Why quarantine?

[Deanos]

To Quarantine or Not to Quarantine?

 

[qy7400]

Learned the lesson the hard way, no QT and you risk every fish in your tank. For me it was ich, whole tank came down with it.

 

[barebucta]

When I first started my setup I bought 2 fish, a yellow tang and a hippo tang. Quartantined them for 1 month. The day that I was supposed to transfer them into the main display they were found dead. The second time I bought a yellow tang. Within the same week the same results. The quarantine water was straight from the main display with it's own filter the whole sha-bang...etc...After losing about a good $75 of fish I gave up on the quarantine process...and (crossing my fingers) the last 4 fish I haven't quarantined and have been successful. Not to say that it doesn't work, it just didn't work for me. Plus, I find maintaining such a small quarantine system (10-15 gallons) takes some practice/patience. I think putting a fish in such a small system for such a long period of time (30+ days) actually stresses them out more. A quarantine tank of 30 gallons or more is ideal if one does decide to quarantine.

 

[loismustdie]

As a strong supporter of QT, I will also say that barebucta brings up some good points. Especially the difficulty of stability in a 10 to 15 and advising going with 30 or more. Small quarters, even with good water quality can stress fish.
This was a really good article and I can see someone still walking away from it saying "do I QT or not?" Sometimes, the stability in your display is good enough to pull a fish through, but the risk of introducing disease is too great for me.