Is a "quarantine tank" really that essential?

[Paul B]

It could. The only problem I would have would be that I actually want an influx of new parasites and other pathogens. I realize many people are thinking they should lock me up or that I am trying to be argumentative, I am not. I could do as you say and add copper because I could then go out and collect some mud and NSW for the parasites. I assume that would do the same thing.
My tank is so easy to take care of because I don't have to do anything special, no hospital tank, no quarantine tank, no medications etc. Just what I consider proper food and that means food with living bacteria in it like live worms, clams etc.
I do have this bottle of copper and formalin. It was made in the Bronx and is probably 40 years old. It is still half full because I almost never use it. It is only if I get a fish near death from a store and I try to cure it. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't.
I am going to a LFS today to buy a new fish. I don't know what it will be but one of my bangai cardinals died of old age. They are one of the few fish that have a normal lifespan of 3 or 4 years in the wild. My remaining one is about 4 or 5. Humblefish is always telling me that If I put a naso tang in my tank, it would croak. I hate tangs because I find them boring but if I find a smallish one, I will get it just because I love to break Humble's chops.
You can see him in this video if you like. It gives me a headache. The mandarins don't like close ups so they didn't come out but the bangai is in there.

 

[ngoodermuth]

I absolutely respect what Paul is able to do, and would love to be able to have a natural tank. Unfortunately, I live several hours from the ocean, so adding NSW or natural materials straight from the ocean can't happen on any kind of normal basis. I also have limited access to live food sources. So for me, it's QT. But, I do think it's awesome and probably more "healthy" to try to keep as close to an actual ocean environment as possible.

 

[Paul B]

I think it would be really interesting to see if fish antibody titers wane quickly when they are put in sterile conditions. This would support your notion that quarantining fish does more harm than good unless your tank is completely sterile. If anybody can find any published studies on this, I would love to hear them:

I seem to remember finding this while I was researching for an article I wrote and it was very ambiguous. I think it said that all fish are different and have different rates that they lost their immunity based on the fishes health, water conditions and species. Marine and freshwater fish also have different rates of losing their immunity. Of course that was done on food fish. But I am fairly sure I read that all fish eventually lose their immunity. I will se if I can find it if I have time because I am also interested.

 

[laga77]

It is now over 5 years since I have lost a fish to disease once it is in the DT. In that time I have set up and maintained 6 tanks and 54 fish. I have a QT tank, but it is more like an observation tank because there are permanent residents in that tank for over 3 years. The only meds I use is Prazi, and that is a single treatment. They have seen over 30 fish come and go, some with visible ich, yet these fish never get infected. Some fish that I have bought have gone straight into the DT including my most expensive fish, my Golden Hawkfish. It was eliminating dry processed food and feeding fresh, live, and frozen foods that really made a difference. I do not use Selcon or any other supplement as the fish get everything they need from the foods they eat. I tried TTM once, but never again. I believe it causes too much stress on the fish. Even the strongest proponents of TTM will admit it is not 100% effective. If it is not 100%, it kinda defeats the purpose of it , doesn`t it?

 

[Areseebee]

Basically nothing in the realm of biology is 100% effective, not copper not the immune system, not antibiotics etc.

 

[Husker]

I seem to remember finding this while I was researching for an article I wrote and it was very ambiguous. I think it said that all fish are different and have different rates that they lost their immunity based on the fishes health, water conditions and species. Marine and freshwater fish also have different rates of losing their immunity. Of course that was done on food fish. But I am fairly sure I read that all fish eventually lose their immunity. I will se if I can find it if I have time because I am also interested.

I wonder if long term immunity is less valuable in fish? One problem with long term immunity is that those cells take up space. By the time we are old (humans), our immune repertoire is kind of full. We have all of these long-lived memory cells against particular antigens that are taking up space. This is one of the reasons why the elderly are less responsive to vaccines (although there are other reasons).

Maybe fish, who are in an environment where they are exposed to thousands of diverse pathogens throughout their live, don't have the luxury of maintaining long term memory against all of them. There just isn't space. They have to settle for short lived memory that is constantly shifting toward the pathogens which are most abundant. Just an idea.

