# Is this makeshift setup ok for quarantine tank?



## Jeane09 (Nov 19, 2013)

I have a plastic food-grade container that holds 5 gal. There's a plastic lid to cover the top. It's got a heater, air stone and plastic plant/decor for security. I want to put in a small sponge filter but local store doesn't carry that so I have to order online. I thought in meantime I would do daily small wc while siphoning waste off bottom.

Is it okay to go w/out the filter for a while?

Will the fish be ok living in the small space, for 2-3 wk? I have zebra danio, cherry barb, otocinclus and dwarf gourami in my lineup. It would only be 2 or 3 fish at a time.


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## Ice (Sep 25, 2006)

That can work just fine.


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## BettaGuy (May 6, 2012)

just gotta watch the amonia build up. 3 fish at a time will poop enough to cause amonia to build up to harmfull levels within a few days. But otherwise looks perfctly fine


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## Ice (Sep 25, 2006)

Is this for a hospital tank or to QT new fish?

I never QT any new FW fish. I simply float the bag in my tank for 1/2 hour or so before releasing fish to the tank.

I can see more for saltwater fish but not for FW except to treat FW sick fish.


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## Elliott225 (Jan 9, 2014)

Keep a close eye on the heater and temperature. Temp can rise quickly. You can also use a small inside tank power filter. They make some nice ones. Ehiem makes one about the size of a cordless phone hand set.


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## Jeane09 (Nov 19, 2013)

To QT new freshwater fish. I know they're not expensive fish, but there are only two options to buy fish in my town- both big box pet stores, and there are usually sick/dead fish in some of the tanks. Even though I never buy fish from a tank that has a dead fish in it directly, I worry about the water systems being shared behind scenes, so I thought ought to QT for 2 wk just to make sure I don't put disease in my tank.

Is this really not neccessary?


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## marcshrimp (Jun 16, 2013)

usually and I use that as a loose term, the fish you see dead in a fish store are due to stress during shipment not illness, never the less, there are rare chances the fish are sick, but that chance would be extremely small. any supplier to a large box store would quickly lose their contract if they had a reputation for delivering sick fish. that being said, you could cause more stress on the fish by placing them into a quarantine tank rather than simply introducing them to your aquarium. the more you move the fish, the more stress, their immune system drops, the greater the chance of them actually catching a disease that they normally could fight off. same thing that happens when you over stock sensitive fish, they stress and get sick and die.

and as far as necessity... its your call, I personally don't, but would never fault anyone for doing it. I would be more inclined to quarantine fish if I received them as rescue fish from someones personal aquarium.


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## Jeane09 (Nov 19, 2013)

marcshrimp- really? I read all over the place about quarantine, do people only do that for expensive fish then? I'd certainly like to avoid the interim and just put them into the home aquarium...

another question, slightly related- 
I had always floated the bag to equalize temperature, then add a little aquarium water over period of an hour, then net the fish out & put in tank. Just recently learned about the drip method. If the drip takes very long, say over an hour, is there chance of the temperature in the holding container dropping? how do you keep it warm enough? or does the drip keep it warm, as it keeps coming in from the regulated aquarium?

just wondering


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## BettaGuy (May 6, 2012)

No reason to do drip method for freshwater fish, people do it for salt water to slowly adjust the salinity, but for fresh water the bag method is the best.


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## Ice (Sep 25, 2006)

Actually QTing fish is done mostly with saltwater fish not with FW fish. I do agree with marcshrimp - QTing FW fish is really not necessary; expensive or not. I don't QT my fish either. Not worth the time or effort with FW fish. I Float the bag in the tank for 1/2 hour or so, net him out and release him in the tank. I always make sure I leave the lights off for a day. I find that leaving the lights off calms new addition fish and gives them a chance to settle into a new environment.


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## Jeane09 (Nov 19, 2013)

Oh! Another good thing to know. I guess I should pay more attention if the info I'm reading is from people who keep saltwater or fresh- had been thinking I wasn't doing things quite right but glad it's not as complicated as I thought!

Thanks.


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## TheOldSalt (Jan 28, 2005)

Whoa, whoa, whoa... stop right there. Almost every fish you see in the store is carrying SOMETHING. Store conditions and wholesale conditions are horrible. QT is the key to success.


