Quarantine Tank for Saltwater Fish

By Al Ulrich - Last updated: Thursday, January 7, 2010 - Save & Share - Leave a Comment

One of the best things you can do to help maintain a healthy saltwater aquarium is to set-up and use a quarantine tank. A quarantine tank is a separate, relatively bare tank that is dedicated to housing newly purchased fish for an intermediate period of time. Any of the fish that you purchase could be harboring parasites or a pathogenic disease. The only way to prevent the new editions from infecting those fish in your display tank is to quarantine them until you are certain they are parasite and disease free.

A quarantine tank is especially necessary if you plan to keep live rock, coral or invertebrates. The reason is that most parasites are invertebrates—and the major ways to treat and kill the parasites will also treat and kill the beneficial invertebrates living in and around your live rock, as well as the coral, shrimp and clams that you may have added. Once the infection gets into your display tank, it is often very difficult to get rid of.

The quarantine tank, once you set up and use it, actually serves multiple functions. It provides a:

Physical barrier between your new fish and the display tank, preventing contamination in the first place
Way for you to closely observe and monitor the behavior of the new saltwater fish out in the open (most newly introduced saltwater fish will hide in the rockwork or other ‘structure’ in your aquarium and only come out once they reach a minimum comfort level—which varies by species and individual)
Way for you to safely treat and remove any threats without the risk of harming any of your other livestock
‘Recovery place’ for your newly purchased saltwater fish to eat, gain strength, and recover from the stresses of shipping and pet store display—and get ready to compete for food and shelter with the other saltwater fish in your reef tank.

Unfortunately, if you’re like me, you may have received advice like this when you decided to get into the saltwater aquarium hobby, and you may have rationalized away the need for a quarantine tank. If you are like me, you probably had a healthy, stable reef tank running for several months and then suffered a catastrophic loss as saltwater ich, amylodium or some other parasite reached plague proportions in your saltwater aquarium and you suffered major losses to your saltwater fish tank. Adding fish to a tank without the proper quarantine period is like playing Russian Roulette with your fish tank. You can get away with it for a few rounds, but after a while the odds stack up against you, and your fish will pay the price. Let me assure you, next to the protein skimmer, the quarantine tank is one of the most important pieces of equipment you can purchase. The trouble and expense to set it up pales in comparison to replacing your saltwater fish, coral and other invertebrates, catching any survivors, breaking down the tank and setting up the quarantine tank (QT) anyway. Save yourself the life lesson I learned the hard way and spend the money to set up the quarantine tank right away (QT).

Have you suffered any losses like I did? Post your story here so that others don’t repeat the same mistake we did.