Quarantine tank for new fish

[Urthrum]

How long do you quarantine your fish before adding them to your main tank? Is one week long enough?

[FishyThoughts]

It kind of depends on your preference.
If you just quarantine for observation than the length of time will be however long you feel is needed. 
If you want to get them, do a med cycle and then add them to the tank. Then a week it about how long you need. 
If you want to get them, do a med cycle and observe them and possibly a second med cycle you’ll need a couple weeks. 

And I’m sure there’s many other ways people do their quarantining. It pretty much comes down to what your doing with the quarantine period, and what you feel comfortable with. 
 

For example. If your main take had $10 worth of fish, you might not even be concerned enough to quarantine. But if you had $1000 worth of fish, you might quarantine for month. 

[Andy's Fish Den]

A week is the minimum I would do. I don't use meds unless I have to, I observe. The times I use meds, if I see something that needs treated, if the fish are recent imports from wild. I mainly observe how the fish are behaving, if they're eating etc. If I have them in QT for a week, no signs of illness, and eating good, then they will be put into their new more permanent home.

[Maggie]

There are so many different opinions on this! I had my tank-bred otocats in quarantine for just 2 weeks because I was making a huge mess in the uncycled, algae-free quarantine tank trying to feed them, got sick of 50% daily water changes, and was getting concerned about their health. I have 12 juvenile rasboras in quarantine now, for going on 3 weeks. They're all eating voraciously and have already grown a lot in that time. I guess we each have to decide, as there does not seem to be universal consensus. I'm going to try to hang in there for another week, but probably won't. 

[gardenman]

I keep some of my own tank raised swordtails in my quarantine tank that haven't been exposed to anything as far as I know. If a new fish arrives with anything it should show up in the swordtails fairly quickly. Some fish carry diseases with them that don't affect them. They've built up immunity to it. You can watch them forever and they'll look fine. Put them in your big tank though and everyone else could get sick. By keeping a few expendable non-immune fish in the quarantine tank I can hopefully prevent that type of a disaster from happening. If I add new fish and the swordtails suddenly get sick, I know the new fish have something that I need to treat, even if the new fish look fine. Keeping a few swordtails in the tank also helps to keep the tank cycled and gives me something to watch in the quarantine tank. The swordtails are currently sharing the tank with twelve (or so) ramshorn snails that I just got a while back. One snail died, but the rest are fine and the swordtails are fine so I don't think there's an issue with them. I'll start redistributing the snails to other tanks in the near future.

[FrozenFins]

I quarintine for 4 weeks

[Urthrum]

Alright! Thanks guys, lots of good points here I didn’t think about.