Feeling defeated. Did I get into the wrong hobby???

[EtxReefer]

As others have mentioned, I do not personally QT fish. I don’t buy from my lfs for fish, I either order direct from ORA or find a retailer that QTs like Dr. Reef. Knock on wood but never had a sick fish before.

 

[ChrisfromBrick]

Well that is certainly good to hear. I was open to the whole quarantine process until they started talking about formaldehyde dips and quarantining the CUC and corals for over two months. Then they started talking about brook and uronema and I thought “what the heck have I got myself into?” The whole video series had a “do these things or your fish will all die” vibe. I’ll check out the thread you mentioned. Thanks again!

dipping coral is so easy, it’s ridiculous.

Also, you can buy fish from a place like TSM aquatics that treats the fish with copper so you don’t have to set up a qt tank, test copper, use other chemicals.

the information is overwhelming in the beginning but it’s all really not that hard. Hardest part imo is dealing with your tank looking ugly for a few months which is inevitable

 

[JTP424]

I've had a tank for about 5 years and I JUST did my first quarantine on a fish. Only reason is I've grown attached to the other fish in my tank and really like this new one.
Prior to that I never did. I did lose one or two fish to disease etc, they never nuked my tank.
With fish I feel it comes down to risk management. You spend a couple hundred on a fish... quarantine is probably a good idea... you have a well fish stocked tank, maybe look into quarantine,
Also look at the quarantine procedure on here, a lot less nasty chemicals. Also consider the size quarantine you need, with a Nuvo 40, you could probably get away with a 10 or 20 gallon for most of the fish you're going to be able to safely keep in that sized tank.... Basically your QT can be your backup equipment too etc.

 

[Skippy The Meh]

as others have said, that QT process is in an ideal world. i for one do not live in that world. find a reputable online store and buy from there. for coral, i like TCK auctions and cali kid coral. i know your in canada so idk if those are possible for you. TCK is in buffalo NY so maybe? as far as fish go i have had excellent luck with salwaterfish.com and WWC.

with fish, i acclimate in a 5 G bucket - with some structures, heater, and bubbler - for the better part of a day (dripping tank water slowly), and observe them. if i can get them to eat, even better. i personally, have had good luck with this method. i would recommend doing a longer than normal fishless cycle on the tank using something like fritz turbostart and if you have a friend or can find someone with some extra live rock or biobalss in your area, that helps seed a new tank as well. IME every time ive killed fish its been when i thought the cycle was complete and it wasnt. i could write a book on this but i will leave it there lol. another thing i may recommend is just keep an eye on FB marketplace for a small old school rimmed tank for a hospital tank. i have a little 20 G with a cheap preset heater and cheap powerhead, i can set up with copper quickly. i think i got the whole bundle for like $50 on facebook. doesn't even have to be 20G could be smaller, people get rid of their old fresh water tanks all the time for cheap. i just had wrasse get sucked through and MP40 and got a nice gash, so he spent a week or so in copper and antibiotics and was fine, that right there paid for the tank by itself.

corals are much easier. i do a 10 minute dip in 2 little fishies - revive, swirling them every minute, then put them in. sometimes ill put them on a separate frag rack for a couple days to acclimate them to light and flow, sometimes not, just depends on coral type for me.

good luck! dont get overwhelmed, stay patient, and most of all just enjoy the hobby - as it really is just a hobby and something to enjoy:)

 

[Ziggy17]

You’re in the wrong hobby.

 

[tzabor10]

You’re in the wrong hobby.

Is this advice on someone’s first post? We all have to start somewhere. Am I missing a joke here?

 

[KStatefan]

then they make it seem like one power outage and I can kiss my fish goodbye.

Enough has been said about QT but this can absolutely happen and in my opinion a power outage plan should be part having an aquarium. That can be from an automatic battery air pump to a whole house generator+.

