Proper use of a quarantine tank

[FinnFan]

The main tank is almost cycled, and I want to get ready to add new fish. What is the proper procedure for qt'ing?

I've read some advice that says "just let them sit for a few weeks" and some advice that says to treat all incoming fish as though they have diseases. I think I'd feel more comfortable treating all incoming fish with a few bare essentials, rather than just assume there's nothing wrong with them after letting them sit for a couple weeks.

What are the medicinal essentials that you need for this process?
Currently in my posession:

Quick Cure (malachite green and formalin)
Pimafix
Melafix
Jungle Anti-bacteria fish food
Aquarium Salt (would a salt dip be useful?)

Also, since the rasboras were not treated with anything prior to letting them cycle my big tank, should I treat the big tank with something?

[Danh]

There's really no reason to treat all of your fish. I sedomly even qt my fish before I add them to my main tanks. There's definitely no need to treat for ick when you first get fish. And as long as you don't see that they need an antibiotic then there's no need for that food. Salt doesn't hurt, but I don't really know what you mean by a salt dip. Shocking them in water with a lot more salt than what they are in in the bag isn't a good idea. If I was going to treat all of the fish I brought in qt, I would something like cuprimine or prazi-pro for parasites, and watch them for any kind of visible infection.

[FinnFan]

So, it's not a good idea to quarantine? Or rather - it is somewhat pointless?


Some sites say salt helps with anything. Some sites say salt is useless. Some sites say quarantine for 4-6 weeks. Some sites say keep the temperature up, others say keep it down. Some say to treat each new fish as though it has diseases, others say don't ever treat a fish that doesn't look sick.

I am feeling a little (ok a lot) overwhelmed and confused.

And when it comes to medications - what meds will harm your biofilter? What if I should ever have to put meds in the main tank? After the cycle settles down, I shouldn't ever have problem, in theory, because I will be doing weekly 20% water changes to keep everything balanced. But what if there were some freak accident and a sick fish managed to get in there? Would I have to tear everything down and start from scratch, JUST IN CASE some of the bacteria/germs/parasites/whatever might still be in the tank?

[FishHead]

I always quarantine my fish before adding them into their final home. I didnt do it at first but had many fish die pretty quickly. I quarantine to make sure they do not have any diseases that can be passed along to my other fish. i started quarantining when I lost all my fish in one of my 30 gal tanks from not quarantining.I think its a personal preference but I recommend it.

[emc7]

Antibiotics that target gram negative bacteria will wipe out your biology. Most other meds are stressful for fish only in that they reduce oxygen levels in the water. There are a few people whose fish I would introduce without quarantines (because I know they treat all their new fish), but I would quarantine any fish from an unknown source and absolutely quarantine any fish from a pet shop or from the wild. Treating wild caught fish as if they have internal and external parasites is a good idea. Just separating pet store fish for several weeks is probably enough.

Treat your main tank if there is disease such as ich in the main tank that will recur if not treated. As for bleaching everything and starting all over, you want to do this if you get a serious or hard to treat disease in the main tank such as fish TB, neon tetra disease, angel-fish plague, columnaris, etc. Quarantining all new fish will hopefully save you from ever having to do this.

[Betta1]

I lost all but one guppy in my 10g guppy tank because I added three new guppies from another strain (plus I wasn't keeping up on the tank). If you can QT properly it might be a good idea unless your willing to take the risk.

Some meds like penecilin will kill your biofilter, because they just kill bacteria in general which your biofilter is.

At one point I was going to use my 10g as a QT but I never did figure out how to keep a suitable bioload going, the problem I figured was theres no way to keep anything more then a tiny bioload going and every time you add fish it'll put them in a mini-cycle then yet another mini-cycle when introduced into the new tank which I figured could in fact cause enough stress to make sickness occur and in turn making QT just about useless. Granted I didn't do much research but I asked around in a few posts and in the chatroom with knowledgeable people and I didn't get much of an answer.

Also I think your putting a little to much into the QT idea, a single fish getting into your tank without QT will in no way warrant anything close to tearing down your tank and restarting for many reasons. Primarily because the chances are quite slim for anything to have gotten through but also because if you see no symptoms theres probably nothing wrong (new fish can carry things when they show no symptoms, but an established tank is ok until you see something wrong). Not to mention the fact that tearing down your tank and restarting would probably be major work and kill more fish due to the fact you'd have to temporarily home them, requiring a newly cycled home, then you'd have to restart your tank which would have to be recycled.

It really isn't that big of a concern, deal with something when you see a problem. Quarantine prior to introduction if it sounds like what you'd like to do, either for observation or treatment.

[GoodMike]

in a QT tank, if you are gonna just treat for good measure, grab some Praziquantel (prazi pro), which treats for internal parasites. its a good measure to do this. as far as treating for ick, and all that stuff, dont do it, unless they have symptoms. Melafix and Pimafix i find to be worthless, some people swear by it, but..yuck. Internal parasites would be the only thing i treat for as a good measure. the rest of it wait until you see symptoms. A full QT lasts a total of 6 weeks.

[Danh]

I'm not saying a qt tank is worthless, I meant I don't normally do it, but I have gotten $150 worth of fish that when added to their main tank wiped out about $400 worth of other fish within 24 hours. In that case, a qt tank just to keep them seperated, watch them, and get them back into good health with no fin rot would have helped. Plus it was rays that died, which were very susceptible to it. Now I dont have rays, so I normally don't qt.

[FinnFan]

*sigh*

Before I go on, let me explain that I'm a bit of a perfectionist :P I've been eyeballing the rasboras every single day when I feed them, looking for signs of anything weird.

