How Do I Quarantine New Fish?

[Hoppy]

Hi from a Newbie

As my husband has wanted tropical fish for years, I bought him a 2ft x 1ft x 1ft tank for his birthday to see how he gets on. My thought being that he can get a larger tank/experience MTS at a later date if things work out OK with this one!

He set the tank up at the beginning of April, did a fishless cycle and added fish at the start of this month - 6 x neon tetra & 6 x amano shrimp. So far, things are going really well and all 12 seem very happy in the tank. 6-9 more neons are on the shopping list to be added in the next week or two and the final fish will one Red-Tailed Black Shark in about a month once the others have settled.

I have read that you need to quarantine the new fish first before adding them into the tank but I'm not sure how this can be possible with one tank. Is there anything he can do that is similar to quarantine or should he add particular treatments to the water when the new fish are added to limit any losses?

Thanks in advance for your help and advice.

Hoppy

 

[missPenguin]

My own experience would say, yes quarentine. I do and I'm glad for it.

You needn't spend a lot of money on a quaretine tank, it really doesn't need to be anything fancy or indeed anything big. Mine is a 5 [UK] gallon running with a fluval plus one filter and does the job just fine. Really all you should need is the tank, a little bit of gravel, couple of fake plants and the filter. Some people would argue even thats too much equip but I like my fishies to have a nice home, even if it is temporary.

Although you've done a fishless cycle, [go you! ] which usually means you can fully stock straight away, the bacteria colonies will have probably died back slightly to accomodate the current stocking levels which is why you are generally recommended to only add a few new fish at a time [although neons are relatively small and shouldn't increase the bio load massively] so that if you do get a quarentine tank and fihlessly cycle it [use some filter media from the mature tank and it will speed the job along massively] then the amount of fish you can quarentine in your small tank should correlate the amount you can safely add to your main tank with increasing your bio load too much and causing a mini cycle. I would possibly go for getting the neons in 2 seperate groups of 4.

The other added benefit of having another smaller tank is that when you have fully stocked your main tank you can pack it all away and whip it out to be used as a hospital or nursery tank if you need to in the future [I think you can keep the filter cycled by keeping it in the main tank but I'm a bit greyer on this!]

Hope this helps

 

[SophieLT]

well anouther way to do this is to float the fish bag with the new fish on the serface to help get them used to the fish, temporature and surroundings.

just remeber to turn off the light


hehe hehe

your welcome

 

[bobbicus]

when getting new fish it is always "the best practice" to quarantine new fish as they have illnesses/diseses that can be passed on and brought into the healthy tank - however this is not always the case - money, space etc etc

careful maintenance and observation can often stop a problem before it's gets to a dire situation eg having 1 fish get whitespot and thus in turn affecting the whole stock of the tank - then there's adding meds, water changes etc etc

if you are getting the fish from the same store then it can be said that the fish already in ur tank will be used to the ones coming from the same fish shop - as they may have a central fitration systen where all diseases / water changes may reside - and thus get "used" to it

although fish only present with diseases with poor water quality, over feeding - resulting in spoiling of the water, stress, pH etc etc as a healthy fish can fight these things off ( i suppose it's like humans healthy poeple can fight infection but when immune system is compromised then illness / disease is harder to fight and we need meds to help (which sometimes do)

i am erring on the side of caution and have like the person above a small q-tank 6uk gallons - which to sme people is small - but it serves a purpose and if the water is kept to a high quality and there is "adequate" swimming space - then all should be ok - as the fish are in there temporarily and is not their main home to which fish need AMPLE room to grow, swim and flourish

everyone has a different view - and many will say get as big tank as you can - but first things first - and a smallish size one for a place to "observe and treat" if necessary - in my opinion can only help aid the fish and prevent a major illness in the bigger tank

just thougt i would stick my oar in !!!