Quarantine tank

[TwistedHelix]

Hi All,

My understanding of Quarantine tanks are twofold

1. When new fish are bought - put them into quarantine to ensure they are disease free and doesn't become a vector for your current tanks community.

2. To remove a fish that has become ill to disallow passing it onto the rest of the fish.

My issue is water quality.

Bad water quality can give similar symptoms to certain diseases or stress them enough for certain diseases...

So does a Quarantine tank need cycling? Should I use small drops of ammonia daily(ish) to keep it as a normal tank.

I don't see the point in putting fish into uncycled water as this will surely cause more issues than it solves?

 

[techen]

The idea would be to get two filters, When you want to run the quarantine tank you can transfer some of your media from your main tank to the QT. Do not transfer it back, Bin it.

1. Normally is never needed, Perhaps with marine due to fish cost but most good fish stores will always QT there shipment before putting it up for sale (My LFS does)

 

[Gruntle]

The other reason for a quarantine tank is they're generally smaller (say 10 gallons instead of 50 - or whatever size you have). If you're medicating a fish, you use the small tank to keep the costs down.

With a sick fish you're probably wanting to do lots of water changes, so a smaller tank helps with that also, and there are other schools of thought on the need (whether you even need to bother) for cycling a QT if you're doing frequent water changes anyway.

If I were to go down a QT route (and haven't needed to do so to date with inexpensive fish and a reliable LFS that supplies healthy stock), I'd probably just steal some media from the big tank's filter and put it into the QT filter (then throw it away once the need had passed).

 

[LUC1FER]

I was thinking about getting one for my current situation... and I was thinking a small tank which I could sit next to main tank and transfer water from main to QT using vacuum pump and then use cheapo HOB filter and dose with prime every 2nd day which should keep the ANN all binded which seachem says lasts 48hrs and dose with stability as well.

and also would keeping preloaded BB filter media in a bucket of water survive for long periods if just put in the garage in a corner and brought out in case of emergencies?

 

[TwistedHelix]

Ah Okay, that makes sense. I was overthinking it methinks lol.

I shall be getting one just in case.

 

[Byron]

I consider a quarantine tank for new fish arrivals and a hospital tank to treat a specific fish disease as two very different things. A hospital tank is useful to treat one fish for some specific problem. I keep a spare 10g on hand, with a sponge filter and an artificial decor branch just in case, but have only used it once. The decor provides shelter; bare tanks are extremely stressful on any fish, which only makes treatment more difficult.

As for the new fish QT, I have 8 tanks in my fish room and one of these runs permanently to serve as QT for new acquisitions. It is planted, thick with floating plants. So "cycling" is never an issue. If you don't have space for this, you can use a spare tank. "Cycling" is then an issue. Prime is not a medicine or treatment, so this is not the best method. Using a sponge filter or filter media from the main tank, with a bacterial supplement like Tetra's Safe Start, is better. Add some floating plants, always; this not only quickly removes ammonia, but they provide shade and all fish will settle in faster with cover above them.

Someone mentioned not quarantining new fish...this is very risky these days. Knowing the store is part of it, but the quarantining stores do is no where near adequate. Ich (white spot) is easy to deal with, and common, but there are diseases we cannot see and they can turn up weeks later. These are the problems you need to deal with on arrival, and QT is the only way.

I have introduced internal protozoan diseases a couple times and after losing half the fish in the tank learned the lesson. QT new acquisitions for 5-6 weeks. Even that is not guaranteed, but chances are most unseen issues will show themselves. Be careful which store you acquire fish from; every problem disease I have had came in with chain store fish, so I will not even look at these stores for fish.

Byron.

 

[TwistedHelix]

Hi Byron,

For peace of mind I do want a quarantine tank.

I have had mixed results from both chain and independent fish shops.

Will have to get a list of good ones in Kent.

 

[Ch4rlie]

I too have have a spare 10g tank with a sponge filter and plastic plants on standby just in case of emergencies but to be honest, in 4 years, I have only used it once as a hospital tank.

On the other hand, its useful to have as a QT tank if only buying a few small fish from known stores, but never had any symtoms or issues showing on any of my purchases from the usual places I buy fish from. Except on one occassion I bought 7 CPD's from a store I had not bought from before and they all died within the first 2 - 3 weeks, no idea why. But am so glad I did not put them in the main tank otherwise the potential is that I may have lost at least 20 odd CPD's if I did put them in the main tank.

Better safe than sorry, especially if you plan to have some expensive or hard to find fish species.