Do you quarantine?

[djkms]

It seems like a lot of people are just adding livestock to their display straight from a retailer or another hobbyist. I am curious on what the percentage is on those who quarantine or do not. Please be honest in the poll questions, it is anonymous and you can make multiple choices per livestock type.

Fish is pretty self explanatory.
Corals I mean actual quarantine period, not just dipping once.
Live rock for pest control.

If you do quarantine what is your procedure and how long?

 

[that0neguy1126]

Fish - Sometimes, depending on how many other fish are in the tank they will have to compete with. Also depends on where I got them from.
Coral - No, Just a dip.
Live rock - Yes, but usually only put live rock in a new tank so it doesn't really matter.

For the fish, I keep them in a QT tank until they are eating and look healthy.

 

[SAZAMA]

I will when I start over soon, along with a list of others. I used to just dip corals but no more. no one wants reef herpies

 

[dv3]

you left out the sometimes when its convenient and i feel like it option ...lol
but simply put not most of the time

 

[KhensuRa]

I normally toss my coral in without dipping which is bad as I have had a few algae breakout because of this, as far as fish go, I never quarantine, but I do acclimate my fish. To this day I have never lost a fish, right away.

 

[dirtefish]

This is my first year running salt and I had started with a 100g fowlr tank that was about 5 years established. The lady I got it from was not a fan of maintenance in any form, I was shocked her fish was alive. But even more shocked when her hippo tang died as soon as he was netted. Prolly in shock from seeing anything besides algae or pellets in his tank.
Anyhow I cleaned up the tank reset everything waited for the cycle to complete and added a yellow eyed tang and 3 chromis. Two days later down to one chromis... So of course I wanted more fish went to get chromis and got a fox face rabbit fish instead. He was over a year old and was huge and an awesome fish. Everything went great for about 2 months... Which was luck. I picked up a great looking coral beauty from fishy business and added him right to my dt. Within a week Every fish in the tank was over come with ich. Water params looked decent so I thought I had a chance to save em. Got called into work.... Came home after a 12 hour shift to a dead coral beauty. Not sure if it was just the ich, but he was covered. Regardless of what it was, he was sick. Which I would have seen with a proper qt time. Long story short even after pulling all the fish to a hospital tank my attempts at hypo salinity failed. Every fish died because I didnt invest the time into a proper quarantine, with a side of attempting hypo salinity. Which I will never do again, copper seems so much easier on the fish.
My tank ran fallow for close to 3 months, then after qting some chromis I started over. So my eagerness for the hobby cost me a lot of money in live stock, a lot of time, and I killed some of my favorite fish. Which damn near made me exit the hobby.
Live and learn, fish get decent qt stay, corals get a dip, and live rock is cured at home and ran in one of my extra tanks.

Ive read a lot of posts about ich or parasites or any other variety of things that go wrong adding anything to a dt. I ignored every single bit of it until it cost me a tank.
My set up now isnt perfect, but Im still learning the best ways to do things for myself. Which will always include livestock quarantine especially if from any of the LFS around here. From friends I will shorten the length a tad, but not much. Qt isnt just about watching for disease, but for helping them acclimate in a safe place where they can fatten a bit and get used to the difference in water/temp/lighting/screaming kids lol.

 

[djkms]

My first salt tank was back in 1992. I had a 55 fowler that was converted from fresh. I started from the ground up (except the tank was used in fresh) and began adding fish shortly after my cycle. I got up to about 8 or so fish and of course the last one I added brought ich into the system, I didn't quarantine anything. After about 1 week everything was dead. I lost some pretty cool fish. I treated the whole tank with copper but that didnt help any. After that I tore down the system, trashed all the rock and setup a reef, this time quarantining anything for 4 weeks in a 10 gallon before placing it into my display. I have not dealt with ich since. I will say this, watching all those fish die was probably the saddest moment I have had since starting the hobby.

I will say that I haven't quarantined everything in my current system, but like Derek said it depends on the source. A lot of my fish came from Live Aquaria Divers Den, I did not QT any of those. A couple fish came from fellow reefers and those did not get QT'd but I did grill the hobbyists about the history of the fish lol. The fish I got from Premier were QT'd at Premier and I knew about their daily progress. The other fish I have gotten have all been QT'd for at least 4 weeks.

I have a 20long I use for QT with a heater, air pump and Aquaclear 30 HOB filter. My whole QT setup cost less than $75, very important investment IMO. I take a sponge from my DT's sump and place it in my QT tank when I need it to prevent spikes and a cycle.

Rock and Corals, no QT although when I move in about a year I will start to QT those as well.

 

[Mckibbonator]

I don't put fish in Q tank since I get them from ELITE, and I can't afford one. I do dip my corals in coralRX.

 

[mlobato]

Used To Quarantine...

I used to quarantine all fish and all coral and to be honest, in my experience, I have had better luck NOT quarantining. I have not had any fish with ick since. I have lost 2 tangs to quarantining and have had several fish come down with ick even after quarantining for 6 weeks.

My new philosophy: buy healthy fish that the store has had for at least a few weeks and are eating, and introduce with as little stress as possible, and feed a good diet thereafter with garlic supplements.

