

I think a lot of people are coming from freshwater where ich isn't as big a deal... If I hadn't seen so much just from browsing the forums I would still be under that impression.