Greybeard's Rant on vendors selling sick animals

[TheOldSalt]

Here's a little tidbit of info that you might find useful in your future quarantine efforts:
Bacteria love copper.
If you administer copper to a fish with an infection, you won't like what happens.
This is just one example.

Proper quarantine is more than just plonking a bunch of chemicals into the tank. If you want to be successful, you need to learn the right way to plonk them.

While you're at it, learn about the parasites and pathogens you are trying to eliminate.
For example...
If you see a claim that some fish for sale have been quarantined for two whole weeks, then you should immediately know that they might as well not have been quarantined at all.
It takes 26 days to totally get rid of just ick/amylo/crypto. Two weeks is just a waste of time. If you're gonna do it, then do it right.
Next we must consider the fish.
Different species have different vulnerabilities, and different resistances. You know what I mean; some fish never seem to get sick, while some are "ick magnets." Some are very sensitive to the medicine we use, while some shrug them off with no bother. Some fish have thick rubbery skin and a heavy slime coat which actually protects the parasites from our efforts to kill them.
The trick here is to know all of these factors and figure out the best way to proceed in each case.

This is probably one of the biggest reasons why so few stores quarantine their fish; there is no simple, one size fits all protocol for them to follow, and losing fish from mistakes is money down the drain.

 

[WayMeem]

I'm trying to form a coalition of QT vendors, but lots of headwind coming our way. Bring it on! Just gonna make it that much sweeter when we finally achieve our goals!

I’m extremely interested in this QT vendor coalition. Would love to hear more and talk investment. DM me @Humblefish !

 

[Lindaanne60]

Why do we accept that vendors selling sick animals is normal?

Many marine hobbyists these days are recommending a full quarantine, including prophylactic treatment for every animal we buy. Why? Because we’ve accepted that a large percentage of the animals we purchase are going to be sick.

Say I want a yellow tang: Quick trip to the internet… $70. Add in shipping, box charges, tax… $115. Those are actual numbers, btw, just pulled up a common vendor. Fish was collected, stored, and shipped several times to get to this point. Stressed? Of course. Then, when the fish arrives, we place it in a sterile environment, without a working bio filter. Maybe add bottled bacteria… but still, a very unnatural environment, likely with at least trace amounts of ammonia and nitrite in the water. Additional stress. Then we dump in copper, prazipro, whatever we decide is the best cocktail to eliminate whatever disease or parasite this fish might have. More stress.

And we wonder why so many fish die.

Or, we take our chances, dump it in, and roll the dice on infecting every fish in the tank.

There has got to be a better way. Some way to get healthy fishes. Corals without flatworms. Macro algae that isn’t full of aiptasia or bubble algae.

Is it just money? Hey, it’s not a cheap hobby. I get that. If I could pay $200 for that yellow tang and KNOW that it was healthy, I’d be happy to do that.

Now, what do we need to do to make that happen? Honestly, I don’t know, BUT I guarantee, the way to solve the problem is NOT to start by accepting that this is just the way things are.

I have fish from LiveAquaria never had a problem and my reputable LFS.