My opinion is still the same. I did lose a blenny a few years ago and noticed he had a few spots, but that's all I've ever seen in this tank. However, now the tank is 5 years old, I think twice about adding new fish at all - if I put one in with a disease now, it'd be a disaster. So while I still think most people shouldn't quarantine and that the risks are much lower than some people will have you believe, I'm not saying you should be blasé about it 🙂
@@ReefDork yh that makes sense lol, i just ordered a TMC UV sterilzer for the tank and a new TMC 2000 to power it hopefully i can get it in the cabinet lmao
I started off without quarantine but eventually lost 5 out of 8 fish to ich. I now quarantine all fish with copper power. I don't want to take chances anymore. It isn't that hard or expensive and totally worth it IMO. I know a lot of people don't like to quarantine though. Thanks for the video. I always enjoy your content.
I qt 3 weeks of copper treatment with full water changes every 3 to 4 day then 2 or 3 weeks in Prazi Pro with full water changes just like the copper treatment
I didn’t quarantine the first few fish I added, nor did I quarantine the inverts. All was well for several months. Then I added a new fish and a single snail from my LFS who claims they don’t sell sick fish and keep them in a degree of hypo salinity. Silly me by trusting them and dropping the fish in my tank. Within days they all had flukes and then velvet. In less than a week all my fish were dead. I tried saving my DT but the meds failed and also seriously harmed some of my corals. Now my tank has to remain fallow for 2.5 months. Lesson: Invest in a QT and meds. Risking your DT just isn’t worth it.
I have a fresh water tank with Ram Cichlids and never quarantine fish for all the reasons you mentioned. Quarantining fish does not guarantee anything.
Not sure i really agree with a lot of this TBH, QT tank are small, cheap and can be set up and packed away when needed so maintenance is minimal (not sure how often folks are adding fish, but assume its not monthly). Couple of extra plastic tubs which you can throw into the garage is hardly a deal breaker for most. I get the stress argument, and its a valid one, and agree re treatments (i visually QT for a month so no copper etc) but the risk of losing my entire display tank, animals i've grown to love outweighs the downsides. Can assume you've never experienced a tank collapse, hope that continues but perhaps opinions would change if you suffered one.
I used to agree with you… buy healthy fish from trusted sources, and you’ll be okay. Until… I bought the last fish in my stocking plan, and introduced it to the tank. Every fish in the tank came from the same LFS. The fish was super healthy looking, ate well, got along with everyone instantly, etc. things were great for the first week… Enter marine velvet… One by one my fish died, while I tried my best to save them. Needless to say, I had a fallow tank very shortly after. Imagine losing your entire fish stocking plan… because of one fish!!! Now… if I lose a fish to quarantine, so be it. One fish vs all fish… That’s the risk you take. I will forever quarantine fish, inverts, corals, etc. No more losses for me, because I’m cheap and lazy. It’s bad to lose a $100 fish in quarantine, but much worse to lose a few grand in fish due to no quarantine. I literally keep a tank set up and running in my office, without any livestock. It does have a sand bed, filter, heater, etc. I ghost feed it to keep the cycle. An empty tank isn’t the most fun to look at, but neither is an empty display tank. Plus when I get a new fish, it’s stocked for 3 months. 😁 I’m not a fan of an empty bare bottom tank with fresh saltwater for quarantine. I think if you’re setting up and tearing down a quarantine tank each time, you should fill it with water from the display tank and have a brick or something marinating in the display to move to the QT. A fresh non-cycled tank seems like asking for disaster to me.
Its amzaing that you have so many fish and dont qt! I am not sure i quite understand how besides uv? I cant seem to keep fish. They always die for some reson or another. Last week I got two fish in and the watchman goby disappered for 2 weeks almost. Day before yesterday he aome out looking really bad but I figured he must have been eatting bristle worms or something but I guess not because yesterday I found him dead inside the return nozzle on my 20 nuvo aio. i guess my royal gramma scared him into starving to death, because when he came out she was after him! He swam off so fast I couldnt feed him! Funny thing was the first few days in he seemd fine and was perched on frag rack out in the open. Now I want to add about 3 more fish but scared. The place I ordered from sent me 3 dead ones and 2 I ordered didint pass their inspection. Their so damn cheap though and I id get my money back.
