Do you quarantine?

[seatrueblue]

I'm just curious, it seems like not very many people on maast quarantine their fish before they add their fish to the display tank. I qarantined my fish for 2 months before I added them to my display. I'm glad I did too because they had a bad case of ich. Now I also quarantine my new corals and live rock in my 24 gallon aquapod to make sure my fish don't get ich again. I know its a pain to quarantine, but its well worth it so I don't lose my healthy display fish.

[Rychek]

I've lost more fish to quarantining than I have any other way. If I had room to setup a quarantine tank, I probably would, but I don't have room in my current apartment.

[pagan.n.damaged]

I quarantine because I've seen what happens to peoples tanks when they don't. I've seen beautiful display tanks get torn down because that was about all they could do to get rid of the ick. I keep a 20 around just for that purpose.

[seatrueblue]

I have to quarantine my corals and live rock because there can be some thing on them. As in some thing that could infect my fish, corals or it might have a bad hitch hiker.

Yes, you can lose your fish when you quarantine, if you don't monitor parameters of the QT every day. Like I said..its a pain but totally worth it.

[DrMark]

I think it is good to quarrantine everything.
But, having said that I have had situations and reasons not to.
I always dip any coral i receive.
mark

[coraline79]

I don't quarantine. The things that have cause me so much greif, couldn't have been caught in quarantine. Ick is ick, I have never had it spread, and I always feed Garlic soaked food for new fish. As far as corals go, I only have a few pieces of SPS so I am not going to be detroyed if they die. Never had a softie get sick. My main issue has been bryopsis, and I didn't even know what it was when I introduces it to my tank.

I will probably learn a hard lesson some day, but I think fish get stressed easier if they are in a small tank, and other than my 125, I only have 30's. I also think that 2 acclimations are worse than one. This is also a stressful event.

I almost lost my bluethroat trigger to acclimation, andI don't think he would have survived another one a week later.

...just an uneducated opinion:)

[seatrueblue]

Some fish can live with ich but I don't know any fish that can live with brook, worms or flukes. Quarantine is not just to see if your fish are free of diseases. It is to monitor them to make sure they are eating.

How did you almost lose your trigger to acclimation?

[Mr Cob]

Your Poll sounds a little leading:

"I don't quarantine anything, just throw them in and hope for the best."

I don't quarantine but I do check everything closely before it is even a thought to add it to my tank. I don't "just throw them in and hope for the best"...I drip acclimate and take my time adding them to the display.

In my experience a happy fish will almost always live and a stressed fish almost always catches ich. I also feel that a quarantine does not help in making a fish happy and in a lot of cases can actually cause the fish lots of stress...I would prefer to skip this step, especially on an expensive fish. Ich is Ich and almost all fish carry it but their immune system is able to keep it in check...stress the fish out and soon you will see Ich in ANY tank.

With that said, I do think it is a good idea to inspect corals thoroughly and even quarantine them before adding them and their unwanted pest hitchhikers.

[Mr Cob]

Some fish can live with ich but I don't know any fish that can live with brook, worms or flukes. Quarantine is not just to see if your fish are free of diseases. It is to monitor them to make sure they are eating.

How did you almost lose your trigger to acclimation?

You should make sure they are eating before you even purchase your fish. You can even place a fish on hold and let the LFS continue the quarantine on them so that you don't have to further stress them by adding them to yet another tiny tank with no livestock.

I definitely could see the quarantine as a very useful tool for fish you purchase online though.

[Joshua]

I don't quarantine fish and for those of yall that do it specifically for ich I guess you'll be surprised to know that the ich is already in your display tank, it is a natural thing and most of the time fish never have trouble fighting it off until they get stressed. New fish get stressed, especially when tossed into a QT setup and can often struggle with ich because of it so you end up thinking you saved your tank, then the ich goes away when the fish finally gets comfortable and you pitch it in your tank. As for corals, I don't QT or acclimate them, they get a lugols or seachem dip and a freshwater dip and get tossed into the tank after setting in the open air for 30 seconds to slime up.

[coraline79]

How did you almost lose your trigger to acclimation?

Well it was roming around in the store tank, and then bouncing around it the bag on the way home, water acclimation seemed to slow him down a bit, and then moments after it entered the tank it went into a rock structure, laid on the bottom, and didn't do anything for 3 days. I put food down near it, and it wouldn't eat, it's fins were limp, and it lost color, but after doing a full 24 hours, lights out, and oddly enough, moving water direction around it came to life!

[seatrueblue]

You should make sure they are eating before you even purchase your fish. You can even place a fish on hold and let the LFS continue the quarantine on them so that you don't have to further stress them by adding them to yet another tiny tank with no livestock.

