To those of you who DON'T quarantine...
 

I've been trying to go the QT everything route with my new tank, but so far only 2 out of 4 fish I've put through QT have survived, and the 5th is currently lying on the bottom breathing heavily. I just did a 50% water change, but I don't think he'll survive the night. I'm getting very frustrated as the QT process is costing time, money and lives of fish. My fish seem to thrive in the first week or two. They eat well after a day or two, and come out to see me when I approach the tank, then a week or so in they stop eating and just die. I don't know if it's stress or water quality (it's hard to keep up with the water changes, even with a fully cycled sponge).

I know there's a large camp of people out there who don't QT, even some who think that QT does more harm than good. I was wondering for those that don't QT, do you use any prophylactic treatments before you add your fish to the tank? My biggest fear is adding ich or something like marine velvet to my tank, can you just treat fish and add them straight to the tank without a QT process?

there is those of us who dont QT or dip. fish and coral goes streight into the system. never had an issue. (touch wood)

Same here, never quarantine. Mind you I usually, but not always visit the LFS several times before buying the fish, also has to eat prior to the sale. Have not had a problem for the last year and a half. I have lost fish, but not to disease, usually from other fish beating on them.

IMO there are a few rules you must follow.
1. Never buy a fish that you do not see eating. Dont be bashful. Ask the LFS guy to feed the fish and if he is not eating aggressively pass on the fish. The fish was just recently feed is not a good excuse.
2. Leave the fish at the lfs a week and than come back a see that it is free of spots, redness tears etcetera. Dont accept the fish unless it is 100% healthy, alert. Just as happy to you see as you to see her.
3. Acclimate the fish carefully. Close off the tank lights for two day to give her a chance to settle down with her tank mates and reduce her stress.
4. Feed garlic soaked food with a little selcon to avoid the possibility of ich or some minor bacterial/fungal infection.
5. Have a QT set up and ready to go just in case a problem develops.
Good Luck

I qt everything b/f it goes in my tank. I have lost some fish in qt, but I think I would have lost them anyways if they went straight into the system. This way I can catch it soon and hopefully treat it. I keep my water parameters the same as in the dt (unless I am treating ick w hyposalinity) and this way it is less stressful on the fish when it's time for transferring.

Do you test the sg of the water of your lfs? Some stores keep their water sg pretty low- if there is a large difference b/t your water and the stores this could account for some deaths.
What size tank is your qt? Depending on the size and type of the fish - if the tank is too small - the stress could lead to death.
Do you have hiding places for the fish?
Are you monitoring water quality? -In a small tank ammonia and nitrates can build up fast.
another thing to think about is the quality of the suppliers that the lfs uses. If a fish is cyanide caught it will appear healthy, then die a few weeks later. Other than buying MAC certified fish, there is really no way of knowing for sure . Your best bet is to buy from high quality fish stores.

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i am the same i have had a problem with overstocking too quickly and introducing ich but that was my fault i am always leery when buying the fish i try to go places that i know they are quarantined in the store and have good suppliers and fish has to always eat before i take it. i am fussy as to what i feed are you unthawing or soaking with garlic feed high quality food eg pe mysis and soak in vitamins when feed makes a big difference to fish immune system if the other fish in the tank are healthy chances are you wont get outbreak. Stores in the area that have good supliers and qt fish are Aquarium illusions Marine Aquaria and Blue world the other stores are questionable to say the least you go to the store and almost every tank has sick or dead fish

I`ve been keeping the sg of the QT tank close to the lfs`, then gradually bringing it up to match my DT by not topping off completly with fresh water in the final week of QT. For all the fish I`ve lost I haven`t made it the step where I`m bringing the sg up though. The QT is 29 gallons with some pvc fittings in it, I would think this would be big enough for the two clowns I lost and the royal grama that is currently in distress. I`ve been watching nitrites and nitrates but my ammonia test kit won`t work on tap water that`s been treated for chlorine and chloramines. I think it picks up the bound up ammonia that results from the chloramine treatment. I`ve been using tap water because there`s no corals in that tank and it`s cheaper than running my RODI given the higher amount of water changes necessary for the QT tank. The fish I`ve lost all came from a combination of reputable stores that are well liked on these forums... I don`t know, maybe these fish just weren`t going to make it. One of the clowns ended up with something growing out of its head the day before it died, I was thankful that fish wasn`t put directly into my DT...

fish
 

fish listed usualy do better not being quarantined some fish cant handle the stress of being in solitary but thats my experience

It can also be your acclimation methods, we are trying to get most of our customers used to a "drip method" instead of just adding water every few minutes. It has shown us a considerable improvement in our survival rate of our shipments.

Another product you should consider is anything to increase the fishes imune system, as some members have mentioned, garlic, selconm in their diets, or products like ImmunoVital.

You can also add a small bubbler in the QT tank to increase the oxygen in the water.

These suggestions would definatel help the fishes survival rate.

