Quarantine duration?

[illiswiller]

How long do you quarantine new fish?? 3 days, 10 days, 2 weeks?
Thanks!

 

[RTR]

I'm the conservative one. Four weeks, minimum. Longer if anything is suspicious.

 

[tricksterpup]

I'm the conservative one. Four weeks, minimum. Longer if anything is suspicious.

I am actually with RTR on this, I usually will keep my fish QT for about 4 weeks before adding them to the main tanks. There is nothing worse loosing a livebearer colony due to something.

 

[illiswiller]

Wow - Between cycling and quarantine - fish keeping is a serious test in patience.

Do you ever use Maracide and/or Maracyn-2 as prophylaxis? One LFS said they always dose new shipments.....

 

[tricksterpup]

Wow - Between cycling and quarantine - fish keeping is a serious test in patience.

Do you ever use Maracide and/or Maracyn-2 as prophylaxis? One LFS said they always dose new shipments.....

I personally do not dose my fish if it is going straight into QT. Since there is nothing in there to worry about, I just let my fish just live in this tank for about a month just to see if they are fine. If a probem arises then I would deal with that problem on an individual basis. But I prefer keeping them in regular water, I do not like to add chemicals if I have to.

 

[Leopardess]

I also use 4 weeks as standard unless I suspect something is up. This is partly because things like ich have a life cycle and may not be immediately apparent. Internal parasites might also not be visible right away and the signs can take weeks to become evident. There are a myriad of other reasons as well.

If a fish becomes ill, I'll treat it and then use another 3-4 weeks of qtine time after the last manifestation of the illness. It can make for a long process, but I don't have to worry about treating 125g of water and fish (with plants) with ich treatments or dosing 125g worth of antibiotics - that can get expensive.