Trusted online livestock sources

[dc5842]

Does anybody know of any trusted online sources or LFS that you feel comfortable adding livestock immediately to your main display without QT?

I've been stocking my 120 and using a QT tank for 2 fish at a time to stock it. Waiting 4 to 6 weeks between additions to the display can be quite difficult (I'm too impatient). I had some losses when I first got into the hobby ( i believe due to parasites and ich) and am a complete believer in quarantine. I just wonder if it's safe once you know somebody else has gone through the hassle of already having quarantined livestock. I don't know of any LFS that does so but I know some online stores really harp on their QT procedures.

Any advice would be much appreciated.

[+Jakedoza]

I get my fish from RCA. I have never QT'd any fish. I like the way that Jake lists the date that he received the fish. I try and not buy fish that have just arrived for stress reasons. I think that if you are that worried about it than it is best to QT yourself, which it sounds like you are doing.

[jestep]

I've heard live aquaria is about full proof. From personal experience, I've never received a single fish with ICH that I purchased mail order. Regardless, I would QT all livestock since shipping can cause enough stress to enable opportunistic infection even in perfectly healthy fish.

[Richard L]

Someone mentioned on another thread that they trusted the Live Aquaria's Diver's Den QT proceedures implicitly. There's a detailed description of their QT proceedures online. Note that Diver's Den appears to be a sub-company of Live Aquaria so I don't believe that the fish that Live Aquaria sells goes through the same proceedures. Diver's Den is WSIWYG and a little pricier but compared to catastrophic results of a disease outbreak in your tank it may be well worth it.

Anecdotally, I recently had a need-to-add-a-bunch-of-tangs-at-the-same-time scenario to avoid aggression so I purchased a tang from them exactly a month ago today. It arrived real healthy and hungry and so far no signs of infection (knock on driftwood).

[Michae52]

Agree with Jakedoza about RCA. They list the date which they receive the fish and if it is been a couple of weeks then I see no problem buying a fish. Been very satisfied with their livestock. Shane at Fishy Business seems to have good livestock as well. The only problem I've had with anything from there is I had a little, I mean little clown was caught in a clam. But the first fish I've bought since I moved to Austin were from The Dome. Hunter did an excellent job of picking out the different fish that I wanted. Caught them with very little stress and everything has done just fine. But, if I could ever reopen my account with Quality Marine in LA, I would stock an complete tank with one order.

[Aaarrrggg]

Divers Den certainly have a lower risk, but it's still a risk. Their min QT is 2 weeks, so something could conceivably sneak through that. I've heard people in other forums suggest that because the LA water is so perfect symptoms might not present themselves until they reach our tanks. Someone also said they'd received a wrasse with flukes before.

Having said that, I've ordered 3 fish from DD before. 2 were fine and one was DOA... but to be fair the package was late. In fact I've just introduced a bluespotted jawfish from them straight into my DT (I didn't want to stress him out with a shallow sand bed in a QT,) and so far so good, although its only been a few days... fingers crossed!

[+Hydro]

Someone mentioned on another thread that they trusted the Live Aquaria's Diver's Den QT proceedures implicitly. There's a detailed description of their QT proceedures online. Note that Diver's Den appears to be a sub-company of Live Aquaria so I don't believe that the fish that Live Aquaria sells goes through the same proceedures. Diver's Den is WSIWYG and a little pricier but compared to catastrophic results of a disease outbreak in your tank it may be well worth it.

Anecdotally, I recently had a need-to-add-a-bunch-of-tangs-at-the-same-time scenario to avoid aggression so I purchased a tang from them exactly a month ago today. It arrived real healthy and hungry and so far no signs of infection (knock on driftwood).

Richard is correct, Liveaquaria and divers den are 2 different companies and the fish ship from 2 different locations. Liveaquaria fish ship from CA and divers den ships from WI. I don't QT divers den fish for a couple reasons. One is that they treat/medicate their fish for everything no matter what. The other reason is that the fish are used to human contact by then and are usually eating many kinds of food already. I just got a tusk from them a month ago and it was already eating new life spectrum pellets.

Here is their procedure

http://www.liveaquaria.com/general/general.cfm?general_pagesid=425

[Robb in Austin]

I have ordered from LA, Blue Zoo, and Vivid all without difficulty. All the fish I received from all of them arrived in good shape, were not quarantied, ate in a reasonable time from arrival, diesease free, and lasted a good time.

Locally, I use RCA mostly but have had luck from Aquatek and the Dome.

[mFrame]

Locally I've never had a QT issue with a fish from the Dome.