Ken - BWA

I'm in the same boat. My record for quarantine is not very good. Even with proper acclimation and a well established qt tank.
Now I rarely buy fish from an LFS and wait to find the right one on these forums. That way I know if the fish is healthy and eating, and the stress of a quick move is less.
So far I have never lost a fish from a fellow reefer and no other problems as well. :Banane52:

I never Qt'd for the first few years of the hobby. I always thought if the store had the fish for awhile and looked healthy and was eating well then why stress it out by putting it through QT. Then a fish we bought got marine velvet and if I had of QT'd it first (the fish looked ok in the store and was eating) I wouldn't of ended up loosing 90% of the fish in my tanks and I wouldn't of had to go through the horror of watching fish I had for years die slow and horrible deaths. I also ended up having to QT the surviving fish for 8 weeks which was way more of a pain then it would of been to have QT'd the one fish that made everyone else sick. In the end out of 34 fish only 8 survived. You can read through my link to marine velvet in my sig. for all the gory details and some disturbing pic's. If that's not enough reason for QT I don't know what is.

Ya, no QTing here either.. Gave up on it a few years ago for the same reasons mentioned by other non QTers. I do not treat my fish before putting them in. Normally a good LFS will have already treated them, made sure they eat and are generally healthy before they release them. Of course you can't always count on that which is why you have to do your part and bug the LFS. Ask them how long they've had the fish, is it eating, has it been treated at all?

In my experience even if they are healthy and eating they can still get ich once put into the Display tank. However, if you have chosen a great specimen then it is already well on its way to recovery. Just help him along with some garlic and lots of food to keep his immune system up. Sure he won't look pretty at first but they have always pulled through for me so long as I keep everything else consistant, like tank parameters etc.

My one and only foray into QT'ing new fish was a disastrous experiment. I got scared into trying the QT for fear of introducing something like velvet into the main DT after it happened to a couple friends of mine in the last year.

Before that I had always introduced new fish straight into the DT. Some would develop ich, sometimes a couple spots would spread to other fish but in 2-3 days would be gone.

I'm left wondering if my QT tank "saved" my current inhabitants, or whether the sudden jump in bioload on the QT tank simply crashed the system and left it unable to sustain fish. The latter case is clearly the more likely I would think.

So QT'ing definitely requires a bit of caution in the setup, and definitely needs slow additions as well if there isn't already a steady state cycle in place. Ie., one fish at a time .. and perhaps some long-term inhabitants in that tank as well just to keep the cycle going. Of course this means you already have a pretty good idea that the new fish is probably already healthy. If not then maybe it needs to be passed on purchase, or go into a more hospital type setup (but that may have worse consequences, I don't know).

I have to agree with Laurie. I am a huge fan of Seachem stability when I Q.T.

i must be lucky as in 5 years i hav never qt a fish only issue was adding a regal tank bam just like that it had ich.other than that no issues i hav no space or buget for a second sw tank.hope i dont jinks myself here.

The value of quarantining new fish gets displayed only when hobbyists encounter Marine Velvet in their reef tank. It is really unfortunate that many do not use their QTs.

I have seen it too many times, and it is really hard to understand why a simple process is not practised. A 20 gallon tank, with a trickle filter, airstone/powerhead, ammonia detector (SeaChem made), some PVC (2" or 4" cut pieces, or Ts and elbows), heater, and a light (CFL). That is it. All for under 100$.

Ok, for those that are QTing then, what kind of survival rates do you get and what are you doing to increase the fish's chances? Ken mentioned drip aclimating and using products like selcon or garlic. I haven't been using a dietary supplement, but my doomed fish have always been eating, active and healthy looking (except for the one clown with the growth). They seem to take a turn for the worse within one or two days when they die. They won't eat one day (usually around a week in), then they're dead sometime over the next two days.

The two fish that did survive through QT are thriving and have been happy as can be in my DT for many weeks now, so it's not like I can't keep saltwater fish alive...

What do you have for flow & such in your QT tank?

Ken

Qt set up should be around a 20g tank with a heater, airstone and pvc hidding places. I have found that the most important thing with QT to prevent healthy fish from dying, is that you have to do a 40%-50% water change every two to three days, no exceptions. This is because that is the only way I have found to keep ammonia and nitrate levels down low enough so that it doesn't spike causing the fish in QT to die.

That's is a sign of something else.. like cyanide. All cyanide caught fish display those types of symptoms. Sudden loss of appetite, and then the next day they perish. Usually when fish don't want to eat, they are sick. But when a fish dies within a day or two, it must be cyanide (unless there are visible signs of distress).

Definatly a possibility of Cyanide caught fish. Hawaii fish are really bad for it, also possibility of copper in the system, we found Angels don't like that.

Ken

Cyanide caught from Hawaii, really?? I would have thought (hoped?) Hawaii is the least likely place to find that. I'm very disheartened to hear that it could be going on there.

My QT is a 29g tank with a heater, korallia 1, one of those sponge filters that you hook an air hose too (provides the bubbling) and a bunch of PVC elbows and such. There shouldn't be any copper in the system, the tank itself is used, but I know the guy who used it and it was just used for goldfish, everything else in the tank is new. I've been wondering about the cyanide thing, as the fish have never really looked sick prior to death.

I actually dropped a supplier out there when all the Flame Angels dropped 72 hours after arrival here. My agent no longer uses this company either, as it happened to other LFS also.

Some divers just want to harvest the fish the easiest and most economical way.

Ken

cyanide! Thats too bad they are also doing it in Hawaii. Never would have thought that.