IS IT TRUE THAT 80% OF PEOPLE WILL HAVE FISH LOSSES DUE TO DISEASE/PARASITES IN FIRST 8 MONTHS IF DONT QUARANTINE ?

[ying yang]

Work in a fish store. It's disheartening.


I believe that there is a lot of this.

I find that with new fish you struggle with two things.

The first and for me the most important is getting the fish eating. Most have not been feeding their entire journey and are timid with food. BTW this is not a wild behaviour, fish are pigs. You see this natural behaviour come back after you have had them for a while. Food is tough and most fish will try anything if they get really hungry. Getting them to eat after this is REALLY difficult. I would say that almost all of my new fish during this time end up with some sort of parasite or disease. They "scratch" a lot or have visible signs of infestation. After years of observing this phenomona I have finally learned to ignore it and focus on tank stability and ensuring the fish is eating. This can be incredibly nerve wracking because everything inside of us is screaming that we have to do something. This process is not easy, and I have found the more mature the tank the easier the process is.

The second is somewhat of an outcropping of the first. You need to deal with a fish that has been medicated every step of the journey (assuming you bought non-quarintined fish, and then they off load that burden from you for a price). This creates a creature that is not going to do very well being thrown back into a "natural" environment. Ensuring that the tank will help not hinder recovery takes some planning and patience, but I find doing this to be much easier and more successful than using quarintining with medication.

My 2 cents.

Ty for detailed response.
You work in a lfs so seen first hand amount of fish that die you say,my thinking is all stress from travelling half way around world from collectors-exporters-importers-lfs then to us,I find out when next delivery of fish will be at the lfs then go in and buy my fish on that day or day before so the newest fish in the tanks been in the lfs tanks 4-6 days and always ask when it came in with the thinking that that last bit if stress/ transport to lfs could be straw that broke camels back so to speak and make that fish ill or catch a parasatite easier so want to leave fish in lfs store as long as possible for signs to show ( ovbiously will large systems only takes one fish to have 1 parasite then travels through all tanks ) lfs I shop at now only has 3 tanks connected to each other but then there's lfs employees putting hands in and out of all tanks and possible cross contamination and no lfs I been in use 1 net for 1 tank ,its just pick up any net and use it lol

And the second part what you wrote ?
You mean if medicate the fish,you strip all its immunity from it then when put in dt it's more at risk of a diesese manages to slip through as now fish got no immunity? Or do I misunderstand you?

 

[ying yang]

Is is true that people that qt lose 80% of their fish before they even get to the display. And is true that people who use prophylactic treatments especially copper and antibiorics, lose a high percentage of those fish within the year. The answer to both us yes

So if qt then most lose a high % of fish ?
Or did you mean alot lose high % whether qt or not ?
As sounds like you saying lose alot if fish if qt?
If you think alot who qt lose fish through qt,you think it from overdosing meds,stripping
Vital gut bacteria from fish,doing it wrong or what?
I find this all qt or not to qt very fascinating indeed ^_^

 

[Mhamilton0911]

8 months in now, no qt, and I got my first 2 fish (clowns) from petco, and my other 3 fish from my one mom pop store.

Clowns were probably lucky. The other fish I watched and observed for a while at the store, a week or more, and was able to ask how long each had been at the store to verify they were not just replacements. That store I have not seen dead fish in any tanks, so they must do a decent job with thier livestock. I know they do not qt either as I've seen delivery days and bags floating in every tank.

I have not lost a single fish and have not observed any signs of disease. However, with my tank being so small, im already fully stocked, so my overall loss amount would be low if I did lose them to disease.

I will quarantine when I upgrade. My current tank will be the qt, and fish will go through qt. I feel with investing a lot more in fish for a larger tank I need to do my part to make sure they are as healthy as can be.

 

[mfinn]

I don't think it's possible to even keep track of the percentage.

I can only say what I've experienced in over 35 years in the saltwater hobby.
My first 2 years, I thought I could judge whether a fish was healthy by watching it at the fish store. ( at the time there was only one in my area).
I'd go in and watch it every few days over a week.
If it was still looking good, was eating and was out and about, I'd take it home and add it to my display tank.
This worked pretty good for a while.
But one day I brought home a fish ( after my usual watching period) and a couple days later I noticed something was wrong, fish were flashing, some were hiding.
I spoke with the fish guy at the store and he sold me some sort of a concoction ( I don't remember exactly).
The next day I was missing a couple fish which I found behind a decoration, and most of the fish seemed affected by something.
Over the next week I lost every fish, all 18 of them in the 120 gallon tank.
After doing some asking around at other stores and reading a few books is when I saw that it was probably ick or velvet.
I found a couple new stores a few miles up the road and they told me how easy it was to setup a quarantine tank and use copper.
This was back in the mid 80's.
Since then I've quarantined every fish since then.

I did experience one more outbreak about 7 years ago.
Velvet, not from a new fish, but had to have been from adding corals from a infected tank.
I lost 9 of the 25 fish I had. But this time I was able to move every fish into a hospital tank within a day and get medication going.

