Quarantine 1st fish?

[Squatching_Fish]

So, I'm a full believer in QT's. My question is simple. When I get my first fish in a fully furnished aquarium. Decor, plants, hardscape. Say I add 2-4 angel fish to a fully cycled tank. Can I just plop them in there and say welcome home and essentially my thought process is that my display tank will be the Quarantine tank. This is my only tank at the moment. These will be my first fish. Can my main tank be my quarantine tank for my first fish deposit. Later in like 6-7 weeks when I add roseline sharks I would Quarantine them then put them in the tank.

 

My concern is, Lets say the Angelfish get Ich or die of a parasite or whatever. Is the tank now infected with this disease / parasite? Basically concerned if the tank is now contaminated? 

 

Please let me know your thoughts on this. 

Woohoo - Homer SImpson

[Tlindsey]

On 10/2/2024 at 4:35 AM, Squatching_Fish said:

So, I'm a full believer in QT's. My question is simple. When I get my first fish in a fully furnished aquarium. Decor, plants, hardscape. Say I add 2-4 angel fish to a fully cycled tank. Can I just plop them in there and say welcome home and essentially my thought process is that my display tank will be the Quarantine tank. This is my only tank at the moment. These will be my first fish. Can my main tank be my quarantine tank for my first fish deposit. Later in like 6-7 weeks when I add roseline sharks I would Quarantine them then put them in the tank.

 

My concern is, Lets say the Angelfish get Ich or die of a parasite or whatever. Is the tank now infected with this disease / parasite? Basically concerned if the tank is now contaminated? 

 

Please let me know your thoughts on this. 

Woohoo - Homer SImpson

I've personally added fish in a few fully new setup cycled  aquariums but to be honest it's risky especially for someone new to the fishkeeping hobby. If you plan to pre treat with meds I suggest quarantine in a bare bottom hospital aquarium or tote . You don't have to worry about killing your beneficial bacteria with certain meds. Yes if Angelfish were infected with ich the aquarium would be infected and contaminated.  Higher temperature and meds will be required to kill ich through its life cycle. Also substrate vacuuming to get rid of ich cyst released from infected fish. My advice is if you are personally purchasing fish from a lfs observe the aquarium. Look for fish that are not healthy. Fish in the corner or at the top breathing rapidly, a fish with wounds, notice a fish with ich, or any dead fish please go to another lfs. If you do buy fish acclimate them slowly I prefer drip acclimation. Like you stated after your first group of fish wait for a month or longer to add new fish.

 

 

Edited October 2 by Tlindsey

[Squatching_Fish]

Ok so that basically answers my question. Make sure they are not wonky fish, and still hospital them to make sure they don’t get all whacked out and stink up the tank. Got it. Good good. Thank you. I’d rather be patient and have a clean tank then a nasty bad thing in there

[Tony s]

Lots of people have lots of different ways to do this. Me, I never quarantine the first batch of fish into a new aquarium. I also never use meds unless I see something going on. Then I generally treat the whole tank. Depending upon the size of the tank of course. 75g is expensive to treat, 10g, is basically the same as a dedicated quarantine tank. Then, after that, almost everything else goes through a month long quarantine. Just for observation. If it’s not sick, I don’t treat. 

On 10/2/2024 at 4:35 AM, Squatching_Fish said:

Can I just plop them in there and say welcome home and essentially my thought process is that my display tank will be the Quarantine tank

That’s my theory at least. It has worked really well so far. But, everyone does it slightly different. Everybody does everything slightly different, which is great. You’ll have to figure out what you like as you go along. Which is the beauty of this hobby.