One of them had a teensy bit of something that looked duller, maybe possibly fuzzylike, near his dorsal fin. I immediately removed him from the tank and placed him into the QT. The other rasboras look fine, and are all acting fine, at least as of this morning when I got up.

I know they've been stressed, because of cycling. But I have been monitoring the levels of everything in the water, everyday, and doing small w/c's to make everything live-able enough for them. Plus, I had to tear the tank partway down in order to move it to its new stand, and I had to remove all of the fish at that time. I'm sure that was a stressful day.

But if this fuzzy-ish looking stuff was columnaris, then I am doomed to start the cycle all over again? Great. This is really not my day.

[emc7]

If its treatable and you treat the main tank too, then you don't need to restart. I wouldn't restart unless I had already removed the sick fish and other fish in the main tank get sick and die. But if I had a killer disease that resisted treatment, I would definitely pour bleach in the tank and nuke everything.

[FinnFan]

How do I treat the main tank without killing the good bacteria though? I know columnaris is a gram negative bacteria, and treating for that will wipe out my cycle.

[emc7]

Your tanks are little, right? Quarantine is to protect the other fish in the main tank. The fewer other fish, the less risked in skipping quarantine. I do believe in pulling sick fish to another tank. I think its more stressful for the sick fish, but better for the tank. A lot of disease will "jump ship" when a fish dies and get a new host and there will be an ammonia spike caused by dead fish in a small tank. If a sick fish beats the odds and recovers, a few weeks of solitary will fatten him up and make disease less likely to recur.

[emc7]

Do you know for sure its columnaris? It might just be fungus on a wound. I never hear of good outcomes from the that disease, I hope you're wrong. The only thing I can think of to save your biology is to put the filter on an empty tank and feed it while you treat the main tank with antibiotics. I would be afraid of returning the disease with the filter, but if it's the kind of disease that needs a live fish to carry it, then a few weeks on a tank with no fish could clean the filter of disease. Time for more research.

[FinnFan]

My main tank is 50 gallons
My quarantine tank is 10 gallons

I have done a fish count everyday to make sure all tank inhabitants are still alive. The 50 just has the rasboras. Should I pull all of them out and treat them all in the QT tank? Would that work?

[FinnFan]

No, to be honest, since the spot is so small, I don't *know* for sure that it is columnaris. I've seen pictures of advanced columnaris, but never in its infancy stages.

There are two plastic plants in the tank - could this just be some random fungus that happened because they got scratched on something hard, like the plastic plants?

[emc7]

You haven't lost any fish yet?
If a fish got scratched or bit, the wound could get fungus or a secondary bacterial infection and neither would be contagious. If you can't make a definite diagnosis (you could post pics), I would suggest "wait and see" while keeping the sick fish separate. Fish do have strong immune systems and can fight off most common illnesses will just clean water and good nutrition. Killing off you biology and subjecting them to another cycle will definitely stress your fish and can cause them to come down with something else.

[FinnFan]

A brief search turned up this:

"Columnaris is bacterial and can remain present in the water. Columnaris also thrives in hard water. However, once the angels are removed, if you keep the bioload low, and the tank clean you shouldn't have a problem. "

Not sure if that's accurate or not, but it's all I found so far, on the subject.

Nope, nobody has died as of yet. I'm just the sort of person who likes to be way ahead of the game, so I have been watching them like a hawk. Maybe too closely - maybe I'm just going overboard because I *seriously* do not want to mess up my cycle.

[FinnFan]

BTW, I figured out what the smell was. It wasn't the tank. Well, not directly. Water was siphoning out of the filter box via a small piece of fabric that I had accidentally left hanging out. So the carpet was soaked and I had to move the tank so I could shampoo the carpet underneath. I did that at the same time that I had to move the tank onto its new stand.

Stink is gone

The cycle was just about complete as of yesterday. 0 ammo, .25ppm nitrite and roughly 10ppm nitrate. It's so close to cycled, and the rasboras have made it this far, I really don't want to lose them now Not to mention going through the cycling process and tearing everything down.

[emc7]

Here a site http://www.nationalfishpharm.com/fis.../bacteria.html that sells meds, but they don't have good disease pictures.

[TheOldSalt]

Good grief, why are you SO worried about your stupid cycle?
Just get some BioSpira, Stability, or SafeStart, and viola! Your cycle worries are gone. Sheesh.

With that said, you can now ignore the trees and look at the forest.

Quarantine is critically important. Period. If you don't do it, you will regret it. Period. If you do a half-@$#&* job of it, you will fail. Waiting for visible symptoms of a largely invisible disease before treating is stupid beyond measure. Worms, flukes, internal fungus, even gill-riding ich & glochidia... you can't see these, but they will ruin your whole tank if they slip past you. Don't assume they're not there just because you don't see them. You say you're a perfectionist? Good. Maybe your fish have a chance, then.

Oh, and let me just head off anyone who is thinking about even mentioning stress and such. If you keep the disease organisms out of your tank, then they can't debilitate your fish no matter how stressed they may get. Why is this so difficult for SOME people to comprehend? [napoleonmode] G'Yahh! [/napoleonmode]


You probably have fungus. Columnaris would have likely wiped everything out by now.

Get some CLOUT and some Metronidazole. Those two will get rid of all sorts of stuff you probably didn't even know existed.

Hey, you wanted to know the right way of doing it, right? Now you know. Petshop fish are riddled with disease. That's an absolute fact. If you take them home and fail to clean them up first, then your tank will be riddled with disease. It's that simple. If you want a disease-free environment in your tank, then it's up to you to make it that way.