Quarantine

After nearly losing all my Angels last year I understand the need to quarantine any new additions.

So my question, They're in a tank on their own and you leave them for 4 to 6 weeks, do you do anything to them? treat for anything, worm them or just watch??

My concern is if they are carrying bacteria that might cause problems to my current fish, but its not doing anything to them as they seem perfectly healthy, how do I know??

I have thought about adding one of my disease free juveniles when the time comes to move them on, to see what happens? This seems a bit cruel, but I'd rather lose one small one than my tank full??

Or with nice clean water, plenty of good food and plenty of water changes, does this remove the bacteria anyway??

Advice please

Lindsey

Ideally a quarantine tank should be in a different room from the tank housing your main stock. The reason for this is that some diseases can be transmitted in tiny water droplets which can become airborne due to the operation of filters etc.
Personally I would only treat for any obvious diseases, although some would recommend a course of wormer.
remember disease can go in both directions, not only could the new stock introduce disease to your fish, but your fish could be carrying something that they are immune to and introduce it to your new stock, for this reason adding one of your fish to the new stock is a good idea, but ideally introducing one or two fish from both existing & new stock to a third tank is ideal.
All that said, if you haven't had problems with the new fish after 4-6 weeks, the chances of introducing any serious problem are fairly slim.

Thanks Rob, I feel a little happier now but still nervous!! lol, The new fish are on my desk so I can keep a beady eye on them, and I'll remember not to cross contaminate!

Lindsey

well day three now and they've settled down and eating very well, so I'm hopeful!

They were a couple of albinos I "rescued" from my lfs, I don't normally see anything too different round here so I was immediately drawn to them, they obviously hadn't been there too long as I'm a regular lol, most of them were in a sorry state, looked like they hadn't travelled too well to be honest, quite a bit of ammonia burn, and some had missing ventrals etc. I picked out a couple of good ones, a pearlscale and a "normal" one that seemed to have a slight gold sheen to it, this one you can see its bands, nothing like the "Dantums" I've seen of course, but they are there. Are these bands likely to stay on show do you think as imho improves its look, I'm not sure what one looks for for a nice Albino??

Are these bands likely to stay on show do you think as imho improves its look,

Albino angels tend to show light patches where they would show black were they not albinos. So albino silvers have light vertical bands where their black bands should be, so yes, it should keep them.

I'm not sure what one looks for for a nice Albino??

Ultimately, what ever appeals to you, but personally, I think body shape and finnage are particularly important in a fish which, by definition, has comparatively little colour; although it's surprising how much colour they do have!

OK thanks Rob, I'll give them some TLC and see what happens