My new favorite reefer. I also don’t quarantine, I have a very prestigious coral shop in my area and only shop with them, period. Imported fish and coral sit in the NFS section for 60 days before it gets put for sale.
I have kept reef and marine fish only tanks for 20 years. I have tried many variations of quarantine holding tanks over those years…some with live rock, high quality water, already cycled tanks, copper, lower salinity, QT community fish and the list goes on. Still, the death rate had been high and had not improved in any of my QT setups. I found this especially frustrating and demoralizing because I’m a veterinarian. In the last year, I have stopped using QT. Also, I no longer shop for fish off the internet. I use use only local fish shops that have healthy eating fish that have been held for at least two weeks. I NEVER buy a fish with thin body condition. In addition, I will rehome healthy looking fish from people leaving the hobby. Thus, I concur with all the points in this video. My new and existing fish death rates have decreased to near zero now. I think your video was well done, but initially had a poorly chosen title..which you wisely changed, later.
I want to repeat my earlier comment as I didn't stress it enough. As a reefkeeper with over two decades experience I WHOLE HEARTEDLY AGREE with the OP. He's experienced and competent. If I was propagating corals I would quarantine. Otherwise I do not.
I haven't kept freshies for many years but my understanding is that it's much easier to treat them in-tank so QT isn't necessary. But I know very little about that side of the hobby so fact check that!
Here's how I QT, and have never lost any of the 10 fish I've added with this process. Keep extra bio media seeded in the fuge or filter. Set up hospital QT with this media in an HOB filter, and use tank water to fill. Add heater and circulation pump with PVC hideouts. Once fish are added, use freshly mixed water for regular water changes (not tank water). If you're using enough seeded material, there shouldn't be Ammonia issues. Once fish is acclimated and eating, proactively medicate exactly as directed. 👍 IMO, this is less stressful on the fish than dropping straight into the DT.
@@marcelrodriguez2067 Exactly Marcel, I am also going fallow for 76 days :/ let them say that it's bad to quarantine until they lose all their fishes in 2 days.
I personally don't think I'll be quarantining when it comes time to get some fish, mainly for a few reasons: 1: I only have a small 20 gallon, and don't plan on having more than 3-4 fish at a time. 2: all the fish I've picked out (clownfish, jester goby, shrimp goby, green banded goby) are avaliable captive bred, and can be shipped out from an already clean, quarantined environment. 3: I don't have the space or extra budget for a quarantine tank 4: all the other reasons listed in your video
Some extra stress, potentially sure...but many would say that the short-term stress is better than mass die-off in a display tank with no sterilizer and many fish.
I have been in the hobby for ~30 years; never had a quarantine tank and never had any sick fish ever. I run 2 UV lights 24/7, water change every week, extreme filtering(6 filters on 500L tank), heavily planted/co2(Freshwater) I walk out if I see poorly maintained tanks at LFS.... maybe I was simply lucky for all these years :)
Uuuuhh freshwater is much different. I kept africans for years adding fish straight in. For one freshwater fish have a fraction of the parasites that the ocean contains. Plus freshwater fish such as cichlids are much less sensitive to bad water parameters or disease. Saltwater is a whole different beast but worth it if you can do it right and be patient
Well i have been in the hobby for only about 8 months and already had ich and velvet blow up into all 3 of my tanks, which has been 4 months of straight hell trying to get rid of it. Killed all 14 of my fish in my 150g(around $2000 worth). I DO NOT recommend anyone to buy a fish anywhere without quarantining at least 2 weeks. Thank me later.
@@ryandraper456 you had 14 fish in a tank less than 8 months old.... I think it more to do with your stocking and undeveloped tank than the disease mate..... It wasnt the lack of QT that did your fish in it was the lack of maturity on your tank the over bio load for 150 gallon tank. ICH attacks already stressed and weaker fish odds are it could be in your tank for years without you ever knowing and never taking hold. Not to say a QT tank would not have helped you here but I think husbandry may have played a larger role than you are giving it credit
I rewatched this video a few time but I have to disagree with parts of it. You do have good info from 5:10 to the end on making proper preparations. But After losing $750.00 worth of fish and having to rebuy fish an extra qt tank is nothing. My wife doesn't care for the hobby but would deal with an extra QT Tank instead of money lost to unnecessary fish death. She allows me 5 Qt tanks.... in the living room lol. only issue with QT i have is new guys don't know what to look for e.d sign that a fish has flukes or the fish has just arrived at the LFS and should remain there for a week.
