QT Fish Tomorrow?

[MammoMK11]

I have some fish comming in tomorrow and was wodnering if I should quarantine them or not. The reason i'm asking is because these will be my first major additions to the tank, so I don't really have any fish in there yet that would get sick if the additions had any illnesses.

I have a 30g that I could use to QT them in. Do you think it's worth it? If it is, how long should I keep them in there?

 

[mrgarethpugh]

won't hurt.... just mean that if you do have an outbrake of disease then you won't have to close down and clean your main tank. QT for anything from two days to ten days.....

 

[MammoMK11]

Thanks for your advice, got my QT all set for their arrival.

 

[bghill]

What kind of fish are you getting? Were they ordered on-line or is your LFS getting a shipment in? Just wondering. Good luck with them.

 

[Ruben Tolon]

you should definitely quarantine, at least 2 weeks, maybe a month if you can.

 

[MammoMK11]

you should definitely quarantine, at least 2 weeks, maybe a month if you can.

Don't think I can pull off two weeks, maybe a couple days at the most. My QT tank is only 30g, and these fish are set for my 50g. Not sure how big they'll be when they arrive, but I know they're two small to stay in a 30g for any extended period of time.

 

[Mij]

The problem with adding fish to your display tank is if you do have an outbreak of disease you will use far more medication to treate a larger tank.

 

[MammoMK11]

Ya, that's why i'm QT'ing them. I'll have to see how big they are when they get here, so i'm not sure how well they'll do in the 30g. I suppose that if I do daily water changes, I can keep them pretty healthy in there. I'll let you know when they come in.

 

[Sploke]

If you're only going to qt for a few days you might as well just add them into the main tank. The odds of catching a problem in that amount of time are pretty slim and you're going to inflict a lot more stress moving them several times in a few days. In order to be effective, you should QT a bare minimum of 2 weeks. I do a strict 4 week QT for any new fish for my SW tank, and once everything is on a central filter system, for my FW as well.

 

[Ruben Tolon]

Don't think I can pull off two weeks, maybe a couple days at the most. My QT tank is only 30g, and these fish are set for my 50g. Not sure how big they'll be when they arrive, but I know they're two small to stay in a 30g for any extended period of time.

But if you have a quarantine tank, why don't you want to use it? ' a couple of days' is not enough to observe to make sure the fish isn't infected with something. If you have a quarantine tank, why risk getting your main tank infected with whatever the new fish may be carrying.