Quarantine Time?
 

Question: How long do you think is reasonable for a reputable sw store to quarantine fish stock prior to sale?

I think 24 hours is enough to make sure it's not going to die from shipping. Any further quarantine should be the responsibility of the purchaser.

Could not agree more, 24 hours in store then up to the customer to take the quality time in quarantine !


Sent Via Pirate Ship.......

Agreed. LFS should not be able to quarantine fish for any extended time economically. Fish need to be in and out fairly quick in order to make a decent profit on them. If the LFS is not making money off the fish they won't be in business long. Some fish will take shipping stress for longer, like Wrasses. Generally, I like to buy a fish within 24-48 hours of it arriving at the store so it can be acclimated to my quarantine tank before it breaks out in disease if it is going to. I find if the fish has been in quarantine for a few days before medicating the outcome is usually better. If longer than 24-48 hours, then I think it's better to wait 7-10 days to wait until the fish is feeding well and acclimated to the store water before moving it again and re-acclimating it to your own water.

A lot of US stores are quarantining their fish for days and weeks now. The most famous one is of course diver's den. They not only quarantine their fish for a minimum of 2 weeks, they even train the fish on prepared foods. Of course their fish price is usually higher than the stores that don't do quarantine. 2weeks may not be enough to allow time for some disease to show up, but it's better than nothing. I personally would buy fish that have been quarantined and eat prepared foods for a higher price.
This practice requires a big facility and knowledge and sound business strategy. Not many Canadian fish stores have those requirements, at least the first 2.

Actually, it's not. It's worse than nothing, because you're paying more for a fish that should still go into a 6 week quarantine when you buy it. I would never add a fish to my tank after 2 weeks of being in a Q tank. Oh, sorry, I did that once, it killed all my fish 3 weeks later :)

Unless a store has a completely separate system setup for each shipment over a 6 week period, it's pointless. If they do have that, a clownfish is going to cost about $400!! lol
I'd still prefer my fish at 24 hours. Unless I QT it myself, I don't consider it safe, so if the store isn't going to quarantine, and I mean really quarantine for 6 weeks, I'm not paying more for it.

2 weeks are good for some diseases, like velvet. Of course it's not good for marine ich.
I personally would still suggest QT fish on your own no matter where the fish come from, be it DD or else.

Velvet, I believe, is 42 days minimum. 2 weeks is the same as 2 hours as far as confidence of health goes. I know once you have velvet in the tank, it's suggested that you leave it for 8 weeks.
The fish that brought velvet into my tank was fine for almost 4 weeks before it showed signs. Then it killed everything. Having gone through the loss of all my fish, 2 weeks is meaningless. A nice gesture, sure, but in no way does it give any confidence.

The deal on velvet...

"Because of its lifecycle, a general recommendation has been to quarantine new acquisitions for 20 days to avoid introducing the disease (Noga, 2000 and Trevor-Jones, 2004), but I would urge most hobbyists to isolate them for a full month, with six weeks being optimal, for a number of reasons. The first reason is for uniformity. Because it will take at least a month to known if your new acquisition is free of Cryptocaryon irritans, it is better to simply get used to a long period of quarantine. Second, the signs of this infection are not obvious and, in my opinion, most aquarists can easily miss them. A full month or more of quarantine should give you enough time to notice the infestation, or, if you don't pick up on the signs, the fish will likely be dead by the end of the quarantine period."

from http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-0...ture/index.php

I guess for me, after having lost all my fish, nothing goes into my tank without full QT. So if a store does 2 weeks, that's meaningless, and I wouldn't buy the fish if it cost more because of the 2 weeks. (As I said, the fish that wiped out my tank was in it's own tank for 2 weeks before I bought it).
If the store can QT it for 6 weeks with no new additions, no water transfer (using separate gear on all contact),then I may consider paying a bit more, but probably not enough to offset the costs the LFS will incur performing this. Therefore, give me a good price on a one day old fish, I'll QT at home and take my chances.
I think a 2 week period just lulls people into a false sense of doing the right thing, and only marginally, if at all, prevent disease.

I don't even ask if the LFS has done any QT measures. I figure QT will be my responsibility ... and I implement 8 weeks rather than the usual 4 or 6 that I hear about. I added the additional 2 weeks after I lost almost everything 6 years ago from a combined velvet/ich outbreak (my fault for not quarantining properly) ... and damn, that combined outbreak hit hard :cry:

For me, if the LFS does some QT, that, in itself, would not raise the price I would pay. But, if the fish still looked in great condition after say 2 weeks (QT or not), I have more confidence in it surviving in my care, and have paid a slight premium for that assurance.

I don't quarantine my new additions. Mind you, I only buy fish from LFS that have been in their tanks for at least 2 mos. I never buy newly arrived fish.
So far, been pretty lucky. Only times I lose a new fish is if my Sohal or Dottyback didn't like them.

Not sure where you shop, but any nice fish I'm interested in wouldn't last 2 days at the store without someone buying it, never mind 2 months -lol

Assuming though that the fish I wanted was in the store for 2 months, the store gets new shipments every week or two, so new fish are going in with it all the time. I'd prefer not to have that happen, it's stressful for the fish, and increases the chance of disease.
I was also lucky for years, and was very vocal against QT, until I was out $2,000 in fish from my luck running out :(

The 2 weeks is not necessary by any means, however, getting them to eat prepared foods before someone buys them is a GREAT thing!!! I just purchased a Copperband and the store trained it to eat Mysis before selling it to me. Much better than buying one, not having it eat, and die.

