To quarantine or not

[OrionN]

Yep, it's only a matter of time. After you have amassed a nice fish collection and add "just one more" that has velvet without QTing, it will make you want to quit the hobby when you watch all the time and money you have spent be taken away in a few days... Most never recover from this and leave the hobby... Hence why the average lifespan for hobbiest is 3 yrs in Marine fish keeping. Your the vet in this situation so you either educate yourself and QT, or watch your fish die because you were too lazy to QT

Yep, some of us have more valuable animals (not necessary fishes) than others. When I lost my beautiful Magnifica due to not QT new anemone, it is a lesson that I won't forget. I introduced PMD to my clams and lost many thousand dollars worth of clams. Introduced disease that kill my priceless Magnifica's. It hurts so bad that I set up a 30 gal system, running all the time just to QT anemones and clams prior to put them into my DT

 

[Mark...]

You have to view your tank inhabitants as your close friends and protect them. If you have a tank that's been running for months or years with healthy thriving fish. you owe it to them to be patient and not allow a stranger to join the group and make them sick. When the new guy passes inspection, he joins your group of friends and in turn now gets protected. Corny way to look at it, but it sucks to lose a bunch of "friends" to one new addition and an impatient owner...

 

[ThRoewer]

Quarantining fish is easy and not doing it is just reckless.
The majority of fish will still do fine in substandard water. They usually also don't care too much about light and often prefer it a bit on the darker side.
I intentionally don't keep the condition too pristine for most fish to stress them a bit after they are established. If they have some infection I rather want it to show up while they are still in the QT and not later in the DT.
My loss rate with fish is quite low. Whatever dies, usually dies early on due to something they came already ill with.

Where things get difficult is quarantining inverts, corals and plants, especially if not as a measure against their own diseases, but rather against fish parasites. Those are much more tricky to keep alive in a QT. Not only do they need higher water quality and often intense light of the right spectrum, but often also dosing of alkalinity, calcium and trace elements. You basically need a small copy of your DT for them.
Another issue here is, that you have absolutely no feedback if they carry a fish disease or not. The likelihood for it is for sure magnitudes below what you can expect with fish.

 

[breck]

I never quarantined. ..and i picked up a nice goldflake from a store that does their own quarantine/treatment. ..well, month into my system, the goldflake broke out with velvet...lost him, a majestic, queen and flame...thankfully my hippo and marine betta survived. ..i now have 3 quarantine tanks and will always use a QT. It sucked, but it was my own fault.

 

[ThRoewer]

Yeah, Amyloodinium can really ruin your day. It's the one parasite I fear the most. It can wipe out your tank so quickly that you have not enough time to react.
Cryptocaryon on the other hand is something I don't fear too much even if it gets into the tank. It's usually moving slowly and fish have proven to acquire immunity against it if they are otherwise healthy, well fed and not stressed too much by tank mates or poor water quality.
Even if the fish don't get a handle on ich without intervention, you usually have enough time to set up a treatment tank and cure them with one of several effective methods.

IMO 2 months is the bare minimum you should keep new fish in quarantine. 3 months would be even better if possible.


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