value of quarantine

Quarantine all newly purchased fish before introduction to an established tank. Every new fish is a potential time bomb. In particular look out for signs of whitespot and the more dangerous and harder to detect velvet.

Apart from the very early days, in 30 years i have never had a bad case of whitespot or velvet on softwater tropicals, because i always isolate and pre treat any new arrivals with protozin for at least 72 hours.
i did have a velvet type problem with some newly imported africans a few years ago which caught me by surprise, but it soon cleared with correct treatment.
Velvet can afflict africans to some extent but the hard water type conditions prevent it from getting a real grip and sometimes the parasites will die off without treatment.
It is harder to detect on africans for above reasons and can linger on for ages untreated.
The gills esp. can be irreparately damaged by bad or long term infestation.
Whitespot and velvet are tiny parasitic crustacaens and if tackled quickly should not actually kill any healthy fish.
Some species are more prone to attack, esp. the scaleless clown loach, tetras, danios and the salt reliant mollies, and newly imported rams seem to always arrive with a dose.
velvet can occasionally travel undetected in the gills of loricarids.
Just remember their 72 hours cycle and 1 pest can become 1000 in this period and they can only be killed when freeswimming.
Anyway the good news is that with a little care and observation at the start we should'nt have to unduly worry about these pests, they could even be compared to fleas or ticks on humans, "easily treated and eliminated when detected and identified".

Nice post.

One question; is Protozin the best product to use for white spot/velvet treatment?


Cheers,

i trust it because it's bio degradeable. but there are probably other equally good brands.

i forgot to mention clown loach, botias and a few other species are adversely affected by some med. brands so make sure to read instructions on bottle before use.

Unfortunately most people myself included do not understand the true value of quarantine until they have experienced a disater. When you only have one tank and the choice between getting another small one to act as a Q tank or you could buy those new fish that just caught your eye it takes will power to go for the tank! It is easier when you have a load of tanks to keep one or two for Q purposes, but even then you can get a bit lazy or make teh fatal mixtake after a few days and think, ah he looks grand - into the main tank...

I am sure plenty of members here will have experienced or know someone who has done seriously livestock damage with a new fish that was not quartantined properly.

Daragh

i agree with your sentiment john. but even after good Qtine fish can come down with parasites and some less obvious disorders due to stress caused by catching, bagging, transportation and introduction to a usually hostile new home.

I agree with Derek on his above point,
I picked up 6 clown loaches yesterday and they had been in the shop for the past month and looked in great health they were ordered in for me and kept in a tank in 1 of our sponsors shops that was only for my fish
I put them in my tank and they had whitespot within 2 hours
Ill have a quarantine tank setup straight after Christmas