How long do you quarantine new fish purchased from a lfs?

[CACAdmin]

I am curious how long everyone quarantines fish purchased from a lfs? It would be interesting not only to know how long but the reasoning behind your decisions.

Personally, I assume I should wait a long as possible to ensure the fish are healthy but I rarely have the patience to wait more than one week. However, this has proved to be disastrous on occasion. I have ended up with ich which spread throughout my tank, and lost not only the new additions but other fish as well. I do, however, when acquiring fish from a local breeder whom I know, chance adding them to my tank immediately.

[thegrandpoohbah]

I don't ever quarantine new fish as I no longer buy livestock from the LFS. All of my fish now come from local fish keepers and breeders.So far I have not had any problems.

[blainep]

I don't buy many fish from stores anymore, but when I do, quarentine is at least 2 weeks.

[hp10BII]

I still buy fish from fish stores. I quarantine for at least 6 weeks regardless the source. It would be too costly and time consuming to treat my larger tanks in case something breaks out.

[amber2461]

If it comes from local breeders and I get them from the shops, 2 weeks quarantine, but if they are wild caught, 2 months.

[Melody]

I highly recommend quarantining all fish. Even private breeders can have stress-induced illness or they may have exposed their fish to store stock, etc. You can have the best practices in the world and still end up with a sick fish occasionally. Your odds may be better with private breeders, but its no guarantee.

Having said that, I only follow it about half the time...lol...so don't think me too preachy. It is still not a good practice though.

[Jonesy]

I would love you be able to quarantine...having but one tank makes that tough though......:)

[blainep]

I would love you be able to quarantine...having but one tank makes that tough though......:)

One Tank ! That will change, you're involved in the one hobby thats more addictive than crack !:laugh:

[Melody]

I would love you be able to quarantine...having but one tank makes that tough though......:)

It doesn't take a huge tank to quarantine. A couple of gallons, regular water changes. When you watch too many fish die, the investment into a q-tank seems very low - it will save you a lot of money in the end.

If you're ever in my area, I've got too many tanks around 3-4 gallons. I'll give you one for a q-tank. There's no cover or anything, but it will do the trick.

[Jonesy]

i know what you guys mean about the addiction! I got back into fish about six months ago and picked up at 25g high tank....Went all out did plants and the whole nine yards...Fell in love all over again! Really into plecos...have a few different pups right now in waiting for the big tank that hopefully will be purchased after Christmas....Thanks for the offer on the Q tank, may very well take you up on that.....Although, i want to keep the bioload down for a while.....

[CACAdmin]

After Christmas??? Oh, I get it. It's on the Christmas wish list, but the 'after Christmas' is just in case Santa doesn't bring you one.;)

[Jonesy]

Ya, i'm kinda hopin that i can buy a new setup after x-mas....I'm sure that there will be a few boxing day deals.....Although not sure how big i wanted to go. We live on the fourth floor of a new apt. would 75-90 gallons be too much???

[blainep]

Ya, i'm kinda hopin that i can buy a new setup after x-mas....I'm sure that there will be a few boxing day deals.....Although not sure how big i wanted to go. We live on the fourth floor of a new apt. would 75-90 gallons be too much???

Pretty much depends on the consruction of the apt. building. Concrete and steel - No problem. Wood stick construction - possible problem. It should be ok either way, normally, as long as the landlord approves ( You don't want to have to suddenly find a new home).

My home is an older house, so I built a supporting wall in the basement right under where my show tank sits upstairs. I was in the process of finishing the basement anyway, so I just adjusted the size of the basement bedroom a little and it gave me a 'just in case' support for the tank.

I've seen 90+ gallon tanks in homes of friends, the only precautions they took was to place the tanks against outside walls and crossing floor joists so the weight of the tank was supported by more than one floor joist over the shortest distance from the joist supports as possible.

Probably not much usefull info there if you're in an apartment and more than you wanted to know, I guess the the biggest thing to consider is a minimum of ten pounds per gallon of dead weight. 90 gallons = about 900 pounds, nearly the weight of a small car.

