Cross contamination timeframe?

[kilnakorr]

Hi

Myself and a few fellow hobbiest are discussing cross contamination (no quarantine).
We are all wondering if there's a timeframe from where any problems should be noticeable?
I've only read the horror stories where it seems people have lost fish within just a few days.

Any experience and input are welcome 😊

[bluelagoon]

A lot would depend on the pathogen. It could take hours or weeks to months.

[FishFanMan]

There are times when I did not QT my new discus because I only buy from 1 shop who is a sponsor here. I've never ever had new or current discus die in a few days or even a month after new introduction. If the new discus is a carrier of such a deadly bug yet looks and behaves normally, it must have a really great immune system. I've had sick discus but they stopped eating and slowly got thinner and smaller. After 6 months or so I've had to put them down.

[Filip]

My last experience was rather interesting .
My test discus in the QT got sick and stopped eating 2 weeks after mixing , it stood in one corner and did not took a single bite for more than a month . With couple of tratments with metro it got better again and after a 3 month QT ordeal I finnaly introduced the new stock in my main tank . The exact same symthoms and result happenend in my display tank- old batch off food from the 2 week of mixing , and 5 weeks of treatments until they started eating again .
My guess is that the pathogens were mainly intestinal flaggelates and worms with some minor bacterial symthoms of opaque skin and swollen lips on some of the old discus .
Here are some links from my last mixing experience .

The QT tank mixing experience :

http://forum.simplydiscus.com/showthread.php?134421-An-Odd-QT-procedure-experience&highlight=


The display tank mixing experience :

http://forum.simplydiscus.com/showthread.php?134840-Old-batch-getting-off-food-one-by-one-10-days-after-mixing&highlight=

[kilnakorr]

Thanks for the reply.
I can see I wasn't very clear in my original post.
I was more curious about mixing discus from different places (US, Europe and Asia). I've read plenty of scary stories about total tank wipeouts that, if I remember correct, happend quite rapidly.

[bluelagoon]

Yeah, sorta like mixing early Europeans with the early Natives. We had resistance, they had none, which wiped a lot of folks at time. Again different pathogens in early Europeans.

[brewmaster15]

Thanks for the reply.
I can see I wasn't very clear in my original post.
I was more curious about mixing discus from different places (US, Europe and Asia). I've read plenty of scary stories about total tank wipeouts that, if I remember correct, happend quite rapidly.

Generally ( and I mean very generally) when you mix discus from different geographic areas hobbyists usually start to see one or both groups acting weird in 2-3 days, sometimes as many as 5 days. They may go dark, stop eating, huddle together, In most cases though we do not know the actual disease agent its probably viral.

When you mix fish from different geographic sources and they break down in 5-7 days or longer..start to slime up,, it could still have started as viral but now the fish have bacterial infections, probably from the immune response to the virus weakening it.

Its really hard to say, but theres a way to minimize all this.. Patience.

Use a long QT, 6 weeks or longer, and use a hero fish to test the new group.

Anything else and its just a matter of time before we see that hobbyist on the Disease Board or they are selling their tanks.

al

[Stanica]

I quarantined. I added a hero fish, which became sick after a few days. Furan 2 cured him. New fish never got sick. When new fish (including hero) were added to my show tank, everyone was fine for a few days. My original discus (Stendkers) all got sick. Again, new fish did not. I treated the whole show tank with Kanamycin and Furan 2. All my Stendkers recovered after a couple of weeks - except one. I put him in a separate tank and treated with Metro. He recovered - thought for sure he would die. Everyone is now healthy and happy. Although it was a stressful few weeks, I think I was lucky not to lose any fish. I don’t think I will mix strains again.

[kilnakorr]

Thanks a lot for the info.
I am also not taking that chance, it was purely for info I asked :D