This is an aspect of the fishkeeping hobby that is being overlooked by many, especially those who keep various community fish in their aquarium and get new fish on a monthly basis. One of the biggest misconceptions I have encountered about setting up quarantine tanks is when they should be actually used. It should ONLY be for new fish before they enter your main display aquarium. I have heard quite a few people ask whether a fish with an infectious disease with white spot or fungus in their main tank should be transferred to a quarantine tank for treatment. The answer is no! If it is an infectious fish disease, transferring an infected fish to a quarantine tank will not remove the disease-causing the illness from your main aquarium. So logic dictates that the whole aquarium needs to be medicated. For non-infectious diseases, using a quarantine setup would be redundant.
Really setting up a quarantine tank should be standard due diligence for each and every fishkeeper. Setting up a quarantine aquarium requires very little effort and resources, just a bit of time. In my humble opinion (no offense intended), the “reasons” for not having a quarantine aquarium are mere justifications for impatience. For example, saying that quarantine requires X amount of weeks to prevent all diseases may be technically accurate, but a 2-4 week quarantine will prevent your tropical fish from getting pretty much any infectious diseases. Over the decades as a fishkeeper, I have skipped quarantine countless times with success. But on the flip side, I have also introduced some terrible diseases into my aquariums. It is a very large risk you are taking. It is really not worth the potential headache, heartbreak, and the risk to all your tropical fish because you can’t find time to separate fish for just a couple of weeks.
And unfortunately, fishkeepers need to understand that there is no such thing as a reputable disease-free fish store. However responsible and well-intentioned a shop may be, there’s no physical way they can prevent diseases with the volume of fish they buy and sell on a regular basis. Having a quarantine setup will give you a chance to observe the new fish and see if they show any signs of disease or irregular behavior, if fish do display that then you can take a course of action without putting your other fish at risk. Setting up a quarantine aquarium is neither expensive nor time-consuming. So what exactly do you need for a quarantine setup? Just an aquarium that would house the fish comfortably for a period of 2 weeks. It does not need to have any substrate, in fact, the substrate would be a hindrance, especially when fighting things like parasites.
You will of course also need a heater that is size appropriate for the aquarium you will be setting up. And for a filter, you really don’t need some fancy or expensive. A good old sponge filter will work, you can run it in one of your other aquariums for a week or two to have bacteria established before moving it to your quarantine setup. And to make the process even quicker, you can use some water you remove from your other aquariums during a water change to get it up and running quicker. You don’t even need to invest in a light, but if you have one it would be a nice bonus as it would make it easier to observe the new fish. Once you have it set up and running, you can now use the tank to quarantine and observe your new fish for a period of no less than 2 weeks. Once it is complete, you can use whatever method you usually use to acclimatize your new fish to your aquarium.
[Editorial Note:] If you regularly get fish you can keep it running with a few snails as occupants or you can break it down and set it up again before you get new fish again.