So, I was good for nearly 2 years with out doing any kind of quarantine on fish .
I see some can go longer.
But why take the chance when a simple quarantine setup can be as cheap as 1 fish. ( ok maybe 2 fish)

 

[Oldreefer44]

In the hobby for 40+ years. Never quarantined. Been years since i lost a new fish to disease. The only down side is i have no more room for any new fish.

 

[ying yang]

I think you are hung up on an 80% figure. Not sure where the number came from and does not sound accurate, but not sure if the actual percentage is relevant.

Remember QT is not about protecting the new fish(though using it for proactive treatment is) it is about protecting the existing DT fish.

Not hung up on it.a r2r member keeps saying it over and over and there to many fish deaths because no qt,think I've read them saying they done the maths to get to that % on r2r and as asked question of this thread many times and got no answer ,I thought ok fair enough I start a thread.
And yeah qt fish to protect all fish in dt who in there first I get this but as you can see from some the answers here and precious threads,some believe that using medications on fishes that didn't need it is detrimental to the fish,and I know way to know whether this statement is true or not so often leaves me very confused indeed,as we all wants whats best for our fish and for them not to die in our care and upto each of us to do our best for our little fishy friends ^_^
Thanks for reply

 

[Lyss]

So, I've said this in another thread as well, but I did both no QT and QT after my initial cycle on two tanks (one FW w/puffers, other my reef tank). Both have been stocked for 8 months almost exactly now, no losses.

Edit: I now have a DIY QT setup for each tank that I can set up on my counter pretty quickly should anything arise and I have to pull the fish to medicate them and fallow one of the tanks.

 

[elorablue]

Not hung up on it.a r2r member keeps saying it over and over and there to many fish deaths because no qt,think I've read them saying they done the maths to get to that % on r2r and as asked question of this thread many times and got no answer ,I thought ok fair enough I start a thread.
And yeah qt fish to protect all fish in dt who in there first I get this but as you can see from some the answers here and precious threads,some believe that using medications on fishes that didn't need it is detrimental to the fish,and I know way to know whether this statement is true or not so often leaves me very confused indeed,as we all wants whats best for our fish and for them not to die in our care and upto each of us to do our best for our little fishy friends ^_^
Thanks for reply

It’s probably best not to put any real faith in someone who doesn’t keep fish nor a reef and simply compiles selected data that matches his agenda.

 

[Sharkbait19]

I’m pretty sure I know which member that @ying yang is talking about. I won’t name names in case he doesn’t want that.
Different fish have different tolerances to different chemicals. For example, a clownfish can handle copper well, while it is very dangerous to a puffer.
Most medicines harm the fish when trying to kill disease, but is much more dangerous to the disease than the fish. An immunocompromised fish, however, will have much more of a problem tolerating medicine. This can be caused by high stress, or, you guessed it, disease. Sometimes a fish is so far gone that medicine doesn’t even help, it can hurt, but it’s the only option.
Some fish also don’t do well in qt due to dietary needs or other factors that a qt cannot provide. I don’t think that qt can be blamed for this, but that these fish with special requirements need to be taken into consideration upon buying.
One common trend is that people who don’t qt usually claim to have never lost a fish to disease. This makes sense, and it also makes sense that one wouldn’t see a need to qt. But what happens when they do lose fish? Will they change their minds? Oftentimes the ones that do qt have lost enough fish or read enough horror stories where they just aren’t willing to take the risk.
There isn’t a set timetable for this to happen, but without any preventative measures, there is a pretty good chance something will slip through.

 

[ying yang]

So, I've said this in another thread as well, but I did both no QT and QT after my initial cycle on two tanks (one FW w/puffers, other my reef tank). Both have been stocked for 8 months almost exactly now, no losses.

Edit: I now have a DIY QT setup for each tank that I can set up on my counter pretty quickly should anything arise and I have to pull the fish to medicate them and fallow one of the tanks.

Yeah even though I chose to not qt ,I have a hospital tank set up incase any fish needs medicating ,been running a few months longer than dt has now and also got empty 160 litre tank ( 1 metre long ) and an Internal filter running in my sump incase need pull all fish out dt and start my 160 litre up and medicate all my fish at once so I'm like you and can set up a qt a short notice which I think is very prudent should the need be required.

 

[HuduVudu]

collectors-exporters-importers-lfs

Putting it this way minimizes the actual length of travel. To travel from the Philippines to Los Angeles is an a approximately 20 hour plane flight. This is after the fish has been held in the collectors tanks for possibly a week. There is usually a layover in there for humans traveling, and the layover can be quite lengthy and add to the transit time. This is done in the little plastice bags with injected oxygen and lower specific gravity to ensure better gas exchange. After this the fish will sit in the distributors tanks for some amount of time. Once again up to a week. Then another travel point to your LFS. This all assumes US destinations. It could be better or worse in other parts of the world. The process can take up to a month to complete. It is no small amount of time.

so want to leave fish in lfs store as long as possible for signs to show ( ovbiously will large systems only takes one fish to have 1 parasite then travels through all tanks )

The problem with this is that the store is going to do two things, first they will put the fish in hypo salinity and the second they are going to use some sort of preventitive medication at the very least they will use UV.

