# How long do you quarantine new fish?



## sonicboomer

I have 3 albino cory cats bought today that are in a small quarantine tank (it's just a gallon). How long do I keep them in QT? The last time I bought fish from the shop they spread Ich.

Also, I don't have a heater or filter in the QT tank, is that okay? Should I put some bubbles in? Any salt? Melafix?


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## emc7

If you have an air-pump, you can get a little sponge filter for the QT. Heat-less is ok, if and only if you have a consistently warm room. You can get a 25W heater at wal-mart if you need one. Without a filter, change the water every day. If you got ich from the same store, I would treat all new fish like they have ich. 

http://www.bigalsonline.com/BigAlsUS/ctl3684/cp19170/si1382102/cl0/leesspongefilterround


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## sonicboomer

emc7 said:


> If you have an air-pump, you can get a little sponge filter for the QT. Heat-less is ok, if and only if you have a consistently warm room. You can get a 25W heater at wal-mart if you need one. Without a filter, change the water every day. If you got ich from the same store, I would treat all new fish like they have ich.
> 
> http://www.bigalsonline.com/BigAlsUS/ctl3684/cp19170/si1382102/cl0/leesspongefilterround


Hmmm the bowl is a bit too small for the sponge filter I have (it's pretty big). Can I just DIY and use a (new) small spong and attach it to the air pump hose? I thought fish other than bettas and a few others needed extra oxygen.

Without a heater the bowls are usually at 70-73 F.


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## gcollin

sonicboomer said:


> Hmmm the bowl is a bit too small for the sponge filter I have (it's pretty big). Can I just DIY and use a (new) small spong and attach it to the air pump hose? I thought fish other than bettas and a few others needed extra oxygen.
> 
> Without a heater the bowls are usually at 70-73 F.


if i am right the average quarantine is 24 hours, but if you bought them from petsmart or petco, or walmart, then stay on the safe side and keep them in the quarantine tank for 48 hours


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## NatBarry

You dont necessarily need to quarantine them but its always safe to I guess, a couple of days would be fine.


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## emc7

NO, not hours, days, weeks! Long enough for any disease they were exposed to to show symptoms and to cure any disease you expect them to be bringing in, such as ich.


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## Mikaila31

Yep 2 weeks is the average quarantine and I know some people who do it longer. IMO filter and heater are 100% necessary. Also by 2 weeks I mean 2 weeks of the fish looking and acting healthy. If all of a sudden it comes down with ich after one week. Then the fish must go through my ich treatment, that takes two weeks. Then the quarantine period is restarted and it must go for 2 weeks appearing 100% healthy before I will move the fish out. So a fish actually coming down with a disease can push quarantine to a month or more. 

Due to the frequency of parasites a large majority of my quarintined fish get treated with a copper sulfate med at a low dose. I also send them through 1 treatment of levamisole. This is usually done the first week. 

Where the fish come from depends a lot on what I do with them. I am very wary of fish from LFS these are always quarantined and always have the most issues. Fish that have been shipped to me get quarantined, but more so for recuperation before going into a community tank. Only fish I don't quarantine are fish I buy through my local aquarium society. These are fish bred by other hobbiests and are always in the best of health.


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## Guest

agreed with everyone who says 2 weeks. a day or 2 will not show any signs of sickness unless its reached that kind of saturation levels.


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## TheOldSalt

Where do you still find levamisole these days? That stuff is SO frickin' hard to get now since they semi-banned it.

One thing you can do if you are trying to QT in a bowl is to get yourself a big container that holds many many times the amount the bowl does. Fill it with water and treat it like you were going to use the container as a fishtank. next, all you have to do is completely change all the water in the bowl every day, using water from this container. when you do, wash out the bowl very well, wiping it's insides.
If you do this, then each day, as the spores drop off to multiply, you will remove them completely before they can hatch and become a problem. Over the course of three weeks, all of the spores will have dropped off without being replaced, and the fish will be totally clean. It will also have had the benefit of being in clean water the whole time, which helps. 
During this time, feed it medicated foods to deal with the internal stuff.


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## emc7

I saw this link on another forum. http://www.inkmkr.com/Fish/ supposedly still selling Levamisole HCl


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## sbetsy

I just pulled some fish out of quarantine. I kept them in for 10 days.


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## TheOldSalt

Ah, that guy, yeah. I got some neat stuff from him once. His levamisole is at a weird concentration that doesn't lend itself well to figuring out the correct dosage, though. I was once able to get it from a local pharmacy after he tried for over a week to find it, but the wait was worth it since it came in exactly as I needed it. Bye-bye flatworms! My reef tank was free of flatworms in about five minutes flat. Awesome stuff. Works WAY, WAY better than "Flatworm Exit" for a fraction of the price.


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## Mikaila31

I bought my levamisole from Fleetfarm. Simply as a pig dewormer, it was like 16 grams for $18 or something. Unfortunatly I am not sure if they still carry it, I looked last time and the dewormer section was out of a few products. My stuff is made my AngriLabs. I still have most of it, but it expired as of 11/09. I've still been using it though, it sealed in a tiny glass jar and kept in the dark 99% of the time. Its original bottle was made for mixing, like a liter bottle w/ just the tiny bit of Levamisole on the bottom. Mine is 90%. I guess I could try it on the next giant planaria I find and see if its still working. 

This is the golden article on this med. It is not the easiest to dose for most. Mine is a powder and treatment is about 0.1g per 10 gallons. I also dose EI ferts so I have a digital scale that I can weigh out med or ferts with. I understand that for most dosing 0.1 grams of a product is not as straight forward. 

I have helped a few people on other boards with dealing with internal worms. Both US and UK, levamisole is available you just got to know where to look. Extremely few fish medications use this stuff, so nothing I will suggest will be made for fish. If you live in a farming area then checking stores that carry livestock medications is a good start. This will most likely turn up a powder and probably a lot more than you will ever need. I mean I bought enough to treat 1600 gallons and I've maybe treated a 15 gal a couple dozen times with the stuff. That is another reason to quarantine, treating my 15 gal quarantine tank is going to be much cheaper then having to treat my main 55gal. 

The second way to get levamisole and probably easier for most is a bird dewormer by the name of Harka Verm. It will most likely have to be ordered online as it does not seem too common. I have not personally used this med, but suggested it to others who have reported good results. It is a levamisole solution of 0.08g/mL. Simple math puts dosage at 1.25mL per 10 gal to reach the recommended aquarium dosage. A 100mL bottle of Harka Verm will treat 800 gallons. 

Pharmacy's and prescriptions can be helpful places to get fish meds. The only reason I asked for a prescription for minocycline was because Maracyn-two is really expensive IMO. Its like 6 times more expensive per gram then the stuff for people, insurance won't pay for it either;-). I had a prescription for Erythromycin too at one point, but the stuff they gave me was a solution totally sealed in its container for topical use. I never expected to learn so much treating fish... our hobby actually creates a big loop hole for prescription meds. Simply because many antibiotics are Rx only for humans, and even dogs and cats. They are of course non-prescription for fish.


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