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## BettaGuy (May 6, 2012)

Not every store is terrible, of course the tanks are overstocked in every store, but that is not too bad. Especially many local stores try to take better care of the animals than big chain stores who are guaranteed money no matter how ****************ty their pets are.


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## Jeane09 (Nov 19, 2013)

So- those of you who don't quarantine and never have problems are just very lucky, or have excellent fish stores w/out diseased tanks?

It always looks very clean at my store, but there's also one or two dead fish among the ranks as well...


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## marcshrimp (Jun 16, 2013)

I wasn't saying fish don't have diseases. everything has diseases. its no different than every person out there is carrying a virus and some sort of bacteria. its just how well your immune system is working. fish are no different. when you move a fish a lot it stresses the fish, the fishes immune system is not as strong and the fish is then susceptible to viruses and diseases it could normally fight off. im not advising you not to quarantine fish after purchase, im simply stating that it can have just as many adverse affects as positive. I don't quarantine fish I purchase because I feel it is harder on them. its sorta like picking your kids up from daycare... you know they have been packed in a room with a bunch of other disease carrying kids allday. i have never had any adverse effects but don't consider myself lucky... i think im smart enough to do an initial evaluation of the fish in the store to determine its general health and then decide to purchase. i have passed on many fish in the store but at the same time i have bought fish from an aquarium that had a dead fish or two in it. its all up to your personal feelings on the subject


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## Jeane09 (Nov 19, 2013)

Understood. So it's a risk balance- the shock & stress of moving between too many tanks can cause weakness so the fish can't fight off germs they might be carrying, whereas putting them straight in the home tank they might be ok and never show disease outbreak, is that it?

or could just get all the fish sick

(I was at the pet store today and wanted otocinclus, but there were dead fish in that tank, wanted cherry barb but there was ich in that tank, so came home w/out fish... 

next time I will try the other store see if it has better conditions
seems to be different every week)


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## marcshrimp (Jun 16, 2013)

yeah. if you are seeing ich on the fish... don't shop there. ich is highly contagious and can jump tank to tank via nets or any other thing that comes in contact with the tank. most big stores run a large filtration system linked to multiple tanks. I wouldn't be so worried about 1 or 2 dead fish in a tank every so often, but if you are seeing dead fish in multiple tanks every time you shop there, I would try to find somewhere else and that's just due to the fact that if the store employees wont take the time to dip out dead fish, then they obviously don't spend much time on anything else to do with the aquariums. im lucky to have a great fish manager at my petco and a great local store owner close to me. both maintain their aquariums and look for anything out of the way going on with their stock.

I buy from aquabid more than anywhere now though. I would just rather buy directly from the breeder


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## Jeane09 (Nov 19, 2013)

doesn't the shipping cost a lot?


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## marcshrimp (Jun 16, 2013)

lol yeah. but its not too bad. fish take a journey to your local fish store. usually they leave a breeder, ship to a holding facility, ship to a distributor, then ship to your store. if you buy from the breeder, you take out 2 steps of the process. and a little secret.. walmart, petco, petsmart, and your local guy usually get their fish from the same distributer..... so the fish quality in all the stores are the same when they arrive, its just what do they get dumped into when they get there. I cannot imagine how nasty walmart aquariums have to be. lol


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## Ice (Sep 25, 2006)

marcshrimp said:


> I wasn't saying fish don't have diseases. everything has diseases. its no different than every person out there is carrying a virus and some sort of bacteria. its just how well your immune system is working. fish are no different. when you move a fish a lot it stresses the fish, the fishes immune system is not as strong and the fish is then susceptible to viruses and diseases it could normally fight off. im not advising you not to quarantine fish after purchase, im simply stating that it can have just as many adverse affects as positive. I don't quarantine fish I purchase because I feel it is harder on them. its sorta like picking your kids up from daycare... you know they have been packed in a room with a bunch of other disease carrying kids allday. i have never had any adverse effects but don't consider myself lucky... i think im smart enough to do an initial evaluation of the fish in the store to determine its general health and then decide to purchase. i have passed on many fish in the store but at the same time i have bought fish from an aquarium that had a dead fish or two in it. its all up to your personal feelings on the subject


Well said.


