Quarantine Fish

[plum]

hi
do i need quarantine the fish if bought from LFS?

 

[mattlee]

if you have the spare tank to do so then yes i would highly reccommend it. even though the fish may act and look healthy they can still be carrying bugs, diseases, infections, bacteria etc. 2 weeks is a minimum quarentine period i would do. its a good place for the new fish to de-stress and relax a bit more also to get use to your water and have plenty of food without competition from other fish to get them ready to be transfered into your main tank. its also ideal to keep a close eye on them for any signs of anything thats not normal as they can easily be lost in your main tank behind plants and decor etc.
the only time i wouldnt quarentine fish is if they were the first fish into the tank as the main tank can be used as a quarentine tank. unless the tank is huge as you may need to do more frequent water changes and medicate if anything goes wrong and this can be expensive and time consuming on a big tank

 

[ben1987]

ideally you should QT every marine fish a lo of people dont. i learnt the hard way though and had a wipe out.

compared to the cost of the hobby overall a small QT tank is a tiny fraction, well worth it imo

 

[plum]

thx

would i need a skimmer for the QT tank? use the my main tank water for the QT tank?

 

[ben1987]

you could use old water change water for it, but i would reccomend new water so you know is deffinatly clear of anything. if a fish was to become sick in QT and you have used fresh water you know 100% that its not soming in your display tank.

you could run a simple QT setup like a cycled trop tank with a simple filter