# Seasoned fishkeepers: How do you quarantine new fish?



## Costa (9 Oct 2017)

Hi all,

I recently bought a small group of 7 Corydora pandas to add to the pandas already in my 750L/200gal main tank. After acclimatizing I put the newly purchased fish in the tank, and during the course of the next 2 weeks I watched in horror as one by one, all Corys went pale and died, including the older group that lived happily in the tank.To date, other cory species and my beloved tetras do not show any symptoms (touch wood). 

Obviously I made the mistake of not placing the fish in quarantine prior to transferring to my main. My question is, how do you guys quarantine your fish? What products/treatments do you use, and for how long?

Thank you


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## rebel (9 Oct 2017)

I usually quarantine for 6 weeks but I hear that it may not be enough. I should worm them but never do.


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## dw1305 (9 Oct 2017)

Hi all, 
I don't buy many fish, and I have a spare planted tank, which I use for all "emergencies" including quarantine. Ninety-five percent of the time it doesn't have any fish in it, but it does have Snails_, Asellus_ etc. and I treat it just like the other tanks.

Usually If I purchase any Dwarf cichlids etc from a shop I treat the tank with Levamisole HCl, all other fish I just put in and keep an eye on them. 

cheers Darrel


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## Costa (9 Oct 2017)

Thank you guys

Do you add anything else to the water in the quarantine tank? Like salt or a generic antibacterial? Any preemptive treatments?


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## Swordplay (9 Oct 2017)

I have never quarantined any fish. I would say be quite picky as to where you buy them from and make friends with the staff there.
Hopefully they will tell you where they source them from and also how long the fish you are looking at have been in the tank.
If the fish appear to be very cheap then it's likely that they are not coming from a reputable wholesaler and are worth avoiding.
Check to see what other fish in other tanks look like and avoid purchasing if you are unsure of the state of other ones. Most shops are systemised and therefore any issues spread between tanks easily.
I tend to keep my temp at round 26 and have found this helps avoid some diseases. 
The only time I have ever had any issue with my corys is when I went to a cheaper retailer where I couldn't be sure of where they had been sourced from.
A good retailer should have quarantined them properly for you and should not be selling them if they are showing signs of illness. These issues usually appear quickly after they have arrived in shops tanks (within 48 hours).
Hope this helps and I would say ask lots of questions as a good retailer will be more than happy to speak to you about their fish.


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## Edvet (9 Oct 2017)

For a true quarantine you should put fish in a bare tank. Clean water and healthy foods should allow you to look at stool samples and maybe even do a gill/skin swab. If you see any parasites you could treat them. Preferably through medicated feed, if they refuse food it should be force-fed or injected.
 Blindly treating undiagnosed diseases is never good veterinairy practice.

The above mentioned protocol is to impractical for the general public, and is only in place in large institutes/collections. It could be implemented in cases where the owner can consult with a veterinarian.
Alternatively housing newcomers in a separate tank and observing daily can help in avaiding troubles.


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## sciencefiction (25 Jan 2018)

I used to use my shrimp tank as quarantine. Not ideal as one doesn't have much choice on medication in a shrimp tank, if the worst happens. My tank is also planted. But I believe that the more natural and well established the quarantine is, the better the water quality, more hiding places, cover, etc..the better the chances of the fish. The prevention of any type of stress plays role in preventing disease outbreaks. No tank is sterile.... 

I usually significantly up the water changes to daily or every other day when I get new fish and I believe this plays a major role on survival. A lot of the times I have not quarantined fish if I believe the quarantine tank is not a suitable environment, even on a temporary basis. If you are to subject fish to any stress straight after purchase, the purchase can wait...
.
 But I do have the habit of first eyeing up fish in the shop and comeback in a week or two to check them out again. If they're still disease free looking I may end up getting them.  

As you have noticed, majority of fish issues are species related and not all fish get affected by the "issue". You get entire type of fish having problems, the rest seem unfazed by what's going on.  The worse in my opinion is internal parasites/worms as those issues may not manifest for months after purchase and those tend to affect all fish, eventually.  It is perhaps wise to de-worm fish at purchase because although fish can overcome bacterial issues without meds, worms and intestinal parasites are there for life unless treated for. Fish can be asymptomatic until stress of bad water conditions, tank move etc...when they succumb either to the parasites/worms themselves, or due to secondary diseases caused by the chronic stress of being sick in the first place. 

One could easily have one "fishless" tank they keep with just plants and some easy critters, which would still give them the joy of keeping the tank, and the option to quarantine when needed. My previous quarantine tank is now populated with hillstream loaches...About the same time I set up another one running with just snails, shrimp and left over plants thrown in. The shrimp and snails were just hitchhikers...  I don't even have a heater in it right now but its in a relatively warm room.


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## kadoxu (26 Jan 2018)

I didn't use to quarantine fish, as I'd just stock the tanks in one go and not add any more fish after that. 

But then I started keeping goldfish in a big tank, so I needed to add just a couple of them at a time (them being poop factories, I needed to allow the bacteria to build up before adding more fish). Everything went well, until I bought the last couple and added them to the tank... long story short, from 13, only 2 survived... 11 died in a matter of days. So I had to start all over again.

So I went and bought a couple of cheap used small tanks from Gumtree/Ebay (I would have bough cheap plastic storage boxes if I had not found them) and used them as quarantine tanks. I started buying 4 fish at a time, adding Melafix for the first 3 days and leaving them in the Qarantine tanks for at least 6 weeks before adding them to the big tank. Now the big tank is full again and with absolutely no issues.

I have now used the cheap tanks for other projects (one of them was the Edge and the other was made into a sump for a saltwater tank), meaning I will now buy a plastic box to have around if I ever need a quarantine tank.


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## castle (26 Jan 2018)

I don't have a quarantine tank running at the moment, used to. I don't plan on buying any fish anytime soon, and if I did all but one of my tanks are species only, so when I do buy new fish they tend to go in a tank on their own. 

If you know you're going to buy new fish soon or similar, why not run an external filter on an established tank for a couple of weeks, and keep a few sponges in that atnk too; then if you need to cycle a tank fast for new fish or something, you can.


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## tam (26 Jan 2018)

I've a small tank I use as quarantine, it's not bare though, the plants snuck in... and some wood and rocks. It keeps them separate from my other fish though and that's the main thing, plus I should think the cover reduces stress. Also means I can match water as the LFS use tap and I use RO, so I can acclimatise slowly through the quarantine instead of the same day.


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