Do you QT?

[Miami Reef]

I have a few questions about quarantine in reefing.

• Do you quarantine? If so, what? Fish? Corals? Inverts?
• Have you ever lost something because of QT?
• Has it felt worth the effort overall or more trouble than it’s worth?
• Do you believe in prophylactic treatment, or observation-only?

Just curious to hear how others handle it.

 

[Idoc]

Yes, quarantine fish, corals, and inverts
Never lost a fish due to quarantine, but I have lost fish in quarantine.
Almost 7 years and no disease in my main tank...so, I think it is worth it.
Prophylactic treatment used

 

[56longroof]

I never have. I do buy fish almost exclusively from Dr Reefs though.

 

[Fish Fan]

I don't consider myself an expert in quarantining livestock or anything else, but since getting back in the hobby mid-late 2023, I've been in the camp of trying my darndest to QT everything "wet" - fish, corals, motile inverts, etc. I had been running three 10 gallon tanks, one for corrals, one for motile inverts, and one for fish (located away from the other tanks). This was fine for the fish and motile inverts, but corals kind of languished in the very basic 10 gallon setup I had been trying to use.

Most recently, I setup an IM 25 lagoon AIO to be a QT tank for all incoming corals and other inverts. I've set this tank up much more like a "real" reef tank, so I expect this to be a better environment for new corals. I'll still QT fish separately as/when needed.

Here's my reply here, for what it's worth:

• Do you quarantine? If so, what? Fish? Corals? Inverts?

Yes, everything "wet" as best as I can :)

• Have you ever lost something because of QT?

Yes, I've lost corals as noted above, but I have had no fish losses and I'd think minimum if any motile invert losses.

• Has it felt worth the effort overall — or more trouble than it’s been worth?

I quite enjoy the process, and I don't mind (yet) the extra tanks.

• Do you believe in prophylactic treatment, or observation-only

Prophylactic for me. I use the R2R approved medicated QT protocol for fish. Corals get dipped, lot's of times more than once, and any fish parasites that might be on/in corals or other inverts are starved out over time (45-60 days).

I'll be interested to see what others do or don't do here. Nice post; following!

 

[corosato]

I buy almost all of my fish aquacultured, shipped direct. those I do not QT. the few fish I have bought that are NOT aquacultured I have done observational QT on, usually for 14 days. in the future if I decide I want something that cannot be aquacultured I will order pre-QT'd fish for the reason that I know I will screw the copper up. :)

 

[exnisstech]

I have done copper QT in the past with success but I now do observation only for new fish if they are going into a tank that already has fish. I like to do 30 days but will do much longer if it's a fish like a CBB that has to be flattened up and trained to eat out of the water column. Ive been through velvet so I understand the risks but Ive lost more fish prophylactically treating for a disease that was most like not an issue to begin with than I lost to velvet. I will treat if I see symptoms but so far that has only been for flukes. I don't QT any coral or inverts. I do dip most coral.

 

[Pseudodiego]

I don't quarentine. Going for close to two years without any sign of disease. No UV or anything, just feeding quality frozen food.

Currently there is 16 fish on my tank, but I don't have any fish that is prone to ich. After upgrading to the 250 gallon, I plan to get a Powder blue tang, I think I'll get a really oversized UV equipment before bringing it home, just in case.

 

[landlubber]

I never have but its also landed me with a fairly extensive aiptasia population.
Condo living has its space limitations.

 

[Kasrift]

I have a few questions about quarantine in reefing.

• Do you quarantine? If so, what? Fish? Corals? Inverts?
• Have you ever lost something because of QT?
• Has it felt worth the effort overall or more trouble than it’s worth?
• Do you believe in prophylactic treatment, or observation-only?

Just curious to hear how others handle it.

Yes.

I've always quarantined fish. I did hybrid TTM since I had a small tank and small fish. Going on 3.5 years and never had any disease outbreaks. That being said, I have lost some fish in TTM.

I'm upgrading to a 200g tank, so I ran through my first two batches of quarantine for tangs. I did the full protocol, 14 days Copper Power at 2.5 for 14 days then transferred to another 20g long for 3 weeks of Prazi and then observation afterwards. I don't want to crash a 200g tank with fish disease. I'm awaiting Aquabiomics results before I put them into the 200g.

