So why is it important to quarantine fish.- Even though you can look and pick a fish that looks super healthy and no signs of disease, you can’t see what’s going on internally. Not all diseases like fin rot, white spot or Columnaris are evident to see with the naked eye, and sometimes they’re not immediately evident. There is some diseases such as camallanus which is a parasite and this is contagious. It’s not apparent in the initial stages as the parasite grows in the fishes intestines. This means that although the fish looks healthy when you buy it and add it to the tank, 4 weeks later could be when it’s evident as there are red worms hanging from the fish. Because this is contagious any fish in the tank would be affected also.
- Now camallanus can be treated but if you read back on the diseases and conditions post under the guides section section you will see that it’s quite hard to treat these worms because they’re pretty resistant to so it’s inevitable that not all fish affected will survive.
My fish is going into its own tank should I still quarantine- The answer to that is absolutely and particularly more so if you have multiple individual tanks. Although you can have say 1 other Betta tank and you have a new fish arriving for another tank, the chances are you will use the same equipment to do maintenance. Using the same equipment can spread diseases into the other tank. Another reason even if you only have one tank is a disease like Columnaris is super contagious and the only way to eradicate it is to sterilise the tank, the only way to do this is boil or bleach everything which means you’ve spent weeks cycling a tank to now have to start all over because of a poorly fish.
How long should you quarantine for- I personally quarantine for 6 weeks, but there is some research out there that says 4 weeks is enough. Because I have so many Betta I won’t take risks anymore because all it would take is to get one fish with Columnaris and it would spread like wildfire into my other tanks and then boom I could potentially lose half of my Bettas.
- The reason I choose 6 weeks is because like camallanus it can take 4 weeks to show signs so if I hadn’t noticed at the 4 week mark they’d possibly be in the tank before I noticed. So I like those extra 2 weeks for my own reassurance.
How would you quarantine- I choose to quarantine in 10L jars which are each individually heated. I do it this way because afterwards I can sterilise the jars and heaters.
- Because I choose not to have filters it means I do 100% changes to the water daily. This often isn’t necessary you can allow a couple of days and do 80% changes but I like to keep the water toxin free for them since travelling to me it can cause them stress which weakens their immune system. I like to keep the parameters stable so as not to make them poorly being exposed to ammonia or nitrite.
- Quarantine can also be done in lesser volumes of water, you can use 2-3L plastic tubs or cups. With this volume the water can become pretty toxic quickly so you’d be aiming for daily water changes. These tubs or jars need to be heated so a method you can use is a large plastic storage tub. You can attach a heater and fill this with water and then float the tubs or cups in there and it heats them all up within the one area with the one heater. This method is great for larger amounts of fish for say a sorority. Another method that people use is reptile cables or heat mats to heat the tubs. You’d need to add a thermostat to maintain a safe temperature. So this method can be a little more expensive especially compared to a plastic storage box and plastic cups.
- When I quarantine I like to add some guppy grass to give them something to rest on and it provides them some cover as well, and I add some IAL for decoration for the bottom which they like to swim under and hide in like a cave. Once quarantine is over I just bin these since they’re cheap.
Should you medicate the quarantine jars- When I quarantine fish I don’t treat with anything other than a worming treatment and plenty of tannins to provide antibacterial and anti fungal properties. If you look in the topics section under diseases and conditions there is info there for worming treatments and how to make a tannins tea.
- I will only ever treat with medication if any diseases become apparent. I’d assess what the issue is and medicate accordingly. I’d keep the fish in the quarantine tank until treatment is completed and it’s all safe for them to move into their forever home.
Other reasons you quarantine fish that aren’t new.- So if you have a poorly fish the best thing is to remove them from the tank so you can carry out treatments. Some treatments such as methylene blue is great for treating some diseases because it kills bacteria. Where it becomes tricky with this medication is that because it kills bacteria it means it also kills the good bacteria that filters our tank which would mean you’d have to start from scratch to set it up again which as you’ll know by now can take weeks. This means the fish would be in an unfiltered tank being exposed to toxins.
- It’s also good if you have a sorority to remove the affected fish so you can medicate only one. You don’t want to treat a whole tank when only one fish is affected.
Quarantining plants and rocks- This is just a little further issue that can introduce disease to your tank. When you get plants or rocks they could be exposed to ich for example, if you look at the diseases in topics it explains this more. So ich can be present on plants or rocks as well so you’d want to thoroughly wash these and let them dry a few days before adding to the tank. This is because without a host (fish) it will die.
- Some people opt to carry out a full quarantine of 4 weeks on plants as well to ensure even pest snails are not present to be introduced to the tank as well.