 

[Reefer Matt]

Honestly you’ll never start if you listen to everyone at the same time. For myself, I bought pre qt’d fish from a lfs and called it a day when I first started. You can always get another tank later if you want, but it’s not a requirement, it’s a “nice to have”.

 

[Nano_Man]

We all get Knock backs in this hobby . You will succeed keep marching forward

 

[Ziggy17]

Is this advice on someone’s first post? We all have to start somewhere. Am I missing a joke here?

Nope. He asked for an opinion, I gave it.

When you use the words “nonesense and absurd” to describe best practices to keep animals alive and healthy, I’d say you’re in the wrong hobby, regardless of how many posts you have.

 

[claydogg84]

If possible, buy your fish from someone who has already treated and QT'd - it's worth the extra cost. I do not quarantine inverts or coral and haven't had an issue. Picking a trusted vendor for that goes a long way.

 

[tzabor10]

What type of fish are you looking at?

 

[exnisstech]

Nothing wrong with QT and it's probably a good thing for most people. I used to QT but TBH I felt like a fish killer so I stopped. I had too many unexplained deaths in QT. I do perform an minimum 30 day observation in an established tank that I keep running for that purpose. I have not lost a fish in observation. I only buy fish I can see in person and do not buy any fish unless they appear healthy and are not showing signs of malnutrition. I also will not buy fish that are housed in low salinty or low level copper. I typically try to buy only fish that are housed with inverts and or coral.
I have 5 tanks currently running and my oldest fish is a naso tang coming up on 10 years. None of these fish including 8 chromis have been medicated. I dip all coral. Inverts I temp and drop. This is not a recommendation because I believe QT is best but I just didn't work for me and too many fish were dying. I feel sad every time I read about fish dying in QT.

Some of my non QTed fish

 

[exnisstech]

Hardest part imo is dealing with your tank looking ugly for a few months which is inevitable

Unless you add enough live rock to skip that phase

 

[KrisReef]

Well that is certainly good to hear. I was open to the whole quarantine process until they started talking about formaldehyde dips and quarantining the CUC and corals for over two months. Then they started talking about brook and uronema and I thought “what the heck have I got myself into?” The whole video series had a “do these things or your fish will all die” vibe. I’ll check out the thread you mentioned. Thanks again!

I have been keeping fish since I was able to get an aquarium by collecting Blue Chip Stamps from shoppers at the Supermarkets who didn’t want to bother with the clutter and hassle of stamp collecting. (It was a filthy business, getting dirty stamps from the grocery store clerk and then licking the glued side to make them stick inside of the stamp books. I wasn’t shy, so asking strangers if I could have the stamps they didn’t want was fun and rewarding!)

I am not able to stop keeping my reef or fish tanks now, but after 50 years of mucking with aquariums, (I graduated from University with a degree in Wildlife & Fisheries Biology from UC Davis- although technically I didn’t complete the degree requirements- ) my current reef appears to be infected with the coral disease that is rampant in the Caribbean, and that was because I collected sick corals while I was on vacation about 300m from Jeffery Epsteins Island. Recent findings suggest that it’s a strain of vibrio, but the results are that stoney coral fragments have almost zero chance of surviving while some larger colonies are able to develop a successful immune response after much of the colony has withered away.

I need to wipe down the algae that is obstructing the view of my fish tank. I have not found the motivation to do the work of a water change in the last few years. The fish are ok, but they would probably like some new water to swim in?

If you have not already put water in the tank then you should consider that the value of your equipment will drop significantly once it gets wet, so if you are having second thoughts about surviving with fish and coral livestock losses, that aspect of your life needs some serious reflection before you move forward in this hobby.

Keeping anything alive in an artificial environment is a challenge, and for the most part everything that you buy for an aquarium is likely going to die off eventually, and a large portion of the deaths will likely happen inside of 1-5 years of your purchase. Many hobbyists would argue with this statement of morbidity rates but for the vast majority of new hobbyists that statistic may be overly optimistic.

If you or your wife are sensitive to losses of life for the creatures that are in your care,(?) then I would encourage you to back out of this hobby before you get your tank wet.

