Thoughts on Quarantine tanks

First of all, always buy strong and healthy looking fish, but remember that even the healthiest looking fish could carry nasty parasites and illnesses. Therefor a quarantine tanks are hugely beneficial for fish-keepers and fish alike and any serious aquarist should have one available.

These setups allow the aquarist to monitor new arrivals for signs of any decease without the risk of an illness spreading in the main system. Should sick be present a quarantine tank allows the hobbyist to treat the individual fish or fishes instead of the whole system. A positive side that seems often be overlooked is the peace and quite a quarantine tank can offer new arrivals that might be stressed after travelling. The same goes for wild fish getting used to new foods and water parameters. For this reason I personally don’t stick to the bare minimum quarantine tanks but rather try to set up an environment that the particular species can feel comfortable in long term. I also try to keep the quarantine tank in a quite spot to minimize stress.

The most common villain I see is flukes, especially in wild fish. There are plenty of remedies for these and the fish usually recovers unless it’s a particularly bad infestation. I try not to treat the fish straight away and leave them to recover for a weak or two before starting any treatments, just to let the fishes settle in and gain strength.

As for quarantine period, 2-4 weeks seems to be a common recommendation. There is no need to rush and I personally prefer to leave the fish for around a month. This decision depends on the fish and where it comes from.

What you need is a suitable sized tank, a heater and a seeded filter as well as suitable decor for the particular species. Light are not important and if you have them they should not be too strong as this might put additional stress on already weak fish.

As my main interest lies in small sized catfish the tank in the photograph above is set up for these types of fish. The tank is 72 litre, 60x40x30cm which allows enough bottom space for small sized plecos. The abundance of caves and wood lets the fish pick and choose hiding spots. The lights are particularly strong in the photo, but I don’t use them at all for the first week or so and then slowly introduce the light.

This tank is permanently stocked with a group of wild guppies which keeps the system alive and healthy; it also features several spare sponge filters in case they are needed to set up a second tank. If needed, the tank can easily be re-arranged to cater for many different types of species used to similar water parameters. With tetras and otos I would usually add a number of plants for instance.

This is how I do it but there are many ways to skin a cat(fish)

Nice find in "random" pet shop

I was out driving across the country with work today and made a stop a pet shop in one of the neighboring towns.

The stock was pretty much what to expect from most non specialist shops but I did find one tank with mixed cories. In this tank there was only one individual of each species, some of them quite uncommon. 

This is obviously a very strange way of selling Corydoras, I presume the mixed colours might appeal to new fish-keepers. Anyway I was delighted to see this young concolor as It will be a nice addition to my group and was resonably priced. Perhaps I should not encourage shops to sell cories this way but I felt sorry for the little guy.

This just shows that it’s always worth checking out the more standard pet shops as you never know what could lurk in the tanks. 

Always be careful and quarantine your new fish though. This little lad will be in quarantine for a good few weeks.

Corydoras mystery fry

These two came out with a water change today, they are either Corydoras concolor or habrosus. I have not bred either before so it's good either way.

Does anyone know which species they are?

Power Cut, a Fishkeepers Nightmare

As some of you might now we had a 30 hour power cut here a couple of weeks ago. It came at a really bad time in that I was in the process of moving and hence had tanks at two different locations.

 

I was not prepared enough but some of the preparations I had made proved vital to my fishes survival. The losses that I suffered all came from one single tank which was on the small size (70 liters) and not insulated. 

The losses were of younger animals of Hypancistrus debilittera, L129. The adults suffered too and in the end I evacuated these animals to a larger tank, It is certain that these animals would have died too if they would not have been moved.

Unfortunately I have heard from friends who lost far more fish than me during this cut.

What worked?

Oxygenation: I was lucky enough to get my hands on a number of battery driven air pumps and these proved absolutely vital to the health of my fish. The oxygenated water seems to also have kept the bacteria alive in my filters (all sponge). My water tests have all come back good since the event thanks to the air pumps and the sponges that were floating in the oxygenated water.

Insulation: One of my tanks was insulated with a layer of Styrofoam and there was a very clear difference in the temperature between this tank and the others. Obviously other factors matter too such as size of the tanks but the difference was clear enough to point to the insulation. In the future most of my tanks will be insulated.

Improvements?

If this power cut of 30 hours would have lasted longer, there is no doubt that I would have lost more fish therefor I will need to improve my chances should this happen again. 

Many fish keepers keep a spare generator at hand and this seems like a very good long term solution. Unfortunately due to the location this is not an option for me. I have been looking at various electrical backup solutions and I will update this post when I have done more research.

 

As I am satisfied with how the battery driven air pumps worked my main concern is the temperature. Apart from covering all tanks with insulation, have spare duvets ready to cover the tanks I have been suggested to use various heat packs that can be activated at the time of a power cut and suspended into the tank. 

Another option is to keep a few large tanks that are well insulated; in an emergency fish from smaller tanks can be temporarily transfers to the larger prepared tanks which will hold the temperature far longer than the smaller ones.

These solutions are however only fine if the owner is at home at the time of the power cut; it’s a different story if the owner is away during the event in which case an emergency power generator would be more beneficial.

I would be interested in hearing from other fish keepers with experience in this matter.

DIY: Simple tank / aquarium stand

For various reasons I needed a new stand for one of my tanks, and I needed it fast so this is what I (google) came up with.

It's as simple as it gets, no router needed and it takes no time to put together.
All that is needed is some timber (I used 5cm x 7,5cm beams), a hand saw, measureing tape and plenty of skrews.

The idea is that all the weight is held by the wood, the skrews are just holding the stand together not  supporting any weight.

All the wood is recycled and there are only straight cuts done with a hand saw, the legs are probably a bit overkill but they won’t be seen anyway.

At one point I thought about putting another horizontal piece of wood in between the legs for stability but there simply was no need for it.

The  skeleton of the stand was covered with thin boards from an old Ikea shelf. If you wanted to you could use the lower part as a shelf for storing an external filter, tools or even a second tank/sump.

Now I'll only need to cover up the bits just below the tank, nearly there.

Andreas

Calico Bristlenose / Ancistrus; red individual

Video: Hara minuscula Feeding On Whiteworms