Hobby grade “quarantine” probably kills more fish than it saves.

[Pete_the_Puma]

This is likely to be an unpopular opinion but here it goes:

It is my sincere belief that “hobby grade” quarantine causes more harm than good.

The fish you just got is stressed from travel, probably stressed from being caught in the wild recently and instead of dropping it into your large display tank with plenty of rocks to hide and established chemistry, pods and tank mates you drop it into a tiny tank with freshly made saltwater, possibly no biological filter and a tiny piece of PVC…

I truly believe that more fish have been killed by this process than saved.

If the fish looks healthy I just drop it straight into the display, preferably at dusk, have had zero issues with this method in the last 16 years.

I believe one of the old school reefers was also in this camp, can’t remember his name at this time.

Any one else agree with this?

 

[Reef AquaCult]

Your definition of “hobby grade” is more like “idiot grade”. If you have a spare 20 gallon aquarium that you having running all the time or seed with biological media and use your display tank water and treat properly with meds, then you will be 10x more successful in the hobby. Don’t perpetuate ignorance. The fish supply chain is plagued with diseases, give your animals a fighting chance with proper QT techniques. Not all hobbyists are idiots

 

[brandon429]

All any reader ever needs to know about quarantine vs no quarantine can be garnered from this one simple post below.

Copper treatment not working

I noticed ich on my swallowtail angel around 2 weeks back and spread to my flame angel. I started copper treatment since (fish only tank. Moved all inverts). Ich still persists and flame angel is hiding in a corner and not eating. Looks like its going to die. Shouldn’t the copper make it...

www.reef2reef.com

and then consider the next twenty pages of this thread....the resolve, the passion about not quarantining

see how in work threads there's a different reality than opinion posts, his fish are on the line. what's the method winning out there

are the non quarantiners helping much there


this one as well

Paying the price for no carantine

Woke up yesterday and strangely the fish were not waiting for food and even did not come to nibble on masstick which is an iresistable food IME. Then i found two dead Swallowtail angels. They looked intact nothing on them. Next day it was the coral beauty. And now my mandrin and fairy wrasse are...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[MikeTheNewbie]

100% of my tank livestock has been bought from a reputable quarantined fish vendor or quarantined myself.
I have never had a disease my DT and i have zero aptasia and zero bristleworms.
Quarantinining is part of the reefing experience for me. I like doing things right and I think that quarantining is the right way to start with this hobby.
There are many resources available including humble.fish which I use and would highly recommend to anyone who has faced challenges with quarantinining.

 

[ninjamyst]

Most hobbyists do not have a spare qt tank that's running all the time. So when people tell them to qt, they quickly set one up like OP says and stress out the fish more. Or they just dump fish in tank.

 

[mehaffydr]

This is likely to be an unpopular opinion but here it goes:

It is my sincere belief that “hobby grade” quarantine causes more harm than good.

The fish you just got is stressed from travel, probably stressed from being caught in the wild recently and instead of dropping it into your large display tank with plenty of rocks to hide and established chemistry, pods and tank mates you drop it into a tiny tank with freshly made saltwater, possibly no biological filter and a tiny piece of PVC…

I truly believe that more fish have been killed by this process than saved.

If the fish looks healthy I just drop it straight into the display, preferably at dusk, have had zero issues with this method in the last 16 years.

I believe one of the old school reefers was also in this camp, can’t remember his name at this time.

Any one else agree with this?

This is a great idea right up until you get Ich or worse yet Velvet and kill off you entire tank in a matter of days. Its good you've been lucky but I would call it just that LUCK. Sooner or later this line of thinking will get you and kill your fish.
I would love to see some Data to support your theory?

 

[Squidward]

You've been lucky that's all. It only takes velvet to change hearts and minds about qurantine. I'm able to keep an ich free tank. Proud of it too. I'm able to keep all the biggest ich magnet fish there are. And no amount of fighting or stress will ever magically bring out ich in my tank.

 

[sante21079]

This is likely to be an unpopular opinion but here it goes:

It is my sincere belief that “hobby grade” quarantine causes more harm than good.

The fish you just got is stressed from travel, probably stressed from being caught in the wild recently and instead of dropping it into your large display tank with plenty of rocks to hide and established chemistry, pods and tank mates you drop it into a tiny tank with freshly made saltwater, possibly no biological filter and a tiny piece of PVC…

I truly believe that more fish have been killed by this process than saved.

If the fish looks healthy I just drop it straight into the display, preferably at dusk, have had zero issues with this method in the last 16 years.

I believe one of the old school reefers was also in this camp, can’t remember his name at this time.

Any one else agree with this?

I’ll have to disagree. I just lost all but two tank inhabitants to velvet. To each their own though.