I have had this tang for a few months now and is doing great! Even getting fat.

I do dip corals/frags and closely inspect before intro though.

 

[mjaustin22]

I dont quarantine my fish cause I get them from you/premier
live rock nah
corals I dip for about 20 min in double strength coral rx, if its dies in the dip then it wasn't meant for my tank lol
AEFW are a pain!!!!!

 

[Wicked Color]

AEFW are a pain!!!!!

Lol, hitler doesnt like them either.

 

[ShelbyJK500]

Couple questions for those of you that QT fish. I just picked up my QT tank in anticipation of beginning to stock my tanks when my build is done. I've read that you're supposed to do daily water changes when in QT. That seems like a huge chore...and maybe even a bit costly since my QT is 30g. What's everyone's experience with this and is it necessary?? My understanding is the daily water changes is needed because there isn't enough biological filter for the ammonia, even with a sponge or other media that is "live". I guess it makes sense unless you have a HUGE sponge from a sump or something. New to it...feedback welcome!

 

[Wicked Color]

I never QT, and have had a couple fish that came with ich, and through stability, proper diet, and good livestock combinations I have had pretty good luck.

 

[Craigar]

If your buying from a reputable place you shouldnt need to quarenteen I know elite reef is probably the best at quarenteening till there healthy I have seen them hold fish for a month just to be sure! If you buy on line that's a different story. Me personally I like to view my fish before I purchase


300 gallon mixed reef
90 gallon bowfront fowlr

 

[djkms]

Couple questions for those of you that QT fish. I just picked up my QT tank in anticipation of beginning to stock my tanks when my build is done. I've read that you're supposed to do daily water changes when in QT. That seems like a huge chore...and maybe even a bit costly since my QT is 30g. What's everyone's experience with this and is it necessary?? My understanding is the daily water changes is needed because there isn't enough biological filter for the ammonia, even with a sponge or other media that is "live". I guess it makes sense unless you have a HUGE sponge from a sump or something. New to it...feedback welcome!

The sponge I use is pretty big - 12"x6"x1". This sits in my sump for months on end without a rinse or change so there is plenty of bacteria to avoid a cycle. I only do water changes in my QT to change out medicines or clear the water of medicines. Daily water changes are only needed if you have no bacteria bed in your QT. IMO daily water changes would cause a lot of stress on the animal.

 

[othercents]

I originally purchased a QT tank when I setup my 20L, but never used it to QT a fish or anything else. The one live rock I purchased to seed my tank ended up bringing plenty of pests into the tank that were quickly knocked out by my cleaning crew. A few of the corals I received also had pests and would have been better if I dipped them, but I didn't. Because of that I have moved the tank over to a FOWLR. My initial fish came from a store that I wouldn't want to purchase from now. Two other fish also came from another store that I think I was lucky to get healthy fish from, or they might of had a decent quarantine process. The last couple of fish that I have purchased were from Premier and Neptunes Tropical Fish which both have very good quarantine processes.

For fish I think it is a matter of knowing your vendor's quarantine practices and only purchasing from "reputable" vendors. In the future when I setup a reef again I will be more careful about dipping the corals and maybe even quarantining them at least so that they can acclimate to my water parameters and feeding schedule. This is especially true since I want to setup an SPS dominated tank. I will not use any live rock within the new system and seed the system with sand from a tank I can trust.

BTW. I think some of my recent pets came in on my CUC from reefcleaners. Should we be quarantining or dipping them?

 

[othercents]

The sponge I use is pretty big - 12"x6"x1". This sits in my sump for months on end without a rinse or change so there is plenty of bacteria to avoid a cycle. I only do water changes in my QT to change out medicines or clear the water of medicines. Daily water changes are only needed if you have no bacteria bed in your QT. IMO daily water changes would cause a lot of stress on the animal.

What about water changes from your display? IE drain from the QT and fill from the display. Then fill the display with fresh salt mix.

 

[djkms]

What about water changes from your display? IE drain from the QT and fill from the display. Then fill the display with fresh salt mix.

Thats exactly how I change out my water. I fill the QT tank with DT tank water, add a couple rocks or pvc tubes, sponge and go. I also have fresh RO/DI water ready to match the salinity of the water the fish is in (my DT is 1.026 and fish are usually in 1.019). Then I let the water evaporate until the salinity hits 1.026. Water changes are done with water from my DT tank to the QT and DT is filled with fresh mixed saltwater.

 

[djkms]

If your buying from a reputable place you shouldnt need to quarenteen

Out of curiosity (and just playing devils advocate here) if you received a fish from a reputable place and 2 days later that fish showed signs of ich and wiped out your whole tank would you be mad at yourself for not quarantining or the reputable place for giving you a sick fish?

 

[Craigar]

No matter what you do your never going to be 100 percent sure that you have a healthy fish. Yeah I would be ****ed at myself for not taking that extra step but you know If it happens it happens nothing you can do about it! I personally think elite brings in some of the best quality fish. And they quarenteen them right in my eyes


300 gallon mixed reef
90 gallon bowfront fowlr