This hobby is very demanding of time and money (energy) and for the sake of peace in your household I have posted this stern, but not hostile to anyone post because I am reading your posts about your situation and I don’t know if you are going to enjoy the trials that will come with an aquarium in your life.

I have enjoyed the aquarium experience with times of huge success and with times of great loss of livestock and water damages that I had to (unfairly) pay for. I can’t recommend this hobby for anyone who will suffer unduly when a fish jumps out and dies. They all eventually die.

Don’t let me stop you, but I have tried to put you on a fair alert.

 

[gkprevite]

First I’d say welcome to the hobby. Most would agree qt has its value if you’re set up to do it properly. Many of us don’t, however there are retailers that do it for you. As far as inverts many come from fishless systems free of fish disease so no worries there. I’d also say there’s almost too much info and over consumption of it will result in paralysis by analysis. Particularly with brs videos. Don’t get me wrong, they do have some very informative ones, but at the end of the day they’re trying to sell you stuff. Lots of stuff and fear of your tank crashing or everything dying is a tactic that works on many.

 

[ChrisfromBrick]

Unless you add enough live rock to skip that phase

Still happens of course with exceptions

 

[BryanM]

Hey all!!
I’m new to reef tanks and have been gathering equipment for the last few months to start my first tank. I’ve been interested in the hobby since I went over to a friend of a friends house and laid eyes on my first reef tank. At the time, I worked out of town quite a bit and having a tank of my own was not a possibility. Fast forward 11 years and I was finally in a position where I thought now is the time. I started researching everything about the process and have spent a few thousand dollars on equipment over the last few months. This coming weekend was what I’ve been waiting for…… finally I was ready to add my water and aquascape and begin the cycling process….. until last night when I regrettably started watching BRStv’s series on fish disease and quarantine tanks. What a mistake. What I’ve gathered from the series is that without a proper quarantine my tank is one major event away from disaster. The quarantine process they outline seems like a ton of work. Quarantine my CUC for 72 days? Same with corals?? How many more tanks and equipment do I have to buy at this point? I was so excited and ready to put in the work on this tank, but now I just feel defeated. I don’t have the room or time to be managing multiple QT tanks, as well as my DT, and my wife sure as hell isn’t gonna buy into this nonsense. It was hard enough to convince her on the one tank in my office. I feel like I’ve wasted thousands of dollars and feel absolutely defeated. Please tell me what these guys are doing is not the norm and way above and beyond. It seems absolutely absurd. It sounds like a full time job. I have no problem going the “maintain” route they outline where you maintain the diseases properly, but even then they make it seem like one power outage and I can kiss my fish goodbye. I guess I’m just venting a bit because I put so much work in at this point and it feels like it’s destined to fail. Anyways, thanks for listening, if you made it this far.
Cheers

I know QT is the right thing to do, but I also do not QT fish or inverts. I do dip corals.

It is a risk, you can minimize this by getting quarantined/QT'd fish, there are several resellers that do this. You can still get bit, but it is a lot safer.

I am getting a bit more risk adverse as my tank is maturing, and I have spent quite a lot of money on corals.

 

[SaltyBlue]

Well I certainly feel much better about the whole thing now. I just couldn’t believe anyone was going to these lengths. If you do, kudos to you. It seems like a lot of commitment. Maybe one day I’ll get to that point, but as a beginner, with the amount of information I’ve learned over the past few months, it was just too much for me.

The stakes will get higher every time you add a fish - when you add a second fish you’re risking the first. When you add a tenth fish you’re risking nine and will probably be willing to spend more money on pre-qt’d or time/ energy/ space / less extra money to do it yourself

 

[logibear]

Another person in the, I only have one tank myself and got all of my fish from dr reef group. You can absolutely be successful without multiple tanks. However keep in mind, you are taking care of living animals. Of course bad things can happen just like dogs and cats can get sick and not make it. You do your best and learn from missteps along the way.