How long to quarantine fish?

[martin_jones]

I bought 3 clownfish last Thursday and have them in a 5G quarantine tank with a little live rock.

I am doing water changes on my display tank every other day, and using the extracted water to change 50% in the 5G.

How long should I keep these clowfish in quarantine? They appear healthy. I'd prefer them in the main tank for obvious reasons (the 5G has no filter so could cycle).

Thoughts...?

Martin

[Severum]

Gradually lower the salinity to 1010 and keep them in there for 6 weeks. Get the live rock out of there as once you lower salinity all sorts of things will die off. Doing regular water changes with display tank water should keep your parameters in check, or at least diluted enough.

[bongo]

I recommend that you quarantine the content of your DT if it's not already done... and I don't recommend using the water from the DT for your QT if you did not already quarantine your DT

I recommend leaving your DT fallow for 8 weeks or else your fish might get sick when you introduced them in the DT or when your transfer water from your DT to your QT... there's no way around this if your DT has inverts, you can't lower salinity or put copper based medecine

but hey... that just me... do it right the first time and you will save time, trouble, money and fish

[Severum]

Ya, what was I thinking when I said do water changes with DT water to your QT. If your DT is already infected it won't help the QT.

Bongo got it right.

[martin_jones]

Sorry - I think you misunderstood me.

There is nothing wrong with my DT. I just didn't want to introduce the newly bought fish into my DT, so put them in a 5G QT.

Using the water from DT into QT so that if any temperature/param differences from new water going into tank, it will have less impact on 90G than it will on 5G.

Nothing is infected. I was just making sure that the clowns were OK prior to introduction to DT.

What effect would reducing salinity have?

Martin