Is a "quarantine tank" really that essential?

[HB AL]

Just for reference I buy all my aquatic life from 2 different lfs's by my home. So reading through all the threads on fish diseases and coral pests it got me thinking, is a quarantine tank really all that necessary, seems even people that quarantine have issues. My current tank I started back in December of 2015. I haven't added any fish in about 2 months since I'm pretty well stocked. I have 15 fish total, a fire shrimp and cleaner shrimp, a bunch of hermits and snails, a couple clams and lots of sps, lps, etc. The only thing I do when adding a fish or coral is float the bag in my sump for an hour or so then simply take it out of the bag and put it in the tank. My conclusion i guess is I'm really lucky and my lfs are selling good disease and pest free sea life. From reading many articles and posts about the importance of a good quarantine system I have definitely been playing with fire. Reason I really got to thinking about this is I have a lot invested in corals and fish and wondering should I keep playing with fire or start a good quarantine setup for any future additions?

 

[Scorpius]

Perfect world you have a dedicated setup to watch any/all additions for 90 days before adding to your DT.
I've had to deal with quite a few pests issues since I don't have a dedicated QT setup. Even if I did you're not going to catch everything.

I'd have to say you're very lucky to not have to deal with any issues or you haven't seen them yet....

 

[Smo]

Quick!!! Go out and buy a lottery ticket. Learned my lesson pretty early. I have 5 QTs supporting a single DT. Although not all up and running currently. Two are for TTM. One will be dedicated for new corals/inverts.

 

[JaimeAdams]

Yes. Is that your tank in the picture? Looks like you have a good amount of money invested in your fish and coral. It would really suck to get velvet and have all those fish die within a couple days. Or acro eating flat worms or nudibranchs. It really doesn't matter how good a store is, unless they QT everything for a couple months. Coral and fish come from the ocean. There are diseases and pests in the ocean. Even with coral dipping there is no way for the store to be 100% disease and pest free.

 

[carlson]

Lol you have a pilot fish, I feel like I used to want one if those on the past

 

[carlson]

Anyways, everytime I tried to go w/o quarintining, I wasted all my money that u had invested in the tank like others have said

 

[nervousmonkey]

yeah, a QT is absolutely necessary. The stories you hear about with disasters in QT are from people prophylactically dosing their QT with copper, chloroquine phosphate, prazipro and who knows what else, which are all toxic to fish (even CP is bad for blue hippos). I keep my fish in QT and observe. If I see something that I think is a disease or pest, i treat it then. Otherwise, use your QT time to feed well, fatten up your fish and make them healthy with fresh frozen foods and get your fish in breeding condition, not to have babies, but just because breeding condition is the healthiest your fish will be. Then when you add them to the DT, they aren't skinny and unhealthy and can better defend themselves as well as knowing that you didn't just introduce velvet or some other awful disease that will wipe out your fish in a matter of 2 or 3 days. Please QT, it will save you and your fish from heartbreak and death.

 

[Best Fish-Jake]

yeah, a QT is absolutely necessary. The stories you hear about with disasters in QT are from people prophylactically dosing their QT with copper and prazipro and who knows what else, which are all toxic to fish. I keep my fish in QT and observe. If I see something that I think is a disease or pest, i treat it then. Otherwise, use your QT time to feed well, fatten up your fish and make them healthy with fresh frozen foods and get your fish in breeding condition, not to have babies, but just because breeding condition is the healthiest your fish will be. Then when you add them to the DT, they aren't skinny and unhealthy and can better defend themselves as well as knowing that you didn't just introduce velvet or some other awful disease that will wipe out your fish in a matter of 2 or 3 days. Please QT, it will save you and your fish from heartbreak and death.

Very well said

 

[2Wheelsonly]

Watch your LFS closely and see how they handle trade ins. I find that unless an LFS has a strong reputation to hold (meaning a bulk of their sales are online) then they don't have good QT procedures and accept trade-ins willingly. I have seen some local ones place trades from people directly from their buckets right into their tanks.