 

[Michael E.]

A majority of the fish I’ve lost in qt have been related to me not monitoring ammonia. I never realized how important that was until I changed habits. Dosing prime has been a game changer for me.

 

[Pete_the_Puma]

You've been lucky that's all. It only takes velvet to change hearts and minds about qurantine. I'm able to keep an ich free tank. Proud of it too. I'm able to keep all the biggest ich magnet fish there are. And no amount of fighting or stress will ever magically bring out ich in my tank.

Found him:

Everything I know in case I go Senile (from 2014)

I posted this someplace 5 years ago and figured I have nothing to say today except build things in my Man Cave so I am Re-Posting it again. If it contains anything not PC, irritating, racist, not ethical, unrealistic, argumentative, political, religious or anything else that is considered...

www.reef2reef.com

This guy PAulB has been keeping saltwater fish for 50 years, also does not beleive in QT. So he is the luckiest guy in the world? or do you have it backwards...

 

[Pete_the_Puma]

A majority of the fish I’ve lost in qt have been related to me not monitoring ammonia. I never realized how important that was until I changed habits. Dosing prime has been a game changer for me.

Another example. Again I would bet more fish die in QT than in the actual tank....

All you guys arguing with me might have excellent QT setups (I doubt it) but the average reefer has a 20 Gal tank with nothing but a heater, biobrick and piece of PVC in there.

 

[Miami Reef]

Found him:

Everything I know in case I go Senile (from 2014)

I posted this someplace 5 years ago and figured I have nothing to say today except build things in my Man Cave so I am Re-Posting it again. If it contains anything not PC, irritating, racist, not ethical, unrealistic, argumentative, political, religious or anything else that is considered...

www.reef2reef.com

This guy PAulB has been keeping saltwater fish for 50 years, also does not beleive in QT. So he is the luckiest guy in the world? or do you have it backwards...

How old is your tank? Paul B’s is OLD. These tanks have bacteria that consume parasites and keep everything in balance. Also, Paul B doesn’t keep ich magnet fish like most tangs & angels. It’s a completely different approach. I think it’s more work to do Paul B’s system than to QT. And Paul also loses fish that don’t build immunity in time. Nobody has it perfect.

 

[ZoWhat]

It is my sincere belief that “hobby grade” quarantine causes more harm than good.

 

[Miami Reef]

Another thing: adding fish to tankmates is your case against QT, but tell me which fish would be stoked to have more competition for food/shelter?

New fish go through a lot of stress and are underfed. If you keep a 10-20 gallon tank, actually put the effort to seed it with bacteria/cycle it, have an ammonia alert badge, I’m sure you’d have much better results.

Even if you won’t medicate. Having a small peaceful tank to condition and raise the malnourished fish’s immune system is way better than the “dump and pray” approach that I used to use.

 

[Pete_the_Puma]

How old is your tank? Paul B’s is OLD. These tanks have bacteria that consume parasites and keep everything in balance. Also, Paul B doesn’t keep ich magnet fish like most tangs & angels. It’s a completely different approach. I think it’s more work to do Paul B’s system than to QT. And Paul also loses fish that don’t build immunity in time. Nobody has it perfect.

It's not like he used to QT when his tank was young (unless I read this wrong), I believe this point is irrelevant.

 

[Pete_the_Puma]

Another thing: adding fish to tankmates is your case against QT, but tell me which fish would be stoked to have more competition for food/shelter?

New fish go through a lot of stress and are underfed. If you keep a 10-20 gallon tank, actually put the effort to seed it with bacteria/cycle it, have an ammonia alert badge, I’m sure you’d have much better results.

I'm having perfect results.

 

[Miami Reef]

It's not like he used to QT when his tank was young (unless I read this wrong), I believe this point is irrelevant.

Yes he did. He had an old picture of formalin from back in the day. I’ve spoken to him on Humblefish’s forum.

 

[Miami Reef]

I'm having perfect results.

Great…so what’s the problem? I understand if you just wanted to vent. I highly recommend QT for myself because I personally failed at ich management many times.

At the end everyone will do what’s best for themselves. No judgement at all.

 

[tautog83]

And as long as you have positive results it proves your point obviously . Since you found Paul's post that encourages your methodology of dump and pray , do yourself a favor and type in "velvet" in the search bar .

 

[Pete_the_Puma]

And as long as you have positive results it proves your point obviously . Since you found Paul's post that encourages your methodology of dump and pray , do yourself a favor and type in "velvet" in the search bar .

I did. Read the first post on about 15-20 threads. It seems by far the most common story is: Bought the fish, fish was fine, put it in QT, now a few days later fish is dying, help.