Tropical Fish Quarantine

How long should a LFS quarantine Fish before offering for sale?

Kev.

well in my opinion depending on if the fish is wild or not that would be taken into consideration.might have to be wormed ect




but id say a week at least your obviously going to get some die off from the traveling so a week to settle in and start feeding and the weak one s will die off in this period leaving the strong healthy one s to be sold




just my thoughts on it people might think its rubbish but as i said just my opinion




craig

Nothing Rubbish about any of that Craig, makes total sense.

Kev.

I agree with Craig there, a week, though I will say that in that week they should indentify ilness, check the fish are not showing any signs of anything.

Putting it in for a week and handing it on if it eating and still alive really means it is eating and thats all.

If it is only a week in QT, then it aint QT'd at all as we know there are plenty of conditions and infections that can shown no signs in a week if picked up in the farm or anywhere between the farm supplier and LFS.



In a nutshell, a week is pointless really other than to let the fish settle before moving again.

Mark

In an ideal world, all fish we buy would get a full 3-4 week quaratine period before purchase, but in reality is that really practical? As fishkeepers, we all want the best price for the fish we buy. Even if an LFS had the tank space to quaratine every fish they get in, which in itself is very impractical, then the extra cost of electricity, tank space, staff time and effort, food, meds etc would raise the cost to an impractical level. Even simple Livebearers would probably double in price.
When you think about it, if an LFS turned over all of their stock in one week on average, then you would need about the shop floor space again in a quarantine room, holding 3 times the amount of floor tanks, to complete a 3 week quarantine. On top of this there would have to be a very vigilant watch kept on the stock for any disease, a lot more water changes, so more staff hired, as well as each of these tanks having an individual filtration and heating system to ensure it's a proper quarantine.
All of this cost would have to be passed on to the consumer, which would make that LFS a lot less competitive than a shop that did not quarantine.
So, in answer to your question, the quarantine period should be inversely proportional to the amount we are willing to pay for our fish. Think if we want our fish quarantined I'm afraid we'll have to do it ourselves.
Anywho, I haven't been keeping fish as long as most on here, so there might easily be something I'm completely missing. If so, feel free to tear my thoughts apart!
L