Please help for quarantine fish from Petco

[melhe]

Hi guys , good morning .

lately I am very much into wrasse . I have a little success for a couple of tamarin wrasse from a online store . They QTed them for three weeks before ship to me and those are my first experience with wrasses and those are absolutely stunning fish.

Then I start to search for leopard wrasse . Understand they are expert level , guess I was lucky with tamarin wrasse , I am ok to take the risk

I can’t find anywhere else has leopard wrasse for sale except petco shipping . I decided to order a few from petco .

here is my question how to quarantine those finicky fish.

I have one brand new 40g tank fishlesscycled for a couple of months and are fish ready . My question is those wrasses are very difficult to keep in general especially when to start to accept food, if I put them in that tank as quarantine tank . It doesn’t have established bio system , don’t have pods . Very low phosphate and nitrate levels . The environment alone could kill those wrasses especially with the shipping stress. My main DT is in perfect condition for wrasses but I don’t want to risk petco fish bring in any disease without quarantine.

The petco wrasses haven’t shipped yet . I am scratching my head trying to figure out how to quarantine them . I used to ask my tank maintenance guy to help me quarantine some discus in the past . Those discus came to me after his one month quarantine most appeared super skinny I am sure he is too busy with his business just won’t have much time to feed . Pretty much just auto feeder to drop pallets . I don’t think he has the time to nurturing leopard wrasses because those wrasses prone to starve themselves when under stress

please advise what to do in my situation. Thx a lot .

 

[SpyC]

Can't really help with quarantining advice, but with finicky fish, I recommend using drreefsquarantinedfish.com. they have them in stock, handle the quarantine process, and you aren't out any money if they die during quarantine.

 

[Propane]

Can't really help with quarantining advice, but with finicky fish, I recommend using drreefsquarantinedfish.com. they have them in stock, handle the quarantine process, and you aren't out any money if they die during quarantine.

I went and checked out the site. Thanks for that info. The prices don’t seem unusually high either.

 

[doubleshot00]

Just order it from Dr REEF.

 

[Skynyrd Fish]

if you have them on the way, you need to QT them. You don't want to take out your tank by dumping them in. Put a couple containers of sand in the QT.
good luck

 

[melhe]

Can't really help with quarantining advice, but with finicky fish, I recommend using drreefsquarantinedfish.com. they have them in stock, handle the quarantine process, and you aren't out any money if they die during quarantine.

I didn’t realize Dr reef has it in stock . I just googled shopping for leopard wrasse. The only one pop up is in petco .
I ordered a couple of tangs from Dr reef before , great quality

let me check if I can cancel the order from petco

 

[melhe]

Hold on , Dr reef website said it’s expert only live arrival only guaranteed . Petco at least have 14 days guarantee time . I am a little hesitant to cancel the order . What do you think

 

[doubleshot00]

Hold on , Dr reef website said it’s expert only live arrival only guaranteed . Petco at least have 14 days guarantee time . I am a little hesitant to cancel the order . What do you think

Ain’t no way im picking petco over dr reef.

Its a hard fish to keep. Ive had two. Both are dead. Not one lasted longer than a week.

 

[SpyC]

Hold on , Dr reef website said it’s expert only live arrival only guaranteed . Petco at least have 14 days guarantee time . I am a little hesitant to cancel the order . What do you think

But they also quarantine the fish for weeks. The fish has to be eating to make it that long. Which is one of the issues with these fish making them expert.

I would go with drreef over perco any day

 

[snorklr]

ok i personally haven't bought from them but TSM aquatics sells quarantined fish and they are located in New Jersey...possibly close enough that you could just pick it up rather than worrying about having it shipped....at the least if you QT yourself i'd say set up a brine shrimp hatchery and PaulB style feeder or buy lots of bottles of pods for too much money....you may need both to keep it happy in your display tank too

 

[melhe]

Ain’t no way im picking petco over dr reef.

Its a hard fish to keep. Ive had two. Both are dead. Not one lasted longer than a week.

That’s what I am talking about . It’s hard fish ro keep anyway . If they die in a week . Dr reef no refund . Petco has refund policy

 

[melhe]

ok i personally haven't bought from them but TSM aquatics sells quarantined fish and they are located in New Jersey...possibly close enough that you could just pick it up rather than worrying about having it shipped

Thank u sooooooo much . I have to Google this store

 

[melhe]

But they also quarantine the fish for weeks. The fish has to be eating to make it that long. Which is one of the issues with these fish making them expert.

I would go with drreef over perco any day

I heard most of the stress come from shipping of those fish . They could injure their mouth when trying to burrow during shipping process

 

[SpyC]

That’s what I am talking about . It’s hard fish ro keep anyway . If they die in a week . Dr reef no refund . Petco has refund policy

You are forgetting that the fish will be quarantined and fed for weeks before it ships to you instead of possibly days after petco's distributor gets it in. Weeks at a facility being fed and rrwated for diseases vs a week guarantee with no idea what the fish went through before that. There is a lot of value in this.

 

[SpyC]

I heard most of the stress come from shipping of those fish . They could injure their mouth when trying to burrow during shipping process

There are also a lot of issues with getting the fish to eat prepared foods. Basically, you need to decide which you value more. The guarantee from petco to handle shipping ir having a fish that should already be eating prepared foods and went through quarantine.

 

[doubleshot00]

That’s what I am talking about . It’s hard fish ro keep anyway . If they die in a week . Dr reef no refund . Petco has refund policy

I still wouldn’t trust petco. I bought 3 fish from petco and they are not living just saying. I have bought 4 fish from Dr. Reef and they are all still living. And one is a redlined wrasse which is expert only.

Pick your poison.

 

[doubleshot00]

There are also a lot of issues with getting the fish to eat prepared foods. Basically, you need to decide which you value more. The guarantee from petco to handle shipping ir having a fish that should already be eating prepared foods and went through quarantine.

Yeah both of the ones i got we’re eating just fine at the LFS then when I got them home they wouldn’t eat and died.

Every fish frim Dr. Reef comes in healthy and eating.

 

[melhe]

Thank u guys for advise , I’ll go ahead and cancel petco order

 

[melhe]

ok i personally haven't bought from them but TSM aquatics sells quarantined fish and they are located in New Jersey...possibly close enough that you could just pick it up rather than worrying about having it shipped....at the least if you QT yourself i'd say set up a brine shrimp hatchery and PaulB style feeder or buy lots of bottles of pods for too much money....you may need both to keep it happy in your display tank too

Checked their website , they don’t have leopard wrasse. I guess I have to buy from Dr reef

 

[SpyC]

Checked their website , they don’t have leopard wrasse. I guess I have to buy from Dr reef

You can call them and see if they will get them in for you then quarantine.