Also I’d rather not call the fish keeping aspect of the “hobby a hobby” because they are family, and pets for people who love their fish Why not name a fish if you name your dog?
i used to quarantine but in 20 years of fishkeeping, I've lost maybe 2 or 3 new fish to disease outbreaks. and pretty much all of those were very early in my hobby when i had no idea what i was doing. so yeah, i think its dependent on circumstances. some people are lucky enough that qt's aren't worth the expense or fish stress
I'd rather observe a fish in QT for a few weeks than put them straight into a tank where he can possibly introduce a disease. It's not full proof but at least you have more time to observe the fish instead of gambling and throwing them in a display tank. If the fish has a disease at least it won't be in your reef tank
Hi Alex i can also sympathise with you that it can be a pain and cost more, but like some of the other comments, you are play Russian Roulette with adding fish. I myself have done this in the past while stocking my tank, added some fish from a good LFS, 2 weeks later has a white spot outbreak lost most of my fish after ripping apart the scape to catch the rest and treat the in a QT. After leaving the DT fallow for 72 days I vowed never to add fish without a QT again. Interested if you have ever have a tank wipe out due to WS, Book, Valvet etc? Thanks for taking the time to do the channel.
No, never had a wipeout thankfully. I might well feel differently if I had, but having thought about and researched this topic for years, I like to think i'd stick with my methods. It's worth noting I do get a little nervous when I add a new fish, especially now my tank is established. But then, I felt the same nerves when I took fish out of quarantine...
@@ReefDork Yesterday I would've been with you 100%, today I couldn't disagree with you more. When lights came on my reef tank my yellow tang is covered in velvet. With no qt available and no salt water made, I'm pretty much in panic mode. I know right now that I may loose most if not all my reef fish due to my lack of qt and how quickly velvet spreads, before I can even get a qt tank set up and ready to house my reef fish so my display tank can go fowl for 6 six weeks, 10 fish in all and many have been with me for almost three years now including the yellow tang. Sad to say this could've all been avoided if I just qt my new arrival that I got last week. Sadly the fish died which I thought was from shipping stress and gill damage, the fish went through acclimation alright but was dead the next morning. It showed no signs of illness, but after reading a few articles on velvet sometimes fish die before showing symptoms. lesson learned, for now on I will be quarantining my all new arrivals.
I prefer not to quarantine.. it’s very stressful on the fish, but my 5th fish I bought was a healthy eating coral beauty angel, next day it had velvet, next day everybody else had velvet, only thing that lived was my conch.. now I quarantine.. Always
Respect the info on the years of experience you’ve had on this, I don’t get why people are so spiteful and aggy in RU-vid comment sections. I will probably still QT as I have a tendency to pricey fish aha but the points raised are very valid and being new to the hobby and a fellow brit am glad I found a new source of hobby inspiration, might have to try saltwater
One reason I always QT is salinity stress. My LFS keeps their fish at 1.017, and Live Aquaria ships fish at 1.019. I keep my tank at 1.026. I always match my QT salinity to the salinity the fish was previously in so I can simply temperature acclimate and plop them in.
Its not really effective in nano tanks because many nanos are the bare minimum for the selected fish. And most people running a nano are beginners who either doesn't have the budget or will do it wrong. Also with so few fish in a nano the chances are low anyway
@@silurtenr.3309 you should probably think before you speak. I asked questions. Legit questions. Never said it wasnt a parasite did I? I just questioned the fact that the problem could have already existed in the tank. Or maybe hes getting the Velvet from the place supplying the fish hes getting. SMH
Appreciate your video I do not qt because of the space and time.... I trust my lfs and take other precautions .... And like you said this hobby is expensive as it is... But people... Do whatever makes you feel comfortable.... No 2 tanks are the same and everyone does things differently.... Live and learn
From my experience and what I’ve heard from others, I feel a lot of people don’t fully understand quarantine. Water parameters are important in the main tank as well as minimizing stress is definitely the most important thing. I had 2 fish that were in my tank for a while and had places to hide if necessary, and when more fish were added and ich broke out slightly after the established fish did not show any signs of ich and have not been affected what so ever. I feel adding fish slowly is key, as well as definitely quarantining fish that are more prone to disease such as tangs. But I feel if someone can quarantine they should, I personally haven’t. But I don’t have a massive display tank. And I feel it’s cruel so many people add copper straight away into a quarantine tank even if fish show no signs of disease, that’s just really messed up, if there’s no other alternative then yes do that. But I have had success with natural solutions as well as fresh water dips if things get worse.