My Copperband is huge, healthy and eating everything. Even flakes. I couldn't ask for a better job on getting the fish to eat. And it still only cost me $40. Paid a little more because it is a HUGE CB.

The reason I asked the question is that understand some stores that have the fish arrive today/tonight after their long journey from overseas, acclimatize them to their (sometimes low SG) tanks, leave them in darkness overnight, and sell them the next day. Unfortunately my experience with this is not positive. I can understand the need to have cash flow, but I find that approach borderline cruel and imagine losses are high.

But maybe they all do that with a few exceptions like the old Red Coral in Lethbridge. They used to hold the fish for me for a week.

My experience has been pretty great with this approach. I think how the store acclimates is more important. That said, my LFS will hold a fish for me, but it's in a smaller display tank with who knows what else for fish. Depending on species, I'd even prefer to take the bag home.
I've often helped unpack orders, and when I go back the next day, almost 100% of the fish I unpacked are fine and swimming around, most eating. Far from cruel and no losses, other than the occasional and expected death.
I have seen other store owners just dump the bag into the display, and that results in very high losses, but the store I deal with, and I'm pretty sure the others in town here, all take a lot of time and care acclimating new fish.

alot of places will hold a fish for you their holding it anyways untill itos bought arnt they??


i personally find fish a risky gamble to a hard earned reef, i prefer fish the minute they arrive.

the only benefit i could see would be to those with no experience or new to the hobby, experienced reefers often have their own techniques and routines they go through...and they dont always match the lfs qt.

i know i rather train fish on to foods my self same with treat for any diseases or parasites.


fish actually ship quite well as most suppliers know what they are doing or they wouldnt be in the supply game , its what happens at the store that stresses these guys out.....crowds,hands,lights,water change...etc etc etc.

I always check out the fish at the LFS and it's tankmates. If I see any other fish in the tank that look sick, I pass on the fish I'm interested in. Most tanks at LFS probably have ich in them, that's why there's copper in most of their tanks. My philosophy is that if the fish has been in the tank a couple of months and is healthy, it's ummune system is strong enough to suppress the ich.
Velvet however, I've been fortunate enough to have never experienced.
That's why I only add 1 or 2 fish a year.

Me too. #2 for the year wiped out my tank. lost a dozen expensive fish, that also needed to be replaced, figure total cost around 2g. Now I QT any fish going in for 6 weeks and treat with CP. No exceptions.

CP ?

Qu'est-ce que c'est ?

Chloroquine phosphate...

Ahhhhh
Thank you

Is that the super costly stuff you had to ship in ?

Yup. Not too costly in bulk, and I've sold enough to make my money back, so all's good.

I'm a convert to Chloroquine as well ... all new purchases go through a 3 week treatment at our place. Our medicine source is London Drugs, we have our vet simply write out a prescription for 250 mg tablets. I don't recall being floored by the resulting price. The LD system has the prescription made out to "Nemo" :biggrin:

In any case, good insurance against losing a new purchase.

As Aralen, you've got to calculate for the filler vs. active ingredient. In a smaller tank ,you can get away with prescription pills, but for larger or more frequent, it can get expensive. Buing locally, a 50g jar was around $350, or somewhere close to that.
50g is a lot though, more than most people should need.

Wow!! That is a lot of medicine ... for the tablets we got (Teva), the amount of the active ingredient itself is 250 mg (actual tablet weighs about 750 mg, so 2/3 is filler).

I didn't know you could source it locally like that ... good to know.

I don't think Brad sourced it locally ...

Hard to find, but with a script, you can buy it bulk through a compounding pharmacy, but if you needed some, you could buy it from me :) I have a little left. PM me if you're interested.

oh brad tsk tsk dealing pharmaceuticals on a public forumn....dude your supposed to pay people to do that stuff for ya geesh:P

And using a Moderator name to boot .... Holee :mrgreen:

I tried to find this and could not.

Hard, no...very hard stuff to find.

I found it pretty easy to find, just not at a price I was willing to pay :) First compounding pharmacy I asked could get it. The regular pharmacy also has it in the form of tablets under the brand Aralen. For medical grade though, you do need a prescription. Lab grade, you do not. The purity difference is negligible.

I can't even see a doctor for my own prescription so never mind getting a prescription for a med that will be used to treat a fish.

Last time I had to renew a prescription, I had to wait 8 hours at the emergency clinic and fight with the stupid doctor to get the prescription for a simple nasal stuff for allergy that I have been using for years. She told me that they don't renew prescription and that I had to see my family doctor..don't have one of course (can't find one of those rare breed).

go figure.

The vet? they won't give any prescription unless they see the animal, no exception. They don't give a prescription for anything exotic.

I originally got a prescription from the vet after he checked the fish postmortem..

Obviously, bringing a fish in for an office visit isn't feasible :wink:

I'm not sure if this option would be viable in your case, but it might be worth checking out any vets associated with a local zoo or public aquarium. If they also have a private pet practice, they could be more receptive to the needs of hobbyist's aquariums.