Think Quarantine is Only About Diseases?  

Think Again.

Lots of people have emailed me saying in that they aren’t interested in quarantining fish because they’ve never quarantined anything before, and all their fish are healthy, so why start now?

These emails bring up a big misconception you likely have about quarantining fish.  The misconception is that the sole reason to quarantine is for disease treatment and prevention.

While that reason is important, it completely overlooks several other great reasons for fish quarantine:

Reason #1: Match.com for Fish

Lots of saltwater fish like clownfish, cardinalfish, firefish and gobies will form mated pairs.  Even if you aren’t interested in breeding fish, having a mated pair of fish in your tank adds a level of uniqueness that saltwater tank hobbyists covet.  Having a mated pair shows that you:

• have the money to afford a mated pair
• know where to get them
• or have the skills to create them yourself

Mated pair of clownfish

The problem with mated pairs is creating them is difficult as not all fish want to be in a pair.  Simply putting two of the same type of fish in your tank doesn’t make a mated pair!

To form a mated pair, you first have to try different sets of fish together to see which ones “stick”.  And by “together”, I mean actually together, where they can swim next to one another. You can’t let the fish look at each other through a divider and see what happens!

Therefore, if you are attempting to form a pair in your display tank, and the fish don’t get along, then you have to somehow get the unwanted fish OUT of your tank which isn’t easy.

Removing an unwanted fish out of your quarantine tank is much easier on you and on the fish.  No need to chase the fish around the tank (good luck), or try to trap it (time consuming, if it even works). A quarantine tank gives you easy access to the fish, keeping the stress level on you and the fish, low.

I personally experienced first hand the benefits of using a quarantine tank to create a pair of fish.  When creating mated pairs of clownfish for my tank, I had to mix/match different pairs of fish to see who liked each other and who didn’t.  Sometimes the pairings went really bad and I had to remove the fish within minutes of placing one fish with a potential mate.  Removing the fish quickly would be nearly impossible if I didn’t try the pairings in a quarantine tank.

From now on, any fish that I want to created a pair (or small school) of will be attempted in a quarantine tank first.

Reason #2:  Tangs Play Nice

Having multiple tangs in a tank created a splash of color and a variety of fish personalities, giving your tank unique character.  However, sometimes tangs don’t get along with one another. One way to avoid this aggression is to introduce these fish into your display tank all at the same time. However, what if you can’t get all the fish that you want at the same time? I.e…your local fish store only got a purple tang on this week’s shipment and won’t get the naso tang you want until next week’s order?  Or if you ship the fish in, and one doesn’t survive the shipping?

Without a quarantine tank, you’d have to put the fish you were able to get immediately into your display tank and that would ruin your stocking plans.

When you have a proper quarantine tank, you have a safe holding place for these fish until you get all the ones you want. Once you have them all, and you’ve quarantined them properly of course, you can introduce them into your display at the same time.  Aggression issues would be minimized, if they even show up at all.

If you are looking for how to setup your quarantine tank properly and learn about the biggest fringe benefit I’ve discovered about quarantining fish, grab your copy of The No-Nonsense Guide to Marine Fish Disease, Treatment and Quarantine right here.