I've lost some fish in QT due to not using meds in the past with TTM. I lost anthias and one swallowtail angel this round with meds.

I definitely think it is worth it. I'm going to quarantine all fish, corals, and inverts for the large tank.

I believe in prophylactic approach because many diseases won't show right away.

 

[CHSUB]

Fish yes, coral no; started qt in 2012 when my “big” tank got ich, before that thought I knew everything…haha! Use TTM, with h2o2 dips, think maybe I killed a fish with h2o2 once, however been successful ~ 50 times.

 

[rhitee93]

I quarantine all fish with Jay's latest protocol. Basically 30 days in copper followed by 2 rounds of parzipro.

Snails and crabs I buy from a place that supposedly has no fish in their system because I don't have a way to qt those.

Coral all get dipped. I've started doing a fwd for clams as well when I added the 3rd one last month.

I no longer buy any fish that can't tolerate copper, but I do have an eel and puffer that went into the tank over a year ago. They just went through a month of observation before going in the DT.

 

[SomeHappyFish]

I'm still new in the hobby and this is my current way of thinking, maybe it will change in the future who knows.

• Do you quarantine? If so, what? Fish? Corals? Inverts?
• Have you ever lost something because of QT?
• Has it felt worth the effort overall or more trouble than it’s worth?

No I do not quarantine.​

Why ? Lack of space, money and time for this part of the hobby and I don't like stressing the fish more.​

• Do you believe in prophylactic treatment, or observation-only?

I believe in observation only. I got to my LFS and I will spend a bit of time looking at the fish how it swims, eat and reacts to other fish and obviously if it has any visible sickness or damage. When I get a house with the proper space and a larger tank, I might add a dedicated 40G breeder for a quarantine tank for multiple fish.​

​

*Also many meds are ban in Canada, so I lack resources to properly treat a fish.​

 

[Subsea]

After 55 years of Reefing, I don’t quarantine and I don’t treat fish.

It’s been 5 years since I bought a fish.

 

[TastesLikeChicken]

1. I medicate quarantine all fish. I put non-fish in my non-fish tank for the duration of a fallow period before moving to DT
2. One small fish got sucked into filter and died. But I’ve never lost fish due to quarantine itself. I’ve lost many fish due to no quarantine.
3. It’s 110% worth it for me.

 

[bubba005]

Starting out, I didn’t since I figured I could manage any parasites/diseases easier in my 31g. Ich started off as a few spots on a couple of my gobies and then proceeded to wipe out all but one fish. Will be quarantining/understocking in the future. If you think it can’t happen to you, it almost certainly will

 

[Gumbies R Us]

I’ve never qt’d before due to space issues. However, with us restarting our tank soon I would like to have a thrown together qt tank just to ensure everything is healthy and fit before putting it into our main tank.

 

[Miami Reef]

Thanks everyone for the responses!

I used to not QT for a while when I was starting out, and I kept losing fish to diseases. White spotted fish were the standard back then for me.

Now I treat any fish I get.

For acros, I dealt with AEFW (went fallow), so I only buy my acros from reliable sources I trust (I don’t have patience to QT them myself.)

I heard great things about Dr. Reef, and after losing every anthias in QT from uronema these past 2 months, I’m about to cave in and buy them pretreated.

 

[areefer01]

I have a few questions about quarantine in reefing.

• Do you quarantine? If so, what? Fish? Corals? Inverts?
• Have you ever lost something because of QT?
• Has it felt worth the effort overall or more trouble than it’s worth?
• Do you believe in prophylactic treatment, or observation-only?

Just curious to hear how others handle it.

No, I do not. I do not have the space and not practiced. Most of my fish are purchased directly from the captive breeder so I use observation before display. Corals get dips and I can manage that - not that I am adding corals that frequently.

Of wild I only purchase from one vendor who is not here. They follow the normal protocols for the most part but include an additional 2 week observation after treatment.

In short - no, I don't. I am willing to pay others to do it for me. This has worked for me and is an acceptable risk.

 

[DD Corals]

I am trying out quarantine but I am not medicating. It’s mostly to make sure they all eat and are healthy before they go into the main tank. Since in the past my blue tang had ich but it went away on its own. I am planning on starting to quarantine coral as well just so that no annoying pests/algae gets into my tanks. But before I put them into quarantine I do a freshwater dip for fish and coral RX dip for coral.