[Jonesy]

I believe it is steel and concrete, will check with strata....Without the plans is there anyway to figure out floorboards?? I'm on the top floor and on the corner. Where i wanted to put it was on an outside wall.......

[Melody]

Gonna show my gender here...lol...but if they're anything like studs, you can pick up auto stud finders at Canadian Tire. Good thing to put on the Christmas list in fact.

[Jonesy]

lol....that is a great idea...not sure how effictive they will be with the carpet though....

[Melody]

Pull it up - this is important....lol. You should have seen me when I picked up a stud finder for my Dad for Christmas one year "OH! Here's an automated thingy for building stuff! He likes building stuff! And there's LIGHTS!" :rolleyes: I'm such a GIRL. I'm the shame of modern day women everywhere.

This tip is more useful - get some of that plastic carpet runner stuff that people put in entryways or on stairs. Put it under the tank so it comes out from it about a foot. All of those drips on rented carpet isn't good.:no:

[blainep]

If the building is concrete and steel, the floor/ceiling would probably be steel beams, a stud finder would probably find them. It should find wood joists as well. Might depend a bit on the quality of the stud finder.

[Melody]

Get the one with LIGHTS - That one HAS to be good. :D

[blainep]

Get the one with LIGHTS - That one HAS to be good. :D

Melody, you're such a girl :laugh: , get the one with the built in plasma display !

( How far off topic can we really take this thread ? )

[Melody]

:offtopic:

Somebody call a moderator!:rofl:

If it has to do with fish, its on topic. Everyone knows that wandering around a topic is the most fun anyways.:D

[Jonesy]

ok then........ I've got a bunch of questions pertaining to where this thread has gone.I'll make a new thread after i'm done cleaning my tank...Man my L66 poops alot!!:eek:

[CACAdmin]

When checking with the Strata coucil as to whether it is woodframe or concrete and steel, make certain you aren't getting an answer from a 'Melody';) You might get an answer like, "Yeh, I think I remember something about concrete... yeh, that must be it!":laugh: (And you find out it's just light-weight concrete between the floors.. which BTW I think is pretty much a norm these days in lowrise woodframe apartment buildings. Not sure how this inpacts the amount of weight it supports though.)

As for how far off-topic we can take this thread, Melody's the Mod... we'll leave it up to her. :DevilGrin:

[Melody]

A new thread... now there's a concept. You're a good influence on us Jonesy....lol.

Topic, right.... ok.... So tell me people, is your q-tank up all the time, or do you just set it up when you need it?

[CACAdmin]

Q-tank up all the time... always need extra space for my snails anyways. And so far, to my knowledge, no sick fishies have ever shared anything bad with the snails.

[Melody]

Mine go up & down like yo-yo's. Depends on how big my incoming shipments are.:biggrin:

[hp10BII]

Up only when I need it. But when it goes up and since it'll be up for a couple of months, I go nuts with new fish!!

[Edgezilla]

If I have tanks sitting empty, I will setup a new tank each time and turn the tanks into a species/quarantine tank. Pretty much the quarantine process is indefinately and always perform. I only get new fish if I have spare tanks around and they are the fish I have been looking for.

I lost a whole tank of dwarf and large variety rainbows (approx 20 fish) 5 years ago to some weird disease when I didn't bother with quarantining. It only targeted rainbows and nothing else.

[Melody]

Rainbows will often pick up Mycobacteriosis and its cousins, unfortunately, and it has hit the captive species hard. There are also diseases that Rainbows can pick up and carry for quite sometime before they show symptoms, sometimes up to three months. I'll have to try to dig the information up again. I haven't read it in awhile and I don't want to rely on my memory for details. I studied it extensively when it hit my Rainbows a couple of years ago, slowly killing them off one by one. What scares me is that the disease will be introduced to wild populations.

Most of us learn the hard way. I've had to learn it more than once in fact. After dealing with some sort of superbug I learned it for the final time. Never again will a fish just be dumped in my tanks from any store. Even the best stores can't control what comes in on their fish.

[mixixe]

I don't QT them either. But most of my tanks only have 1 fish. The community tank only gets new fish from the fry tank :) I just learned not to buy fish from the LFS.