[+Hydro]

You guys are playing russian roulette not QTing your fish! It just takes one fish with velvet or ich to take down your entire tank. I'm not suggesting that you don't buy locally but I'm suggesting to always QT it no matter what. Its not about RCA or Dome or Fishy Business, they buy fish and resell them. You are basing your trust on their suppliers not the stores themselves. You are trusting a company (the wholesaler), that you know nothing about, with the livestock in your tank that you have are probably pretty attached to. Just not worth it IMO.

[+mcallahan]

I've never QT'd anything and never had any fish disease in my last tank (It was up 3+ yrs). Part of me wonders if QT'ing is more stressful than letting the fish go into their new home.

[dc5842]

Mark, do you normally purchase locally or do you use online sources for your fish. I have to say, that sounds pretty lucky to me. I'm newer to the hobby but I've had a rough go of it with livestock. My first two fish had brooklynella. Let the tank sit for 4 weeks and then started again with no QT. Tank did fine for about 3 months and then I come home after being gone for 36 hours for Thanksgiving vacation and all my livestock was dead except for a few hermits. All water params checked out normal and the electricity in the house didn't seem to have gone out. Maybe I'm just unlucky .

[+Hydro]

I've never QT'd anything and never had any fish disease in my last tank (It was up 3+ yrs). Part of me wonders if QT'ing is more stressful than letting the fish go into their new home.

Mike, Rob, and now you Mark! Wow I'm surprised you guys would recommend not to QT fish, even if you hadn't yourself. QTing fish is generallyaccepted as the "right thing to do" for a reason. Shame on you mr satwater TV! If someone reads this and says "well mark, rob, and mike don't do it" goes and buys a fish that infects their tank, that would suck.

Do you QT think people should at least QT corals? IMO its just as risky as the fish.

I won't go on and on but I want to give you some examples to think about. My first one is a friend of mine Jay (Jay's tire and auto), he owns a business here in Elgin and has a 500 gallon tank fish only and also a 250 gallon reef in his business waiting area. He bought a fish from a LFS and put it straight in his 500 gallon tank. The fish had velvet and it wiped out every fish in his tank, he tried QTing them but by the time he caught them all they were to far gone. He was mad about it and went back to the store (I won't say which store) to complain. They did offer to replace the fish but at that point he didn't care about one fish. He said that he took the owner around the store and pointed out to him that many of his fish had velvet and were still for sale, even after the conversation he felt like nothing was going to be done about it. He lost lots of expensive fish, had to watch them die and could do nothing about it.

Another good example. Just recently I had an anthias that I was QTing, had it for at least a month. Eating great, looked great, added some dewormer to the QT and it pooped out a 2" worm...the poor fish was only 3" long! I was shocked because the fish appeared so healthy. Maybe it could have lived with this worm without problems (not sure how)..... or maybe I would have put it in my DT and gave some of my other fish worms.

Last example is the OP, he wasn't lucky.

QTing fish is not stressful as you think, I understand why you think that because I used to feel the same way. Now if you are putting a tang in a 10 gallon tank for QT then I would totally agree with you. But if you have a properly sized QT I think that it does only good for the fish....its a place for it to chill out after all the stress its been through. When you QT there is little activity inside the QT tank so the fish is more likely to come out eat too. You also train the fish that you are the food source which is really important, when you approach the tank instead of hiding they come out. The QT lets you teach the fish this with no competition from the other, maybe more aggressive fish in your DT. You can "fatten" it up before placing it in a more stressful environment with bright lights and fish that may pick on them. Even if it doesn't eat and hides for a few days when put in DT your still ok because its had several good meals already and is disease and parasite free (at least for what you treated it for). If the fish dies in QT you at least are able to recover the fish and collect on the warranty if you have one. BTW I have lost many more fish putting them in my DT in the past then I have ever lost in QT.

[+Hydro]

I will admit that I never started QTing fish unitl a year or so ago. I never had any diseases, besides ich, spread from a new fish to my other fish thankfully. The main reason that I did this is because I would put a fish in the DT and then I would never see them again. They would go behind the rocks and die because they were too stressed to come out, at least I assume this was the reason. I actually tried 3 hippo tangs all with the same results, put them in and never saw them again. After I started QTing them I haven't lost another. I've been buying them small, QTing them, then putting in my frag tank to eat algae, grow them up and sell them here on the club. I'm on my 5th one now in a row.....so 3 dead in a row introduced directly in DT.....5 succesful in a row QTing them.

Keep in mind once you introduce ich to your DT its in there forever unless you leave it fallow for 6 weeks. After a new fish is introduced or some stressful event then there is usually it will resurface. This still happens to me.

