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An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure...

Experienced hobbyists know this to be true.

"Quarantine." Webster explains it simply...

"To isolate from normal relations or communication."

Beginners to the hobby suffer from a lack of knowledge, especially about disease and sickness. They have a difficult time when it comes to purchasing two tanks and cannot understand the importance of isolating new fish for a couple of weeks before placing them in the host tank.

It never enters their mind that fish, like humans, can transmit germs and bacteria and they soon are revisiting the fish store to replace their "floaters" and "sinkers".

The shame of it all is that there's not a fish store clerk in the world that would suggest the purchase of a smaller tank for the prime purpose of isolating potentially sick fish.

Can't you just hear what the response would be:

"I can just about afford one tank and you're asking me to buy another??!!"

"Are your fish that bad that they can't be kept in one tank??"

Those of you who have experienced the demise of a whole tank of tropicals just because you failed to quarantine your new fish or those who were forced to euthanize their very favorite tropical from "imported disease" know what I'm talking about.

The "Terminator"

They should change the name of this disease to the "Terminator" because that is exactly what it is.

Choose your favorite fish, Neon Tetras, from the store, acclimate them to your tank water and away you go. NOT.

Most likely you've all seen Neon Tetra Disease mentioned in this Forum. It's a killer. It has the potential to wipe out your whole tank; and not only Neons but a host of other species as well.

This contageous disease causes a slow death, perhaps over a few months time. One-by-one your fish will lose color, become lazy, stop feeding and die. All because you took a chance that the fish were healthy and failed to quarantine.

Usually within a couple of weeks a diseased Neon will start to lose the color in its stripe and the head of the fish start to fade also. This is the time all the fish in quarantine are bagged and returned to the store for refund.

Quarantying tropicals is a simple matter. A bare-bottomed 10-gallon with matched pH water, a heater and a small filter.

Fish are e to disease and evidenced by the many different diseases mentioned on this Site and other offerings.

Sometimes you'll go for the longest time with no problems, purchase a new tropical or two and introduce them to your tank without isolating them first.

That could prove to be a fatal move.

Just to make sure your host tank receives the best of the best from the quarantine tank, just add a little Tetracycline to the quarantine tank to potentially kill all possible disease, except Neon Tetra, that may remain in the store bag water and expensive fish.

Even after quarantine there's no guarantee that your fish will be completely healthy. Internal parasites could be a factor.

There's tons of unused 10-gallon tanks out there just waiting to hold quarantined fish. How can you go wrong??

END.

--garyroland.