I definitely could see the quarantine as a very useful tool for fish you purchase online though.

Of course you would have the lfs to feed the fish while you observe the fish before you purchase it. ..the making sure your fish is eating well was meant for online purchases...sorry I didn't make this clear.


garlic isn't a ich cure.. its only to entice your fish to eat. If I had listened to people about giving my fish garlic to get rid of the ich..my fish would have been dead back in April.

I don't want to have to tip toe around my tank and worry about if my fish get stressed ..their ich will show up.
So what I did was completely rid my tank of it.
I let my display tank go fishless for three months and cured my ich infested fish with cupramine. Have any of you heard of Doni on reef sanctuary? She also has a display tank that has no ich using these methods. She also sells very healthy picasso clowns.

I think a lot of people don't quarantine mainly because its a pain in the butt.. Am I right or am I wrong?

It would be nice if the LFS would do all this for us. Yeah that would be a lot less stress for the fish and the owner of the fish. I don't know of any LFS that will do all the quarantine procedures for you. They don't have the time, knowledgable staff or the extra space to do so.

[Mr Cob]

Of course you would have the lfs to feed the fish while you observe the fish before you purchase it. ..the making sure your fish is eating well was meant for online purchases...sorry I didn't make this clear.


garlic isn't a ich cure.. its only to entice your fish to eat. If I had listened to people about giving my fish garlic to get rid of the ich..my fish would have been dead back in April.

I don't want to have to tip toe around my tank and worry about if my fish get stressed ..their ich will show up.
So what I did was completely rid my tank of it.
I let my display tank go fishless for three months and cured my ich infested fish with cupramine. Have any of you heard of Doni on reef sanctuary? She also has a display tank that has no ich using these methods. She also sells very healthy picasso clowns.

I think a lot of people don't quarantine mainly because its a pain in the butt.. Am I right or am I wrong?

It would be nice if the LFS would do all this for us. Yeah that would be a lot less stress for the fish and the owner of the fish. I don't know of any LFS that will do all the quarantine procedures for you. They don't have the time, knowledgable staff or the extra space to do so.

Every LFS store that I know WILL hold the fish for you from anywhere to 24-48hours, you can even pre-pay on some places and they will hold the fish for even longer, if it dies then you get your money back provided the fish is still in their care...that's why you see HOLD on tanks from time to time. This method of quarantine allows you to make sure the fish is healthy and give it time to adjust before being swept off again. I did not say they would take all the procedures that you may do. The fact is that the fish is isolated and not in your main display when it is at the LFS giving you time to inspect the fish and verify certain things that you use a home quarantine for...

There is no way that you can absolutely without a doubt say that your tank is completely disease free no matter what steps you are taking. I bet if you stressed your fish, your fish would then show signs of ich.

I guess we can agree to disagree on this subject.

[Joshua]

The only way your tank is completely rid of ich is if you treated every single fish you've ever put in there with copper or hyposalinity for several weeks before placing the fish in your tank. If you simply have a normal isolated tank setup and don't treat them they've carried it into your main tank and it's present there, no question about it.

[Mr Cob]

Also, that's correct the garlic is used to entice fish to eat which in turn makes the fish happy which then aides with the immune system being able to fight the ich off. Same as when people get depressed they are more likely to get sick. Happy fish = Healthy fish.

P.s. No hard feelings...I just disagree with you about quarantine.

[Mr Cob]

The only way your tank is completely rid of ich is if you treated every single fish you've ever put in there with copper or hyposalinity for several weeks before placing the fish in your tank. If you simply have a normal isolated tank setup and don't treat them they've carried it into your main tank and it's present there, no question about it.

I did not know this. Very interesting.

[seatrueblue]

How do you stress a fish out? I think my clowns freak out every time I go to the tank to look at them. They are like ":eek: she is looking at us again! Quick lets rub all over our anemones and kick up some sand. That will teach her!"

[Mr Cob]

How do you stress a fish out? I think my clowns freak out every time I go to the tank to look at them. They are like ":eek: she is looking at us again! Quick lets rub all over our anemones and kick up some sand. That will teach her!"


LOL! I guess if you don't know how to stress a fish out then I'm no help!!! That was funny though.

[Rychek]

It takes quite a bit to stress fish out to the point that they "break out" in ich. Just looking at the tank and having your fish dart away isn't going to do it. Tearing your rock work apart to catch an unwanted fish could very well do it though (it did for my fish in my last tank at any rate).

[Joshua]

I had a powder blue tang that was loaded with ich for about 6 months, none of the other fish got it and the tang finally calmed down and settled in and kicked the ich all on his own. Beautiful fish.