A good reason to Quarantine your new arrivals.

[RocketSeason]

Hello all,

Well here is my story. I bought a Beautiful Coral Beauty Angel on Wednesday and brought him home. I was not exactly prepared for the new arrival so I did not have a quarantine tank setup and ready to go. So I drip aclimated him in the proper way for about 2 hours and then added him to the tank.

My Clowns were both scared and at the same time very curious. It was very cute watching them try and decide what to do about the new intruder. My purple firefish hid in her hole for about a 15 minutes till she decided it was alright and my Coral Banded Shrimp decided right away that he did not like this new intruder at all. The CBS started to kinda chase him around the tank. There was nothing I could do, so I just decided to wait it out and see if he would calm down.

I arrived home from work the next day to find my CBS still being extremely aggressive toward the new arrival. Also the Coral Beauty Angel had developed 3 white specks on its right side.

EEP! is Ick?, Velvet?, a fungus? an injury? All I knew was that I needed to get him out of there and fast. I went out and bought a 10 gallon tank, a powerhead and sponge sleeve, a small heater, and a piece of PVC pipe along with some medication.

The Coral Beauty is now much more relaxed. He can peacefully explore and learn about his new life as an aquarium inhabitant, He can learn what Formula 1 and 2 is and how its yummy and good and something he needs to eat. (fingers crossed.) and I am treating him the best I know how. (as soon as I get a pick of the spots I will post them in the sick fish forum. All I know is that I am sure its not ick.)

The good news is that I had an excuse to upgrade my display tanks powerhead from a maxi-jet 400 to a maxi-jet 1200. The 400 is now in the QT, and hopefully has enough beneficial bacteria on it to do some good. Also, The heater I got can be used with my old powerhead in the future to properly cure live Rock and age water.

So anyways, the moral of this story is do it right the first time. Save yourself and your fish alot of stress.

here is a good article on setting up a quarantine Tank: http://www.aquariumadvice.com/showquestion.php?faq=2&fldAuto=17

 

[ellisz]

Watch your other fish. If any of the ich got in the tank, the other fish will get sick too. You might get lucky though.

 

[RocketSeason]

I am pretty sure its not ich. The spots are to large. Plus no more spots have developed in the 2 days I have had him. Usually Ich will come on strong real fast. I have seen ich. (oh boy have I seen it.) And I am very sure this is not it.

That being said, I am keeping a close eye on my fish.

 

[Phyl]

Funny (or not so much) how once you've seen ich IRL there's no mistaking it... Glad to hear that you don't believe it is ich. That's just no fun to watch them suffer through.

 

[quarryshark]

Alright bro! Keeping my fingers crossed for you.
Kudos for a good move!!

 

[AndySmithers]

But then again... to "play" the other side of the argument (which will probably be raging as long as humans keep aquaria)....

I too introduced a Coral Beauty into my 90 a couple of months ago.
Inhabitants before her were - Yellow Tang, mated pair of clowns, lawnmower blenny, pair (yes a "pair") of Royal grammas and a single blue-green chromis. I never quarantine, never have for all the fish and coral aquisitions ever put into my 2 year old reef.
Within about 2 hours the CB was swimming happily (all the others "checked her out" and decided she wasn't a threat) and eating. Yes, shw was eating hungrily and happily in 2 hours after a 2 hour drip acclimation. Exactly the same happened when I introduced the blenny (6 months ago) and the Royal Grammas, (10 months ago).

The alternative argument which I subscribe to is:
1) All tanks contain most of the parasites and viruses anyway. The best bet is to keep the water quality and stress level low enough to keep the fishes own immune system healthy rather than try in vain to keep the bad critters out in the first place.
2) Quarantining introduces a double stress. Take a transported fish and put it in a QT, let it get "used to it" and then dump it again into a different environment, starting again on the stress..

That's my 2c worth, I've heard not Quarantining described as crossing the road without looking - you will get away with it many times but eventually... Sorry I just don't buy that, I think a better analogy is not having the flu shot each year...

I guess my point is that there is no "right way" and no "wrong way" to do this hobby, you find what works by gentle experimentation and build on that.

ANdy.

 

[quarryshark]

The alternative argument which I subscribe to is:
1) All tanks contain most of the parasites and viruses anyway. The best bet is to keep the water quality and stress level low enough to keep the fishes own immune system healthy rather than try in vain to keep the bad critters out in the first place.
2) Quarantining introduces a double stress. Take a transported fish and put it in a QT, let it get "used to it" and then dump it again into a different environment, starting again on the stress..
That's my 2c worth, I've heard not Quarantining described as crossing the road without looking - you will get away with it many times but eventually... Sorry I just don't buy that, I think a better analogy is not having the flu shot each year...
I guess my point is that there is no "right way" and no "wrong way" to do this hobby, you find what works by gentle experimentation and build on that.

Could not disagree more. This is easy to say until one gets hit with an outbreak.
Why sacrafice the animals already in a system by not using such a simple step that will ensure that you don't have a problem? Sorry, there is a right way and there are quite a few that have come through here that were not as lucky.