I was always worried that the bare quarantine tank would stress even more,already stressed fish. Its probably a good idea to quarantine over the long haul. I mean you can make them swim in methylene blue..unlike the main tank.
Ive been hit with white spot and now QT, went 3 months fallow, fish put through copper and prazi still got white spot 😳 oh the joys of keeping marine fish!
Once they have it no turning back..my husband got a Coral Beauty last week she did have a white spot he saw it brought it home I freaked guy convinced him it’s ok Well today it died I called the place owner of the LFS said she said it did have ich but she treated it...well it came back but viciously thank god it didn’t effect my clowns
@@breewilliams2521 white Spot is writh in marine shops, many will tell you they run copper or low salinity but they are never in the right levels or doses. Just enough to keep the white spot subdued, you take the fish home and than boom, out it comes.
Darren's Marine World do you think online is better? I don’t really like the LFS stores here there’s maybe 3 that are descent majority of the tanks are dirty and fish never seem right I see a lot of people order now these days do you think they take better care of their fish etc..
@@breewilliams2521 I think they are just as bad if not worse as no one can see what they are up to. It's a gamble at least in a store you can see the fish. Once white spot is in your tank it will keep coming back. Some fish deal with it better than others. But even QT can go wrong so there's no truly fail safe way I'm afraid.
I’m very confused. The inconvenience and cost of quarantine is minimal compared to a tank wipeout. I have to say you present yourself like you are a master keeper of knowledge who knows best... you are in fact a trainee when it comes to fish, like most reefers.
Reef Dork I think you understand that the video is on a platform that people turn to, to gain knowledge and advice. The content was poor advice. You know you are playing Russian roulette by not quarantining new fish. I appreciate the follow up video... I never comment normally but felt compelled to in this case. I’ve experienced a total tank wipe out with marine velvet, all because of a £20 fish that presented as perfect before going in. Patience returns the most success in this hobby.
Friend of mine has two tanks hooked together with a pump and valve. Display is 120, other is 30 gallon. 30 has hob 110, so both tanks have same parameters but are disconnected by the valve and pump. So if the fish ends up in bad shape the 30 can be drained cleaned and doesn’t affect the display tank. If the fish does good, it’s already in the same water… and in she goes.
I've tripled my workload with a second QT. What's it for? Coral. I can quarantine fish and coral simultaneously and use any methods I need to treat infections and pests for both. It's really not that hard. Afraid of losing the bacteria? Ghost feed. Really not that hard lol you don't even need to do water changes on one of them unless you really screw up.
@@marcelrodriguez2067 - I didn't believe when I heard, but their is reef safe antibiotics and pesticides the are reef safe. Sorry I don't have the names of the product but if you look it up you will find they do exist. I've never used them, maybe reefdork should do a video / experiment on that product.
I have been reefing for over 20 years, I have never qt'd or lost a fish to disease. I know lots won't believe but I get what you are saying. I don't doubt there things like ich in my system. They don't cause any issues though.
Me too. I’ve been keeping fish for 30 years and never QT’d any fish. I select from highly trusted sources and watch the fish at the LFS including feeding until I’m satisfied. Never had an issue.
After having multiple mass die offs from introducing new fish to my tank, i'll gladly take the SMALL inconviance of a separate tank than having to medicate my entire display aquarium and losing a bunch of money
Same! I was in the hobby 5 years ago and had 4 tanks without QT and never lost any fish or had problems. I just recently got back into the hobby and decided to QT because most people rave about the importance and I assumed I just got lucky 5 years ago. Well, I have already lost 2 fish in QT. So, I realized that I am done with QT. I put the other fish that were in my QT with the 2 that died and they are fast and healthy with no signs of illness or disease 2 months later. I think you hit it on the head about picking healthy looking fish and fish that are actively eating in the store.
