How long to leave fish in QT?

[Stickboy97]

I ordered a butterfly and a tang from liveaquaria last week and placed them in my QT. They appear to be healthy & are eating well. I haven't treated them for anything as they don't seem to have any issues.

So, how long do I leave them in QT?

[Dealseer]

6 weeks and 2 days.

[Brieninsac]

You'll get a wide range of answers. I personally do 4-weeks for most fish. However, disease prone fish like Tangs I would go a full 2-months.

[Stickboy97]

Even if they show no signs or issues?

[ali1]

As mentioned above, it varies. Some dont QT at all (gambling), others treat QT as purely an observation tank and medicate if something shows up, and others religiously medicate every fish regardless of health/status/origin


In my experience, some fish are more sensitive to meds than others and for that reason, i dont medicate every fish. Also, we dont know if the fish we just purchased has been through weeks of copper or just came from the seas. Hate to put fish in more weeks of undesirable water conditions if LFS did the same.

Although every fish goes through observation period.

[Stickboy97]

How long do you generally observe? That was kind of what I figured I'd do. If all is good after about 2 weeks, in they go.

How long would it take for some kind of disease or illness to show up?

I imagine the tang wasn't at LA very long. I got a notice it was instock and I bought it, now its out of stock again. The butterfly I think is in stock more often, so it may have gone through some time there.

[Joe0813]

you can leave them in there however long you want and they may never show signs of ich until you put them in your display. Tank transfer method is only 12 days and then I put them in my holding tank for another few weeks to make sure they eat

[Heuristic]

I do 3 to 4 weeks if they show zero signs of anything I'll plop them in the DT.

That said, I just picked up 5 Chromis, by day 2 I saw signs of something so I treated with Prazi and Melafix, by day 3, one had died of Urenoma. Day 4 a second one died from it. The other 3 have been healthy ever since... I have freshwater dipped them to try to make urenoma doesn't, but I've been holding on to them for 3 weeks now. I will probably do one more round of freshwater dip, hold for 2 weeks and if they're ok i'll bring them over.

My fox face I had in QT for 3 weeks, he never showed any signs of anything the entire time. Ate like a pig and has been in my DT for a month now and has been great.

[Stickboy97]

That looks like some pretty nasty stuff. I think I'll leave them at least 14 days before moving them over. Thanks for the replies!

[Hal]

For a normal QT, I recommend 4 weeks minimum, assuming your are the impatient type. 6 weeks is recommended (by me). : )

I've had clownfish eat and look fine and then at 4 weeks (literally the day before I was going to put them in my display) get a full ich outbreak.

I don't medicate in QT unless I see an issue. I do, however, dip in formalin and methylene blue before putting the fish into QT.

P.S. I highly recommend an acclimation tank (critter keeper) that you float in your display when you are about to introduce your new fish. It really cuts down on the aggression once you release them from the acclimation tank. I usually leave the new fish in it for 3 days.