Would you trust corals from some random person's tank? For all I know that person could be fragging infested corals thinking they could get money out of them before they die not realizing they have AEFW. While I don't personally feel like ich is a death sentence and I have had it gotten past my QT many times I wouldn't want velvet in my tank. That WILL wipe out your fish population so quickly you can't react. Also, monitpora nudibranches are extremely difficult to eliminate and WILL wipe out your colonies. Don't even get my started on AEFW!

Dipping only is not a good practice. Until they invent a dip that kills eggs, relying on it is a bad move.

 

[Jason mack]

Very well said

+1

 

[andrew james]

If you love your pets you do what you can to give them healthy and happy lives. One of those things is a good quarantine procedures.

 

[nervousmonkey]

@ClintL @john.m.cole3

 

[ahiggins]

In a perfect world, you would have one.
I have small tanks that I only have 2-4 fish in. My lfs quarantines and treats all incoming fish...so I never do.
If I had a 75+ gal tank that would house multiple more expensive fish, especially tangs/butterflies that seem prone to illness, I would definitely invest in one.
You could get to your last fish and break out with ich....which would be a disaster. Ive also heard of some diseases laying dormant in coral? Not sure if thats right or not though.

 

[HB AL]

I don't really worry about ich since in my experience fish usually can fight it off. Velvet on the other hand is a quick efficient spreading killing machine from my only infestation with it around 20 years ago.

 

[NeuroticAquatics]

You are lucky. Simple as that. I have crashed my 240g twice by not quarantining every fish. Probably wiped out $3k+ in fish. Second time around, I had QT'd every fish up until I added an adult Passer Angel that came from a LFS's owner's home tank. I figured, he said it had been in there for five years, no sign of disease. What could go wrong? A week later, it had what looked to be Ich and possibly something else. A month later, all inhabitants (that had been moved to QT) were gone.

 

[Labridaedicted]

The only people who think a quarantine tank is unnecessary are the fortunate few who haven't had a disease outbreak in their tank YET. It happens to almost everyone eventually, though. Believe me, the little bit of extra effort it takes to qt fish will save you alot of headache and potentially alot of money. Even if your LFS quarantines, remember that these are typically systems with sometimes over 100 fish. If even one of those weren't properly treated, the whole system could then be infected.

 

[Tuffyyyyy]

yeah, a QT is absolutely necessary. The stories you hear about with disasters in QT are from people prophylactically dosing their QT with copper and prazipro and who knows what else, which are all toxic to fish. I keep my fish in QT and observe. If I see something that I think is a disease or pest, i treat it then. Otherwise, use your QT time to feed well, fatten up your fish and make them healthy with fresh frozen foods and get your fish in breeding condition, not to have babies, but just because breeding condition is the healthiest your fish will be. Then when you add them to the DT, they aren't skinny and unhealthy and can better defend themselves as well as knowing that you didn't just introduce velvet or some other awful disease that will wipe out your fish in a matter of 2 or 3 days. Please QT, it will save you and your fish from heartbreak and death.

This is an excellent response. I set one up because I wanted to be able to bring them home and monitor them on their own for a while before throwing them into the fire that is my display tank.

 

[mikenestle]

I have a one spot foxface in QT that looked fine in my LFS. It broke out with Ich within 2 days. I am so glad he is in QT. Tearing down my rock work to catch the fish isn't my idea of a good time.

 

[ahiggins]

The only people who think a quarantine tank is unnecessary are the fortunate few who haven't had a disease outbreak in their tank YET. It happens to almost everyone eventually, though. Believe me, the little bit of extra effort it takes to qt fish will save you alot of headache and potentially alot of money. Even if your LFS quarantines, remember that these are typically systems with sometimes over 100 fish. If even one of those weren't properly treated, the whole system could then be infected.

Totally agree! Knock on wood I've never had a fish die from disease thanks to the lfs qt but I know I'm playing with fire. Thankfully all my tanks are stocked lol

 

[Reefrookie220]

Most people that don't qt severely over think it.

It's as simple a letting some media for a hob filter float in your sump until it's time to set up the qt, then fill with tank water add filter media, pvc hides, and an ammonia badge.

At the very least 2x20g for TTM.

In all honesty, you've probably got a qt set-up laying around anyway.