Fish can harbor disease without showing symptoms if their immune system is healthy but things happen and just like people, they can get sick. when that happens there's a chance for something deadly to take hold if its floating around in the tank or already harbored by the fish. You must have not been doing quarantine correctly, did you monitor ammonia levels daily, add bacteria starter and do waterchanges? A QT is not established and with even using existing filter media, it needs time to catch up(A tank definitely needs more than 2 weeks to get established so don't thing a new QT will be. Did you dose with copper and buy a test to check levels? Every time Ive dosed coppersafe/ copper power it is usually over the safe level for fish and that's a recipe for disaster, a test kit is 100% needed. Ive had a succesful reef tank for years without quarantining and I lost all of my favorite little swimmers to brook and velvet from adding the very last fish to the collection.
1- have a great fish store! Who quarantines! 2- get healthy fish see 1 3- research what fish you buy! 4-pay attention to your fish! And your tank! 5- dont overtreat if you dont know what is happening! Many healthy fish will be able to deal with most disease without drastic intervention, or worse yet not knowing what you are doing and treating something you may not actually have.
I've lost many fish in my freshwater tank due to columnaris alone. I then had velvet disease in it. All my serpae tetras have died. The first time, it was my fault for putting the store water in the tank as my boss told me to do. Not gonna do this mistake again. My pearl gouramis lasted only a year in my tank and then they had wasting disease or internal parasites in which case I couldn't treat at the time because I couldn't get the treatments. Plus, some medications will affect corals and plants. And when I bought my second batch of serpae tetras, they looked healthy. They only got sick when I put them in my tank for some reasons.
I would never add a new fish in my DT unless Qt. If you never had ick or velvet in DT. Only way to get it if you introduced an infected fish or anything that wet including snails or coral. Bad advice but it’s your opinion.
I would also like to add, have a plan in advance of what fish you are going to stock in your tank, do not buy on a whim. Do your research as some fish will need to be added first to establish their territory and seek out hiding places before more aggressive fish are added.. Some fish, particular schools of fish, will need to be added all at once. Be cautious if you add to an already existing school of fish as the odd one out may get bullied. My son and I started a marine aquarium over the holidays after having fresh water for 10 years... We have made some impulse buys and lessons learned..
I use the water from my 140 tank to refresh my smaller tanks. The water from my big tank is always pristine. That way all my tanks match. And my quarantine always matches my main tank. So moving is not a strain and they are already aclimtised for the big tank. I am freshwater tho. I just started this a year ago and I will always do it this way from now on.big tank is 45 ppm or less nitrates are always yellow when I test. Trying to keep all 3 tanks the same was hard now it is easy. Just got 33 fish from Greg sage. All are still alive and kicking. Never had this success before I started doing this.
I think it depends on the situation. I bought two fish recently in a Boxing Day sale. The store was crazy busy and I ended up with 2 sick fishies and noticed it before adding them to the display. I generally do not qt because I pick healthy fish with no signs of illness but in this case I did not and I'm not going to add sick fish to my DT. I've spent thousands getting it to where it's at and I'm not about to grenade it. I'm currently trying hyposalinity for ich so fingers crossed.
I feel like you explained why not to quarantine as honestly and accurately as anyone can. Tough topic as many people will slam you for it but at the end of the day quarantining adds more stress to the fish and if not done properly won’t even help. One thing many people do, not sure if you do or not, is put the fish in some sort of acclimation vessel within the tank for a short period to get a feel for any issues with aggression, make sure they are eating etc. once they are in the display they are so hard to get out!
