I've heard when buying new fish, quarantining helps prevent disease outbreaks. Should sensitive fish such as neon tetras and kuhli loaches be quarantined? This confuses me since it's generally recommended to add them to a well established aquarium.

my opinion is its optional. It can help you notice if the fish is infected. I would have a tank handy just in case the fish gets bullied and injured or sick. medication can be put in the quarantine tank too which is a plus cuz it wont harm your prized display.

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36 Gallon Saltwater reef tank
Ocellaris Clown, Scooter Dragonet, sandsifter star, Decorator crab, emerald crab, coralline snails, blue leg hermit crab, and horseshoe crab.
Zooad's and shrooms
40 pounds of Live sand, 20 pounds of LR

I personally do not use one but i know a lot of people do. if you have the space and want to have one i dont see a reason why not ... maybe just one you can set up when you need it and take it down when you dont. it wouldnt be a bad idea

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Tank
125g african cichlids making it work
75g rimless Reef in progress

IME most quarantines do more harm than good. Stess causes illness. The presence of pathogens alone does not. Very few pathogens can infect healthy, unstressed fish. So not only does the pathogen have to be present (which is always the case, no matter what quarantine you do) but they have to be stressed. Most quarantine tanks are a bare, smaller tank that is quickly setup for new fish. The water quality is bad, the decor is far less than ideal, and overall this does a lot more harm than good. In addition, a true quarantine is much longer than the laughable two weeks most people do. A true quarantine is usually 90 days or more AFTER any signs of anything have gone away. This is simply beyond the scope of almost any aquarist.

IME if you buy healthy fish and put them directly in to a display that has high quality food and water you will very rarely have to deal with any illnesses.

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Biologist-Professional Aquarium Care-Published Author (Aquarium Fish International Magazine)

Stocking has NOTHING to do with tank volume, it is all about water changes.

Thanks, I don't think I could set up a good quarantine tank so I'll just have to be careful to buy healthy fish.

I've found a quarantine tank is great for many things:
1. Allows you to add fish without fear of newcomers being picked on by the main host
2. Prevents potentially diseased fish from infecting the main tank
3. Allows the fish to get used to your water conditions, feeding times, lighting cycles, etc. in relative quietude
4. Minimizes losses if infection does manifest itself (speaking from experience)
5. Allows effective medication without harming any organisms in the main tank like plants, invertebrates, labyrinth organ fishes, etc.
6. Great to have a spare tank as a refugee home in case of a cataclysmic main tank crash
7. Can be converted into its own tank when you're done establishing your main tank.

Just my opinion on the matter. By no means the Seven Commandments of QT Keeping

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Officially fishless until after the move....tune in later for details!

I would like to use a quarantine tank for inverts and plants/coral so you can make sure there isnt any hitchhikers. Some would cure live rock in their quarantine tanks while housing fish they need to supervise which can also eat unwanted crab or shrimp. But If its just a fish you are introducing I wouldn't worry about it because I agree it will stress them out due to the water being less stable and the goal is to keep the least amount of stress on the fish.

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36 Gallon Saltwater reef tank
Ocellaris Clown, Scooter Dragonet, sandsifter star, Decorator crab, emerald crab, coralline snails, blue leg hermit crab, and horseshoe crab.
Zooad's and shrooms
40 pounds of Live sand, 20 pounds of LR

you can have an QT tank that is established...

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"Being ignorant is not so much a Shame, as being unwilling to learn".-- Benjamin Franklin

you can always just have an extra filter on an established tank and then when you need to qt set up a new tank and put the extra filter on it so it is the bacteria and good to go but then you dont have to have it set up when you dont need it. i think bev does this

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Tank
125g african cichlids making it work
75g rimless Reef in progress

You shouldn't have to treat ich at all. IME that is number one for being fixed by removing the stressor. I bought fish that I knew had ich at the shop and added them directly to my display. Not only did no other fish get sick because they weren't stressed, but the fish that had it got over it on their own because the setup didn't stress them out at all. If I had crammed them in to a smaller tank that wasn't ready for their bioload, dumped some chemical medications in there, etc. I can almost guarantee I would have made things worse for them and lost them.

Internal parasites can go for a lot longer than months without showing up. Without stress fish can have them for years without showing a sign. Almost every fish in the wild lives out its life with some sort of internal parasite (or a few types).

And no, most people don't have their QT running with fish and decor so they are not 'generally kept established'. Yours are and that is good, but that is not how most people do it.