[+Jakedoza]

I can count on one finger how many fish I have lost due to disease since I have started my reef aquarium (3 Years). I see nothing wrong with QT, but you also have to be a smart fish purchaser as well. I do not buy fish sight unseen, I do not buy fish that do not look healthy or do not act the way they are suppose to. I do not buy fish that came in to the LFS the day before or same day.. You have to be smart about it.

It may sound weird, but I find that most people who are paranoid about loosing fish loose more fish than people who are not.

[Michae52]

Excellent comment. USE COMMON SENSE WHEN BUYING LIVESTOCK. See if will eat, See how it reacts with tankmates,Try to find out how long it has been at the store. Ask questions. I do not think that there is one person in this town that will sell any livestock which they feel is tainted in anyway.

[Robb in Austin]

Put me in the 'I dont do it but know I should' camp. I'll agree I've been lucky and everytime I get a new fish I have a moment of panic when I drop them in.

Adding a QT would be a bit painful in terms of space; doable, but painful.

[ReeferMadness]

I have certainly battled TONS of crap by just throwing stuff in the tank. From ich, numerous terrible algaes, aiptasia, and nudibranchs tha ate all my expensive polyps. This time I am going slow and am taking all the appropriate measures to keep the pests at a minimum. Coral dips are a must and qt is very important. just my two cents.

[+Hydro]

I understand your guys position don't get me wrong, I didn't QT for years because it was a total PITA. But I think as we are considered elite reefers by ARC we should really recommend that people do this, even if we don't. "I don't but I should" is a great answer imo if that's the case. I just want to promote the right thing to do.

I think it really boils down to what's at stake when making that decision. QT is a PITA for sure. If you have easily replacable fish then you aren't risking as much as a person that has fish that they think are special. You will get to a tipping point where the value of your livestock, to you, is worth the trouble of setting up the QT. A special fish doesn't have to be expensive, maybe a mandarin that eats frozen or an angel that doesn't eat coral etc. So you have to weigh it all out to see what is the best decision wether you do what is recommended or not. You could be lucky and never have a problem for sure, but if something does happen to you I hope that you will be on this forum preaching about the how everyone should QT.

I agree, picking a healthy acting fish is a given. I think almost everyone considers that when buying a fish. But...I'm telling you guys the truth that this seemingly healthy fish pooped a 2" worm after I added prazipro to the QT.

[mFrame]

I didn't say I don't QT, I said I've never had an issue with fish I bought from the Dome. I have a 12g eclipse I use for QT and treatment. Recently I lost all the fish in my Solana except a banghai and my mandarin from a water treatment gone bad. When I restocked it I did not QT as the replacement fish all came from the Dome. I would not think of adding a new fish to my 90g without QT'ing, it's not worth the risk of losing any of the fish I already have in there.

[+Hydro]

I think we have officially hijacked dc5842's thread, sorry about that.

[DerrickH]

Lol I was thinking the same thing. I read this topic because Im thinking about placing an order online for my live stock once the tank is cycled. However, the QT chatter has also made me rethink my "let em sit in the bag, drip...then release" mentality. Problem is, I dont really have room in my house for another tank, and not sure what all I would need to get a pretty bulletproof arrangement of chemicals to treat prior to DT placement. Stephen, maybe you could start a new thread on the strict QT practice you use for insurance. You may have already and I just missed it and also a list of where online you get most of your LS.

[+etannert]

My 2c: it depends on the size of your tank. I have a small tanks with only a few fish, none of whom are expensive, so for me it doesn't make sense to set up a $50 QT for a $10-$20 fish, and I only have 5 fish and don't plan on adding more. I'd be upset if my tank got wiped out but it would cost maybe $50-70 to replace all my little guys. If I had a 150 or a 200 it would make more sense to have a QT. I've lost way more fish to jumping than to starvation or diseases - my Yasha Haze managed to go through the one little hole in the pico lid just last week...

[+dapettit]

This another one of those topics like water changes. Do you or don't you?

I think most, if not all of us, would QT and do regular water changes. But, be it good or bad we choose not to. I know I should QT put I don't have the time. Like others I have never had an issue with my main display tank. The 58 however is another story!

Dave-

[mFrame]

My 2c: it depends on the size of your tank. I have a small tanks with only a few fish, none of whom are expensive, so for me it doesn't make sense to set up a $50 QT for a $10-$20 fish, and I only have 5 fish and don't plan on adding more. I'd be upset if my tank got wiped out but it would cost maybe $50-70 to replace all my little guys. If I had a 150 or a 200 it would make more sense to have a QT. I've lost way more fish to jumping than to starvation or diseases - my Yasha Haze managed to go through the one little hole in the pico lid just last week...

Amazing what great aim some of these fish have, almost a death wish. I lost my mystery wrasse through the screens that sit on top of my 90g. Wouldn't have thought that was possible.