Chucking a fish straight in copper out of a bag from the shop will cause undue stress, I put my new arrival, I say arrival as I only ever add multiple fish if the fish shared a tank, I often think a tank buddy reduces stress, or if it’s a clown pair or a shoal of chromis or a like, so they go in a decent size 60l untreated quarantine tank to get them feeding and observe for 7 days, I then move the fish to a treatment tank with 0.5 therapeutic cupramine for 14 days, you may think that’s harsh but fish can have pathogens and parasites and not show symptoms, what’s more harsh is adding a sick infected fish to an established community of fish, I’d rather put one fish through the quarantine process than pull apart a reef tank again, trust me pulling apart 6 year old corals to get your fish out to treat them is heart breaking
Don't agree about cost being an issue, especially in this hobby. A 20 gallon tank, cheap light and filter probably costs less than most fish that we buy. Having wiped out an entire tank from ich in the past, I only QT everything I buy now. Sure I've lost a couple of fish in QT, but the same happened when I didn't QT when I first entered the hobby 15+ years ago. Rather have their issues confined to QT, than risk spreading disease in my display. Also gives me a chance to directly observe, target feed, and get them used to me in a small tank rather than be lost amongst all my rockwork. Water isn't a big issue either. New water goes in the display and display water goes into buckets to be used for the QT. When it's time to move fish to the display, they can go right in with no acclimation. Storage is the only downside, but the tank and other things can be put in a closet when not in use. Luckily I have room to allow that. Otherwise enjoy your videos. Thanks for the content.
100% you will wipe out your tank if you continue like this. Maybe not today, maybe not next year, but eventually. Stress can just make fish show symptoms but they are not going to get parasites due to stress, that just isn't possible. If stress makes them show parasites they already had them. If I eat pizza while I'm running it doesn't mean it's going to give me stomach parasites, but it will upset my stomach. If you have room for a 100 gallon tank, you have room for a 10 gallon qt tank. If you have room for a nano tank, you have room for a 5 gallon bucket or 2. You are making it seem like quarantining fish is so hard, when in fact in most cases it's so easy. It's easier then keeping them in a reef. You don't need to be checking nitrate / nitrite in a fish qt system. An ammonia alert badge and checking salinity / temp is all that is needed. You can buy an extra inkbird controller for next to nothing. You can also rely on the heater since you are just risking a fish or 2 and not an entire system. Airline and airstones cost less than even the cheapest damsel. Even half quarantining is better than nothing, in fact doing it half right would be as much as half as good. Doing nothing is just that nothing. If you can keep fish and corals alive in a reef, you can keep fish alive in another tank for 1-2 months.
@@ReefDork Here's the thing. If you don't qt your fish and wipe out your tank that's your own business, but consider that your successful youtube channel may be one of the first things a new person watches. They may think Reef Dork doesn't qt I don't have to. You have a nice looking tank, a nice selection of fish. You are quite possibly and likely condemning fish to death by making this video. Additionally having tank wipe outs is a big reason why people get out of the hobby. Pretty much any reputable reefer or business is going to recommend that fish be quarantined, nowadays a lot of people recommend everything wet be quarantined. Given the continued deterioration and now dropping of quantity in the fish supply chain it's more important than ever to keep healthy fish because there may very well come a time where you can't replace some of them.
Hey Alex I also don’t quarantine i use a product called safety stop it is a 2 part system where you put the fish in part one for 45 min then part 2 for 45 min as long as the fish are no showing visible spots or fungus this 2 part system will kill anything on the fish even in their gills I’ve been doing this for the last 10 fish that I’ve purchased and have had no problems
Wouldn’t that put stress on the fish though? Fish gets to the store,fish gets put in the bag acclimate and then In one part for 45 min second part 45 min and then tank?? Only i ask.. cause when they get stressed then things can go south I usually just drip acclimate for a good amount of time depending on the species and the temp it was in at the LFS
Bree Williams hi Bree I can only tell you that I’ve been using this for my last 8 fish and have had no problems with stress I learned about this product from a you tube guy called melsreef he has a chapter on safety stop I would recommend you watch it’s great and Marc is a great guy with lots of info
Just saying I agree with you. I prefer not to stress the new fish anymore than I have to and I'm not full-time running an otherwise useless tank. I also don't think it is a good idea to drip-acclimatise as this simply increases the risk of ammonia burn. I do exactly as you do. There's far more important things - to me- to keep fish healthy like good diet, good filtration, and not over stocking or keeping incompatible species. ps I like the wallpaper too :-)
Especially watch out adding tangs as he said. A little stress and they get ich or velvet easily. My blue hippo tang wasnt quarantined and he infected all my fish killing them all one by one. Hes bulletproof though so the killer went free lol
I never quarantine my fish, because I don’t buy to many fish. I only got two tanks, a 29 gallon and a 10 gallon so why bother? I don’t see the need of a quarantine tank as I only have 2 running tanks and I don’t but fish very often.