The problem with this is akin to being in the hospital for too long. It trashes your ability to deal with dirty infected world we live in. So too with the fish. It is why hospital stays are kept to a minimum (not just for cost reasons though that is some of the reason).

You mean if medicate the fish,you strip all its immunity from it then when put in dt it's more at risk of a diesese manages to slip through as now fish got no immunity? Or do I misunderstand you?

You don't strip it's immunity you replace it's immunity with your intervention whatever that might be. When you remove that intervention the creature must then compensate for what was lost and rebuild, because it has become dependent on the intervention. The longer the dependence, the longer the time to recover. There are also side effects of those interventions. You then have to weigh the reward of the intervention with the side affects against the lack of the intervention.

Doing this requires an approach. Not having an approach assures that you get the worst of both worlds.

 

[LRT]

Not all lfs QT and only do if its necessary. One of mine brings fish in. Observes them for awhile and the puts them on the floor. From there I observe my fish before I buy them. Behaviors, eating etc. Never lost a fish to disease. There are reputable online fish stores as well. Check out reef pro

 

[HuduVudu]

I want to also posit on the problem of the "I added one fish and the tank got sick".

It has been my experience over many years that the reason that this happens is because tanks have limits. I believe that this is a gas exchange issue, but it might not be or it might be a combination of things. When you cross that limit the entire tank suffers and begins to crash until the limit has been re-established. Unfortunately this doesn't happen quickly and even removing the creature that pushed the limit, might not be enough to stop the catastrophic event.

I find therefore to not push this limit and keep my tanks lightly stocked with fish to avoid this very scenario. With experience you get a feel for what a tanks limit might be. There are also ways to push that limit in one direction or another, but the limit is always there.

 

[sixty_reefer]

Is it possible that 100% of people posting in the algae forum will have a algae issue of some sort? Could we conclude that 100% of people in the hobby got an algae issue based on that?

 

[Kellie in CA]

I don't QT, and I have lost fish in the past. However, all the fish in my current tank came from the same fish store (at various times) and I haven't had a sick one yet *fingers crossed*.

I'm not planning on adding more because I know it's a roll of the dice each time.

 

[Idech]

Within 8 months of setting up my tank I bought a clown that died of brook within 24 hours and killed my other clown.

BUT…. this clown was being bullied by the existing clown so it was very stressed. I didn’t pull it out because I was giving it a day or two yo see if it would get better.

If I had pulled that clown from the tank, both clowns would have likely survided.

Anyways, now as a result I don‘t trust that LFS anymore. It’s a shame because they have a great selection. I’ve chosen to buy from a different store that has few fish but buys them pre-quarantined. And I wait at least 1 week after it gets to the store before buying the fish, preferably 2.

 

[ying yang]

I want to also posit on the problem of the "I added one fish and the tank got sick".

It has been my experience over many years that the reason that this happens is because tanks have limits. I believe that this is a gas exchange issue, but it might not be or it might be a combination of things. When you cross that limit the entire tank suffers and begins to crash until the limit has been re-established. Unfortunately this doesn't happen quickly and even removing the creature that pushed the limit, might not be enough to stop the catastrophic event.

I find therefore to not push this limit and keep my tanks lightly stocked with fish to avoid this very scenario. With experience you get a feel for what a tanks limit might be. There are also ways to push that limit in one direction or another, but the limit is always there.

Good points and from my research I noticed fish need feel safe and need overhangs,big caves,little caves and places to hide from me and other fish and lose line of sight from other fish,when I glued all my rocks together I made little tracks so rock loving fish could scoot through them plus cuc could walk through them cleaning them up and help keep rocks clean and lots things similar to this I implemented in my tank plus like you mentioned gas exchange, I got 3 powerheads and 2 pointed at surface for gas exchange and skimmer runs 24/ 7 and even though live in England living room where tank is and kitchen window always at least a little open to bring fresh air Inside and limit I set myself was 10 small- medium sized fish in my 300 litre dt tank,so maybe that's helping me so far in my saltwater journey along with other helpful things I found in my research and hopefully it continues for many many years to come.but as I said above I have a small 56 litre qt/hospital tank continually running for few months before I set dt up and an empty 3 foot tank and spare internal filter /rocks in sump,I know only to well 9 months without a fish loss is not long and tommorrow something could start a ripple effect of bad things that happen in my tank ( reason why hospital tank and spare empty tank sit waiting or running just incase )

 

[ying yang]

Is it possible that 100% of people posting in the algae forum will have a algae issue of some sort? Could we conclude that 100% of people in the hobby got an algae issue based on that?

Yeah I suspect that's how the 80% number is made and is often stated that high numbers in fish diesese forum will lose fish because that's why they are there in first place ^_^

 

[attiland]

I must be 20%. I have never have lost a fis in salt water due to no qt.
min freshwater I have had maybe 1 or 2 sick fish in almost 40 years.
yes I must be lucky and I know it is coming in my way but I just use reputable sources and probably longer than normal observation in the LFS.
I have never bought fish on-line so I don’t know how would that change the score

 

[flashsmith]

100% of people will lose fish in this hobby regardless of qt or not...