Quarantine question?

[ponokareefer]

Originally Posted by burtonpj48

Hello Everyone!!

I have a question regards to quarantine procedures. When do you take the fish out from the display, for example treating itch. Do you let the fish try and fight it, on its own. The second you see itch, do u already remove the fish from the display. My concern is if i let it fight it, other fish may catch it. Would like to know what other peoples opinion regards to the matter. Thanks.

If one fish is showing signs of the ich growing on it, it is in the system, and it's a question of whether or not your other fish's immune systems will be able to fight it off or not. If it is already in your display tank, the stress from removing it from there may be enough to kill it, and stress the rest of your fish to the point where they get it as well. Good quality food, such as frozen mysis, soaked in garlic, can help. As far as engineer goby's eating ich, I have 3 in my system, and never seen any signs of them "cleaning" any fish. I have a neon goby that is constantly cleaning the fish, and a pair of cleaner shrimp that do it on occasion as well. When I used to have a regal tang, it went through the 6 week cycle of getting ich, and then it dropping off, before getting it again. It never had more than a few spots that the cleaner shrimp and neon goby would eat off, and always appeared to be happy, even with the ich on it. None of my other fish got ich, even though the regal tang did. I now quarantine all my fish for a minimum of 4 weeks, and have not had ich in my system since last May, when I had a tank crash.

Originally Posted by the marine apprentice

ive read a few times that the engineer goby eats ich. am i mis informed? or do they really eat it? i have never had an issue with ich in my tanks, my regal had it for a very short time and was gone in a few days and never returned and i have an engineer goby in my tank

I have read this also but the neon gobie is suposto be a better choice as it is a natural cleaner. Yes they eat theick and not just pick it off like shrimp some times do. I like the neon gobie as they add more color than the engineer gobie dose. White stripe veres a neon blue stripe both are nice fish and you can have a group of them but add as all at the same time.

Bill