 

[Lionfish Lair]

Lionfish, I did not come up with that. That was "Popular Science Magazine" (I added a few lines to it)

I'll disagree with Popular Science if they are saying the majority of nosocomial infections are caused by the place being too clean. That's not a peer reviewed journal. Look up the main cause of nosocomial infections in some medical peer reviewed journals. You won't find "lack of good bacteria" as the cause. You'll find hand washing, or the lack there of, as the #1 cause of nosocomial infections. I worked for a year on a team for coming up with new protocols for my hospital to reduce nosocomial infections. It was what helped my hospital obtain magnet status. I know what sits on surfaces as we swabbed everything throughout the hospital as part of our presentation and findings. I'm proud to report, our research led to new protocols that reduced our infections. We even trace infections like MRSA through DNA typing to see where they come from when there's an outbreak in the unit. It's what saved our unit from closing down when we had an "outbreak". We traced 2 cases basically back to two separate families and the other 2 was.... us. :-( This is what I do, it's not just something I read. My clients are immunocompromised, so infections are the #1 topic in my world. Actually, it's a hot topic throughout the whole hospital, because in the future we (hospitals) are going to have to pay for treatment of any and all nosocomial infections, so we've definitely been focusing on reducing our numbers. After a year of evaluation, we were able to say our research and implementation of new protocols led to a reduction in the number of nosocomial infections in my unit.

Every month we were infection free, we got a pizza party My nurses worked very hard for their pizza.

The PDF just shows that our official goal was infection control. Liz and I (Renee) ran the team. It's something I'm very proud of.

The CDC website has a lot of info about nosocomial infections that is peer reviewed information that health care professionals use to direct their care. It's a better source of information over Popular Science magazine.
https://www.cdc.gov/hai/

 

[Finatik]

For years, I did not QT, but after finally getting a couple of beautiful fish that I waited a very long time to get (and paid a very pretty penny for), only to have them (and my existing fish) wiped out by disease in less than a week - I became a believer !
Now I QT EVERYTHING... fish... coral... everything. I feed and observe closely for a few weeks, and then treat "if needed". I have two 40 breeder tanks dedicated to QT.

 

[Finatik]

[/QUOTE]
Hi @Rick.45cal... I like your QT set up. Where did you get the double tank stand ?
And what size are your QT tanks ? They look like they might be 29G ?
I've been trying to find a stand that will hold 2 or 3 tanks so that I can cut down on the amount of floor space that all of my different tanks are taking up.

 

[Elder1945]

For the OP question I would say no..... Last time I looked into this most if not all reefers do not run a QT tank... we are talking 90%+...

I run a QT but I think I fall into the category of over the top reefer...

I also think most people that run them have had a full tank crash in the past.

It is a shame that this industry is so cut throat when it comes to livestock there is no real way to pre QT fish and have a successful fish business. I can not think of one store that actually does this... I know of a lot that "SAY" they do but in real practice I have found none...

This is actually not the aquarium shop owners fault but more the hobbyist wanting the absolute cheapest price on livestock (double edge sword).

I have recently seen a store try to pre QT fish 100% and this lasted all 3 shipments before it was deemed not cost effective as the 6-10% price premium the local market would not tolerate.

I would recommend QT everything but this is just not possible to the average hobbyist and I see nothing wrong with that.. I do not QT coral (I Dip) but I don't have the time nor the drive to do this.

I also see the number of people QT going down not up as the popularity of the reefer series and Nuvo all in one tanks are taking over the market. People are drawn to these type of tank as they are simple to setup and run and in my mind less likely to put forth the effort of running 2 tanks.

This is just my views .

 

[Paul B]

I wonder if long term immunity is less valuable in fish? One problem with long term immunity is that those cells take up space. By the time we are old (humans), our immune repertoire is kind of full. We have all of these long-lived memory cells against particular antigens that are taking up space. This is one of the reasons why the elderly are less responsive to vaccines (although there are other reasons).

Maybe fish, who are in an environment where they are exposed to thousands of diverse pathogens throughout their live, don't have the luxury of maintaining long term memory against all of them. There just isn't space. They have to settle for short lived memory that is constantly shifting toward the pathogens which are most abundant. Just an idea.

Sounds like a good scenario to me but you would know more about that than I would.

Lionfish, I was just linking Popular Science because it has to do with this topic. I actually found it by accident because I was researching the month that Popular Science came out. I don't remember who wrote the article.

 

[Lionfish Lair]

Perhaps read some of the CDC stuff I linked to. We use their guidelines to direct our care practices for infection control and it's in good laymen's terms for the general public as well, so they are a good source of information on the topic of nosocomial infections. Any parallels between hospital practices and fish care will support the need TO quarantine, so perhaps it shouldn't be used in an argument against QT, you know what I'm sayin'?