Again, a 2-4 week quarantine is a joke. If you are going to do it either do it right or don't fool yourself.

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Biologist-Professional Aquarium Care-Published Author (Aquarium Fish International Magazine)

Stocking has NOTHING to do with tank volume, it is all about water changes.

I think your idea of a qt is a little extreme. I would not even consider getting fish with ich, much less add them to my tank, but that is on you if you wanted to go that way. It doesn't matter the situation, it only makes sense if you don't really care about what you already have in your tank.

I can agree with most of the other things you say, but not all. If you are getting fish directly from a breeder, then I would agree that you are "possibly" streesing the fish out by placing in a qt. However, most people get fish from a store and there is no way of knowing what that fish has been through before you get it. Even if, you are there when they arrive from the breeder. Fish can "look" healthy very easily.

As stated the fish in the display would only get ich if they are already stressed. If they are not stressed they WILL NOT get ich simply because a newly added fish has or develops it.

As stated very few pathogens can infect healthy, unstressed fish. These pathogens are rare. By preventing stress you will prevent almost all diseases you would have otherwise encountered.

I am not saying that people shouldn't quarantine. I am saying that the way most people do it is causing more harm than good. They should not fool themselves into thinking that cramming newly acquired fish into a small, uncycled tank with minimal to no decor for a week or two is beneficial in any way. The fish will do better if added directly to the display since it will be less stressful. It is better decorated, cycled and ready for the fish, has higher water quality, etc. All of these make it a better home for any fish.

Here is the article I wrote on this subject: Why Quarantine Usually Causes More Harm than it Prevents

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Biologist-Professional Aquarium Care-Published Author (Aquarium Fish International Magazine)

Stocking has NOTHING to do with tank volume, it is all about water changes.

Thanks for re-"stating", but I did read what you wrote. Still think your ideas are a tad extreme and believe you make a whole lot of assumptions about whomever may be running a qt tank.

Like I said, I still think it has a lot to do with the value of the fish you have in the display tank.

You wouldn't catch anyone putting a ich infested fish in a prized Discus tank. And last I looked, true for all animals, fish, etc... you can't see stress. I know pathogens exist in all tanks and only affect fish if stressed or unhealthy. That is everywhere on the interent and in any book you read. Also, it is not difficult to keep a qt tank cycled and established once you get it there. All you need to do is add a few drops of ammonia every few days.

I guess I just have a much different idea of how a qt is.

You may, but most don't. And that is the problem. The QT I describe is the epitome of everything someone can do wrong with one. It doesn't mean that anyone with a QT is doing all of these things that badly.

Yes, obviously what the DT is will affect the need for a QT. I agree, most people would not dump sick fish in a tank of discus (neither would I or recommend it), but they are likely to know how to quarantine properly.

No. Just because a fish had ich in the same tank doesn't mean any other fish in the tank is likely to get it. Again, they would have to be stressed in order to become infected.

The whole point of all of this is to focus on what makes a difference. People promote quarantine but never specify the necessities of it. Duration, setup, etc. are rarely even mentioned, you just see 'quarantine is good' over and over. The article and my point is to demonstrate what can easily go wrong with this mindset. If you are going to quarantine (which in general is a good idea, just rarely performed properly) you need to do it right so that it causes no more stress than the display would have. Otherwise don't waste your time and kill fish in the process.

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Biologist-Professional Aquarium Care-Published Author (Aquarium Fish International Magazine)

Stocking has NOTHING to do with tank volume, it is all about water changes.

I can agree with all of that I think. I didn't read the article, but maybe the focus should be on how to properly run one.

When I was using a qt, it was a 20g setup about like most basic aqauriums would be with gravel and some decorations - mostly fake plants. As basic as it was, I felt compared to what the fish had to go through with packaging and shipment to my local fish store, being placed in a small overcrowded tank, having the net come in and chase the fish 3-4 times a hour, etc... after all that, I was sure that my qt was much less stress and a step back to what would be considered good for the fish. Generally speaking....this is how I would feel it would be for most QTs out there (could be wrong). That is the only reason I was saying that your view was slightly extreme. Because no matter how basic or whatever a QT was, it had to be a step in the right direction given from where/what they had to have already been through.

The article explains it better, that is why I linked to it.

Not really. In my experience it is very clear that stress is the problem. Avoid it and you avoid problems. Very rarely is a quarantine less stress than the fish going straight to the display.

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Biologist-Professional Aquarium Care-Published Author (Aquarium Fish International Magazine)

Stocking has NOTHING to do with tank volume, it is all about water changes.