Is quarantine really needed?

[Second Hand Pat]

Hi Jorgen, I would suggest not using meds unless you are treating for something specific.
Pat

[LoGeek]

Hi Jorgen, I would suggest not using meds unless you are treating for something specific.
Pat

Ok, now I'm a little bit confused again

Take my Bristlenose as an example. I've had it in one of my tanks for years and nothing new has been introduced to the tank. What difference will it make to move it to a qt tank without any meds?

[Second Hand Pat]

OK, reviewed the thread and appears you wish to add a fish you have had a while to your discus tank? I would place the Bristlenose in a hospital tank (large enough to house a discus also) and then add a hero discus to the QT tank. If all appears well after two weeks then add both back to the discus tank.
Pat

[Jenene]

I would have to agree with a few of the previous posts.. Quarantine is a must unless you are willing to risk transferring microbes. If you are sharing nets or anything with both tanks, even cleaning one after another with your hands not sanitized, your taking a risk. However, these are your fish and it is a calculated risk. You have to decide how much risk you want to take.

I would like to share a personal story and it is just my two cents. I got a group of discus from a friend about 4 years ago. I took them home and put them straight in my system without any quarantine. I just drip acclimated and put them in. They were healthy fish, very well taken care of showing zero signs of distress or sickness. We even used his aged tap in the bags to bring the fish back to my place since it was a 10 minute drive. We thought "that would minimize the risk."

After placing the fish in my tank I did a 24 hour lights out just to make sure they calmed down and got a chance to meet my fish. After about two days one started showing signs of sickness. I thought it was stress from the new environment. Turns out it was not. That fish and four others got sick and died so fast it made my head spin. $600 dead just because I was lazy.

I am not saying this would happen to you, just saying it can happen to anyone.

Great post Casey, a perfect example of how this forum works-with people sharing information to save others from making the same mistakes. It was posts like this that caught my attention early on.

Thanks for sharing!

[DatDiscusDude]

The Hero fish is the way to go here, no other way to tell how it will effect the discus. Best to infect one rather than the group...

Getting burnt by lack of QT is something that happens to the best of us... I've finally learned my lesson, hard lesson, but learned... QT is a must and something that will make or break your hobby...

[Filip]

Jorgen , if we both decide to go to a friendly vacation trip across Africa we will be forced to get 12 or more different vaccination shots in order to stay alive .
Otherwise we will be cross-contaminated and very well Die , from perfectly healthy African population that we will interact with. The same is with discus .

The hero fish QT procedure has nothing to do with biology , but rather with finance and financial risk management .
You can't acclimate or somehow make fish resistant to fatal bacteria's their god given immune system is not used to with our QT procedure.
You are just minimizing your risks ,testing and risking only one discus instead of them all .

[LoGeek]

Great explanation Philip, thanks!