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## P.senegalus (Aug 18, 2011)

I buy almost all of my fish and plants from aquabid to cut out the risk of spreading diseases to my other fish. A lot of the sellers on aquabid offer normal priority mail which is less than the overnight price most other sites offer. To me it is better to pay for shipping to get healthy fish right from the breeder than to have to buy medicines that may not work for sick fish or having to replace dead fish you already had because of a few new fish from the pet store.


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## Jeane09 (Nov 19, 2013)

I only have petco and petsmart nearby (there's also walmart but I don't go there on principle). I used to think one was better than the other, it looked neater, only a few dead fish here and there- but then one weekend I went and there was dead fish in almost every single tank. Made me feel sick. I don't like to see so many.

I'm going to seriously look into Aquabid- thanks for the tip on that.

(Are the fish who make it thru gauntlet to the box store and look healthy, that much stronger than the rest...?)


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## TheOldSalt (Jan 28, 2005)

Proper quarantine does not have adverse effects on the fish. The risk from not doing it far outweighs the risks of doing it. Do what you want. Once you get burned a few times, consider rethinking it.


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## Jeane09 (Nov 19, 2013)

Well, i did. Use it as QT. My daughter really wanted to get a 2 guppies for her tank and I put them in the QT first and one got white ring around its mouth, looked like a fungus? I treated with aquarium salt and a fungus cure (stained all the water green) but it died the next day. Waiting another week to make sure the other guppy doesnt get sick too...


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## emc7 (Jul 23, 2005)

Wow, if that was columnaris, aka "cotton mouth", you dodged a bullet. I would bleach the QT and everything that touched and find a new fish supplier.


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## Jeane09 (Nov 19, 2013)

I'm not sure what it was, exactly? The fish could not close its mouth and there was a white ring around it, and then it started to look fuzzy. It also had a few splits in the tail fin. Other guppy still looks ok, no signs of illness yet.

Yeah, I think I'm going to try Aquabid or at least the other store, from now on.

Isn't bleach too strong for cleaning aquarium stuff? I was going to rinse everything in boiling hot water, but if you recommend bleach- what concentration should I dilute it to?


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## emc7 (Jul 23, 2005)

I think about 1 plain bleach (not scented or thickened) in 5 parts water. Bleach is strong and can damage some plastic, but it kills lots of nasties, evaporates completely when stuff is dried, can be removed with dechlor and detected with a simple pH test and by odor making it good for decontamination. 

Zoo med sells a potassium permanganate powder for the same purpose. A strong oxidizer destroys most bacteria.


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## Jeane09 (Nov 19, 2013)

Ok. I still have one guppy in that QT tank, but since the dead fish was in there part or all of the night, should I take him out, disinfect the tank, start over w/him or leave him in and finish up the treatment? It's supposed to go three more days w/meds before a wc but I don't know if he needs it, he doesn't look sick at all.


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## emc7 (Jul 23, 2005)

finish the treatment and keep the fish in QT for as long as possible (I might even treat for columnaris in QT) but bleach everything once the fish is out of QT. You might try moving one of your existing fishes into QT with the new fish for a few weeks to see if the new fish would cause them all to die when plopped in the main tank. The more fish you already have, the more important QT is.


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## Jeane09 (Nov 19, 2013)

What is the best thing to treat columnaris with? thanks


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## TheOldSalt (Jan 28, 2005)

This is why we QT. You were lucky to not get that junk in your main tank. Treatment can be easy, or tricky, depending on strain and pH


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## TheOldSalt (Jan 28, 2005)

OPTIONAL, but effective- add a bit of salt until you reach 1% saltiness.
Step two- treat with Nitrofuran and kanamycin meds.

Here's a link I found with some other options like peroxide.
http://www.myaquariumclub.com/columnaris-and-what-i-have-learned...-1689.html


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## Jeane09 (Nov 19, 2013)

Ah, well, doesn't matter now. Both guppies dead. Store has guarantee I could get new ones but that seems pointless as the others are probably infected from there, as well.

At least we still have the betta.