 

[Kentech5]

I'll disagree with Popular Science if they are saying the majority of nosocomial infections are caused by the place being too clean. That's not a peer reviewed journal. Look up the main cause of nosocomial infections in some medical peer reviewed journals. You won't find "lack of good bacteria" as the cause. You'll find hand washing, or the lack there of, as the #1 cause of nosocomial infections. I worked for a year on a team for coming up with new protocols for my hospital to reduce nosocomial infections. It was what helped my hospital obtain magnet status. I know what sits on surfaces as we swabbed everything throughout the hospital as part of our presentation and findings. I'm proud to report, our research led to new protocols that reduced our infections. We even trace infections like MRSA to see where they come from, when there's an outbreak in the unit. This is what I do, it's not just something I read. My clients are immunocompromised, so infections are the #1 topic in my world. Actually, it's a hot topic throughout the whole hospital, because in the future we (hospitals) are going to have to pay for treatment of any and all nosocomial infections, so we've definitely been focusing on reducing our numbers. After a year of evaluation we were able to say our research and implementation of new protocols led to a reduction in the number of nosocomial infections in my unit.

Every month we were infection free, we got a pizza party My nurses worked very hard for their pizza.

The PDF just shows that our official goal was infection control. Liz and I (Renee) ran the team. It's something I'm very proud of.

The CDC website has a lot of info about nosocomial infections that is peer reviewed information that health care professionals use to direct their care. It's a better source of information over Popular Science magazine.
https://www.cdc.gov/hai/

Was yours the NICU infection control project on your Magnet document? My hospital is preparing to apply for Magnet status in 2018 so Id love to hear more about your experience.

 

[edosan]

For years, I did not QT, but after finally getting a couple of beautiful fish that I waited a very long time to get (and paid a very pretty penny for), only to have them (and my existing fish) wiped out by disease in less than a week - I became a believer !
Now I QT EVERYTHING... fish... coral... everything. I feed and observe closely for a few weeks, and then treat "if needed". I have two 40 breeder tanks dedicated to QT.

Yup, this is what usually happend on most tanks.
Is ok for some not to qt, until is not and you loose big.

 

[Lionfish Lair]

Was yours the NICU infection control project on your Magnet document? My hospital is preparing to apply for Magnet status in 2018 so Id love to hear more about your experience.

Yes! That's me! I'm the Renee listed in there. I pretty darn proud of our Magnet status particularly because our competition in the area failed to get theirs twice (tee hee hee) I'm proud our unit was a big part in obtaining it. It was a nice celebration for the hospital.

 

[HB AL]

Well as the op of this post I gotta say through reading all of these theories and opinions alot of good reasons for having or not having a quarantine system have come up. On that note I did add a fish yesterday to my system, floated it and dropped it in. If I tell you what it is some of you guys are really gonna think I'm nuts, I will update truthfully with the outcome good or bad, I can say he really got beat up for a couple hours yesterday but is now being left alone and he found a happy place for now up in a corner of my tank. Good news although he was not allowed to come out to eat last night by his bully when I shot some shrimp his way he ate like a champ.

 

[CarrieB]

Well as the op of this post I gotta say through reading all of these theories and opinions alot of good reasons for having or not having a quarantine system have come up. On that note I did add a fish yesterday to my system, floated it and dropped it in. If I tell you what it is some of you guys are really gonna think I'm nuts, I will update truthfully with the outcome good or bad, I can say he really got beat up for a couple hours yesterday but is now being left alone and he found a happy place for now up in a corner of my tank. Good news although he was not allowed to come out to eat last night by his bully when I shot some shrimp his way he ate like a champ.

So what's your plan B if he gets sick or dies?

 

[Rick.45cal]

@Finatik they are 29 gallons and the stand is one of these... http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/prod_display.cfm?c=3578+3730+3732+9883&pcatid=9883

 

[atoll]

So what's your plan B if he gets sick or dies?

IMO if the fish is fine with no ailments or if the fish shows signs of disease it will prove nothing either way. This is not a game of chance or at least shouldn't be.We have already seen that for some putting a fish in their DT will be a gamble some will win some will loose. If the fish dies then it's a bit late for a plan B if it catches white spot for instance then he/she has a choice to make. Ride it out with fingers crossed or catch it and treat it but then he/she may have an even bigger issue with his/her DT. From what I gather Carrie B does not run his/her tank like myself or that of Paul B, if that's the case he/she is taking a big risk but no more than anybody else who puts a fish straight into their DT without some form of QT and many do so. Some will be fine some unfortunately not so. Nothing will be proved apart from the fact Carrie B with hindsight should not have introduced the fish immediately should it break out in disease. As said I would not recommend people simply add fish like myself unless they run similar systems to both Paul or myself with a mature system and feeding regime etc and has been running so for quite sometime.

 

[Paul B]

I just bought two more queen anthius and an other anemone crab. They will be in my tank in ten minutes smiling and hopefully dancing.