paranoid to buy new fish

LMOUTHBASS

LMOUTHBASS

My hypocrisy goes only so far
Jun 17, 2003
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Boston , MA
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Mark
anyone else have this problem ? I have such a well established community with some fish that are very precious to me I don't want to risk killing them. I know the way to avoid this is to QT the new fish. Which I do, but keeping a QT tank going is such a nuissance so I only set one up when necessary. Meanwhile the QT tank I had set up for this purpose was disease stricken and there are only a handful of residents left in that 10g tank. Thank goodness for the qt tank though because my main tank wouldve been ravaged if not for the qt tank. Anyone else ever have a massive disease outbreak happen in a q tank? What did you do with the survivors of the disease outbreak if there were any? I had some strange disease hit where the fish would whither away and not eat and two or three would die at a time. They are still dying off gradually, but I will never put the survivors in my main tank, because I'm afraid while they may have resisted the disease they may be carrying it.


Anyhow it seems when i browse fish stores they all have several tanks where fish just aren't right. The worst are livebearer tanks. Platies and swrodtails in particular always look like crap no matter what store i go to even my most trusted lfs. I'm guessing the livebearers have probably been interbred and have poor genetics. How are the quality of fish ordered from online sites such as Liveaquaria.com? Has anyone had good expereinces with online fish? If so where did you order from?

Feel free to jump in on any of the questions I've aksked or pls share your experiences!


Thanks!
 
I'm one who doesn't keep the Q tank going. If I'm not planning on adding fish to my main tank, it's dry (the q tank). When I am using it, I'm treating with salt/heat and formalin (for parasites, especially ich!) unless I see an ailment (bacteria) that requires different meds. Since I treat from day one, I'm also changing water (50% daily) so I'm not worried about ammonia/nitrite build up.
If I were to encounter a sickness that I couldn't cure, the fish would die and I could bleach the tank and start over. Luckily, I haven't encountered this...yet.
 
I had 8 cardinals in my 10g qt and within 2 days all but one had died of NTD. Now I could have taken them back for an exchange but there was hardly any point so I just cut my losses. The survivor was kept on it's own for 8 weeks before I deemed it safe to go into my main tank. There's just no way I'd risk putting anything in my main tank without a qt first. I've put way too much work into it, to the annoyance of the wife :D
 
did the cardinal ever get anyone sick in your main tank afterward? see that's what i'm scared of -having a qt death tank survivor relocate because i think he's healthy but he latently brings new disease - i guess if any fish come down with something in qt i won't risk moving them


more thoughts on this?
 
"I'm guessing the livebearers have probably been interbred and have poor genetics." - LMOUTHBASS
interbreeding as in mother/father over and over again, I'm not sure if this will cause bad genes in live-bearers, breeding between the different types ie cross breeding is the best thing possible for strong fish, the offspring are the best attributes of both parents
 
LMB, good to see you around.

Where are you shopping for fish? I've been going pretty exclusively to Tropic Isle Aquarium and have been really happy with the health of the fish I get there. They rearely have sick fish in the tank and have a good selection.
 
The best defense (in addition to QT) is being picky about the health of the stock you buy. It's not possible when buying online, but when buying from an LFS observe the fish as long as possible while they are still in the store. It still is not a gaurantee that your fish will be disease free, but it's better than buying the fish when you first see them in the store.

I haven't brought any diseases into my tanks from store-bought fish yet. However, one of my new otos that is in QT atm has a bump that I can't identify. Three weeks of observing the fish in the store and I didn't notice the bump :( I don't know if it's anything contagious, but goes to show that you need to inspect the fish as closely as possible, and even then it's not foolproof.
 
tomm10 said:
LMB, good to see you around.

Where are you shopping for fish? I've been going pretty exclusively to Tropic Isle Aquarium and have been really happy with the health of the fish I get there. They rearely have sick fish in the tank and have a good selection.
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:OT: I shop at tropic isle! thats funny....i'm very happy with them too! where in ma are you? :OT:

LMB---I'm sorry to hear that, hmmm what kind of fish are you interested in buying?
 
DaisyGirl said:
:OT: I shop at tropic isle! thats funny....i'm very happy with them too! where in ma are you? :OT:
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I've always been happy with Tropic Isle. The only other place I'll get fish is Lovely Pets in Quincy. There are some other good shops too but they're out of my driving range usually. TI is easily the biggest and best.

I'm in Waltham so Framingham isn't too much of a drive for healthy fish :)

Tom
 
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