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## Ice (Sep 25, 2006)

I would look at the guppies real close before buying them. Make sure you don't see any visible signs of diseases.


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## Jeane09 (Nov 19, 2013)

I tried. After they were bagged, when I could see them close. No fungus, spots, clamped fins, all looked ok... my daughter really wants to get some new ones, but I think I will try the other supplier.


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## blindkiller85 (Jan 8, 2011)

Everytime I've bought from a store here in Orlando I've had them come home and die and kill other fish with Ich. They are the most unique among big box stores as far as selection. But they all have snails like no body's business, everytime I'm in there I see 3-5 dead fish MINIMUM. I've seen bloat, ammonia burn, fin rot, worms, ich, open sores, and while not a fish illness blue green algae. 

They still have their license and they have been that way since I've been in the hobby. Approximately 5 years. 

Now some of them do pretty well and have the typical couple of fish that just came in on a shipment and a few die out of around 50 fish coming in total. Typically guppies, goldfish and common pleco's.


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## Jeane09 (Nov 19, 2013)

what does ammonia burn look like? I have no idea how to recognize that


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## BettaGuy (May 6, 2012)

red gills essentially


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## emc7 (Jul 23, 2005)

and/or eroded fins.

Aquabid or a local aquarium club board. Find fish that are being bred and raised near you and you will get the best results. Don't get any fish from the original place. Though UV is supposed to keep disease from spreading through the shared water system, it doesn't kill internal and exterior parasite and it seems to super-charge the bacterial infections that survive (selects for the fastest spreading).


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## Jeane09 (Nov 19, 2013)

Thanks. 

We have lost our betta too, the one that was in the 5 gallon. His fins rotted away. I tried treating with salt baths and furazolidone but he died very quickly- 2 days. I am worried that somehow I transferred the disease from the QT tank into his- maybe on my hands, or some equipment i didn't sterilized good enough?

but it might also have been the water. My building currently has no hot water and for the wc I had to warm water on the stove, I measured the temperature but maybe it was still not exact enough and I gave him a shock and lowered his resistance?

But now I don't know how to get the 5 gallon clean without killing the plants. If it does have the disease from the guppies, and I lower the water temperature, will that kill the pathogen without harming the plants? Or should I strip the tank apart and bleach/hot water rinse everything?

My kid still wants to try guppies in there again, but I want to be sure it's clean first...


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## Ice (Sep 25, 2006)

I don't do w/c with warm water. Why do so when you have a heater in the tank anyway.

Bleach will kill fish if any residue is left unrinsed. Vinegar is the preferred method in cleaning tanks.


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## Jeane09 (Nov 19, 2013)

My tapwater is _very_ cold right now. Normally I can draw it out of the tap just above room temperature and that's close to the aquarium temperature but right now since the hot water supply to whole building is nonfunctional, the tapwater is frigid. If I don't warm it when I add the new water the temperature drops in the tank at least a few degrees. I thought that was a shock for the fish?


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## emc7 (Jul 23, 2005)

Shock doesn't cause fin-rot. It could be low pH, high ammonia or bacterial infection. It is very easy to spread an infection, one drop of water or your unwashed hands can do it. There is a way to bleach dip or potassium permanganate dip plants or you could try going fishless for a month or two, changing all the water (don't dchlor it) twice. Then dechlor and add fish and hope the pest needs a host. The whole point of QT is to avoid this situation.


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## Jeane09 (Nov 19, 2013)

The pH has actually gone up a bit lately- not sure why- and ammonia is nil. The tank did have 40 nitrates for a while so I did more frequent wc, and then the fish got fin rot. I did use the QT for the new guppies, but right after the betta died too.

I am not planning on stocking that tank again soon, but want to be sure the plants and everything are clean first. So doing a wc w/out declor the chlorine will help kill the bacteria? but not hurt the plants?


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## TheOldSalt (Jan 28, 2005)

Well, that might work well enough, but it's iffy. Try it, then wait two weeks before adding any new fish. While you wait, look around for some new fish, preferably from another hobbyist instead of a store. The guppy section on Aquabid has some great stuff.


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## TheOldSalt (Jan 28, 2005)

No, wait, scratch that. Don't buy any really good fish until your tank is clean.


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