 

[scuba_steve]

i agree andy but imo the biggest issue is to buy good live stock! i dont qt and have not had ich at all! i have added fish that were scratching no spots visible:-/ but i do add startright into the bags as i drip any fish! but the itching stopped with good water and food mabe the startright who knows
also i feel that many are told to qt and dont have a clue as to how or what to be looking for ect.. and kill more fish than if they would have just added the fish to the main(which might die anyway due to they are clueless on fish keeping)

as for rocket goes my thoughts are this!
fish was caught at the lf=less slimecoat
fish was chased around by tank mates and by rocket to put into qt=less slimecoat
then will be caught again to be put into the main=less slimecoat

when does he get a break???

i had a cb that had the same issues! the patches were gone in 2 days

 

[fishfreek]

The first time you have to tear your fully established and well balanced reef tank apart in an effort to nab a new arrival that is suffering from a 'sleeper' disease or parasite will the the day you come around to us conservitive aquarists.

QTing is a way to closly watch an inhabitant that you at best had a chance to observe for an hour in the LFS for a period of a few weeks. Any sleeper diseases will most likly crop up in that time frame.

 

[scuba_steve]

The first time you have to tear your fully established and well balanced reef tank apart in an effort to nab a new arrival that is suffering from a 'sleeper' disease or parasite will the the day you come around to us conservative aquarists.


my thoughts on this

been 10 years lucky i guess

if this happened alot you would think that many petshops would go under due to losing so much livestock! or would qt themselves?

mabe im lost¿?¿ but never seen a tank crash first hand but my point was to pick good quality live stock for starters and two i dont think qt is right for everyone some cant keep a 55 gallon water parameters right let alone a 10 gallon :-/

 

[fishfreek]

Most LFS's sell their fish before they have a chance to die. Somewhat of a negitive outlook but its true. Im not sure on what the average turnover time is for a fish in the LFS but I would venture a guess its less than the 3-4 weeks a suggested QT period is.

I have yet to find a published aquarists/author dispute the benifits of quarinteen.

 

[RocketSeason]

I love that fish on your avaitar. what was it called? something...hawkfish. I saw one at the pet store when I got my angel. very cool fish. I may want to get one final fish for my system. Originally it was going to be a royal gramma, but I think I may want to go with something a bit more exotic.

 

[fishfreek]

http://www.aquariumadvice.com/viewtopic.php?t=46493

Common Name - Arc Eye Hawkfish

 

[reefrunner69]

if this happened alot you would think that many petshops would go under due to losing so much livestock!

The mark up on livestock in petshops is 200-400% due to the loss factor, when I worked at an LFS it was not uncommon to lose 25-30% of a shipment within the first few days and we went and picked them up, transported for no more than hour or two, I can only imagine how bad it is for people that have to have their livestock flown in.

or would qt themselves?

It is becoming more and more common from my experience, but the simple fact of the matter is, an lfs depends on turnover, they get rid of the stock before they become symptomatic.

 

[MT79]

Moral of the story- QT your new arrivals, and CB shrimp cause more problems than they are worth- have you seen those claws!!!

 

[quarryshark]

It is becoming more and more common from my experience, but the simple fact of the matter is, an lfs depends on turnover, they get rid of the stock before they become symptomatic.

This and they take other measures such as keeping a level of copper in their fish systems.

 

[RocketSeason]

Please visit the thread I just posted in the sick fish forum showing a pic of the Angel with White specs.

http://www.aquariumadvice.com/viewtopic.php?p=369699#369699

thanks!

-Matt

 

[steve-s]

1) All tanks contain most of the parasites and viruses anyway.

Complete and utter nonsense.

The best bet is to keep the water quality and stress level low enough to keep the fishes own immune system healthy rather than try in vain to keep the bad critters out in the first place.

Backwards thinking. A healthy well maintained sytem is a must but it will have no affect on the presence of a parasite.

2) Quarantining introduces a double stress. Take a transported fish and put it in a QT, let it get "used to it" and then dump it again into a different environment, starting again on the stress..

Again, backwards thinking. A properly set up and cycled QT would be no stress at all. In fact it is proven more times than not when QT'ing new arrivals the "alone time" actually reduces stress and allows the fishs' immune system to gain strength before it's introduced to the community.

I guess my point is that there is no "right way" and no "wrong way" to do this hobby

In some regards your correct but not this one. There's hobbiest experiences and proven scientific fact. One is most definately on your side, the other is not

Cheers
Steve

 

[AndySmithers]

1) All tanks contain most of the parasites and viruses anyway.

Complete and utter nonsense.

I'll admit that my statement is based on very little science, how about yours?
Do you have proof of this statement?

(Don't want to argue for the sake of it, I'm genuinely interested in this topic).

Andy.

 

[steve-s]

I'll admit that my statement is based on very little science, how about yours?
Do you have proof of this statement?

I hope you enjoy reading

Cheers
Steve