I was thinking of setting up a quarantine tank because I want to get a fish from the internet and I don’t want exposed my fish to any diseases but I think I’m just going to get it from a local shop now. It’s too complicated for a newbie
As someone who recently lost approximately $2000 in fish from not quarantining a Fiji foxface, I can tell you it's just a matter of time before you kill everything. People just need education on how to QT a fish properly. You can set up a QT system which provides them with enough enrichment and hide outs to make them feel safe fairly easily. If you don't want to to tonnes of water changes to keep ammonia down just stick a bag of media in your reef tanks sump and stick it in that tank when you get a new fish (discard if you need to medicate). Some aquarium stores have really good disease management practices and will rarely sell sick fish whereas others half ass it. Some animals will tolerate a small population of parasites if all things are maintained well, however, if you introduce a fish with something like velvet or Brooklynella you are f**ked.
I also agree with not quarantine based on knowing your LFS. Minimizing stress on fish. It seems to me I rarely see comments regarding what people do regarding issues which arise during the quarantine process. Fish die during process, get rid of fish that show issues, treat and then put into main display, I doubt there are zero issues even after quarantine. I have never bought fish on line...if I did I would definitely not put them directly into main display. But fish from a LFS you can trust and observe the fish.
Great video and very informative, to quarantine or not quarantine is the question! I've never quarantine and been lucky but you make a lot of good points especially with the stress factor for the fish going from place to place , absolutely will stress them out more . Anyways great video and to each their own. Keep up the great videos!!
Guys there’s way you can wipe your fish with copper concentrate before you put it in your system I would suggest you do it 2 times with new napkin also avoid contact with fish 🐠 eyes It takes 1 minute
I don't quarantine either. Lost way more fish to quarantine than I ever have in the tank. Even if they have ich once the fish gets into quality water they recover
I run filterless tanks only. They're actually more likely described as "aquascapes" since the fish, shrimp and snails are really just secondary to the plant life. I've run this tank for seven years like this, and the only disease I've had was when I moved from a smaller tank to a larger one. The fish all live their normal lifespan, and after seven years I'm down to a lone gourami. I have never quarantined a fish before adding it, and I purchased 3 new sparkling gourami today and I don't intend to quarantine them either. But like I said, the fish really are just there to provide fertilizer for the plants and they're relatively inexpensive fish.
I Think you should never recommend not quarantining to new reefers, even if they are on edge about it. I watched this and it kept my mind at ease, until I added my very last fish to my tank. He was supposed to complete the tank, but rather infected the entire healthy population. It introduced Brook and Velvet to the tank and wiped my Royal gramma, SixLine, tang, filefish and my very first clownfish. I was heartbroken. I had to act fast setting up my second quarantine tank as the others showed grim symptoms that didnt look very promising. The ONLY way I was able to save the others was to quarantine and dose medication, along with keeping my tank fallow so i get rid of the parasites and it doesn't happen again. NOBODY wants an empty reef tank for 76 days when you could just QT for 14. Quarantine is EASY if you do your research and dont overthink it, it takes two weeks and can almost completely remove your chances from that happening, if the fish doesn't live through quarantine i don't expect it to battle a serious disease like velvet and brook and was probably sick from the start. Even a freshwater bath before adding can be a quick insurance plan. If you are anything serious about keeping the tank setup for more than a year, then learn a quarantine method. Most fish that you purchase will almost always come with some sort of parasite since they are ocean caught unless you buy captive bred clowns which still can harbor disease. Why would you want to knowingly have velvet and ich live in your tank, to kill off the population as soon as they get stressed from something, "disease management" doesn't make sense and that's all this is. The past 3 years Ive had my tank, I thought i was the exception but the fact is nobody is. This mistake has costed me over $300 in livestock and more for proper medication to treat them along with the added stress and worry if they will make it. Ive never quarantined before and didn't think i had to, but unfortunately most reefers don't learn the importance to them until they actually have a massive loss. If you dont care about your fish dying and will just replace them everytime something happens, go ahead. If you care about your fish and want them to live long and healthy i suggest you try quarantine.
