Cycle Quarantine????

becky_e

becky_e

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Apr 21, 2004
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We still don't have any fish, but we have a quarantine tank ready. Do we have to cycle that, too? I've had my tank up for 4 months now and I'm really ready for fish. It took 2 whole months to cycle the display tank and I really don't want to go through that again with the quarantine tank.

How long is reasonable to quarantine fish? My husband want to quarantine them for 6 weeks to be sure that they don't put ich in the display tank, but that seems really long to me since we only have inverts in the display tank. But if that's how long it takes, I'll do it. My quarantine tank is 20 gallons and the rest of my stats are in my signature and my homepage.

Please help clear up this confusion!
 
You can run a sponge filter in your sump to get it seeded, or use filter media (or even a biowheel) from another healthy filter for your quarantine tank.
I vacuum my q-tank daily and then add clean water. That equals a daily water change- also an option if you didn't plan the sponge filter/sump thing ahead of time...

If fish in quarantine show absolutely no problems for 3-4 weeks many folks opt to go ahead and add them to the display.
If you do run into any health issues you can leave them longer.
Personally I quarantine for the full six weeks- it is a simple thing to do and has no down side.

But good for you for doing it at all. It really will save you grief.
 
OK, we've already got the sponge filter ready, so I'm set there. If everything looks happy, I'll probably put them in after 3-4 weeks. We only plan on getting 2 fish at a time, so this could take a very long time to get everything stocked if we do 6 weeks for all the fish.

Thanks.
 
That's why I purchased and quarantined my fish in groups.
3-4 weeks might be fine for most fish (always get a second opinion) but if any tangs are in your future I would give them the full 6 weeks minimum.
I just had one show ich after four full weeks of hyposalinity with not a spot to be seen. If I had already put this one in the display I'd be having to tear the tank down to catch it.
 
Well, tangs are in our far out future, when we get a bigger tank! My tank is only 45 gallon and I'm sticking to little fish, but I won't be putting any fish that don't look great in the display tank at 3-4 weeks!
 
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