Quarantine and treatment aquarium.
This aquarium is necessary for quarantining newly acquired fishes and for treating sick ones. What is a quarantine aquarium? It is a regular aquarium without substrate, without a biofilter, without plants, but with a heater, compressor, mechanical filter, and dim lighting. You should leave a minimum of shelters necessary for the fishes. Bright light without shelters will irritate the fishes and prevent them from getting used to new conditions, but complete darkness will also negatively affect the physiological functions of the fishes. As a rule, it is made of ordinary or acrylic glass.
The aquarium can be small, but it must match the size of the fishes inside it. You cannot properly keep an adult Astronotus in 5 liters, while a dozen neon tetras will endure this procedure calmly. To maintain the necessary oxygen regime, the water in it is aerated.
The water in the quarantine aquarium and other conditions should not differ from the conditions of the fishes’ permanent habitat. This is necessary for the adaptation of fishes to new conditions, because changing conditions mean stress, and stress is the gateway to diseases that we want to avoid. It is advisable to change the water as often as possible. If shy fishes need to be placed in the quarantine aquarium, it is recommended to shade it slightly. Only in this way can the effective impact of medications and other preparations be guaranteed, without fear that they will be absorbed by decorations or settle in the substrate. Separate nets, scrapers, feeders, air stones, a thermometer, and other equipment must be assigned to the aquarium and disinfected after removing the fishes. If possible, it is good to equip the quarantine aquarium with an ultraviolet sterilization lamp, which is now widely available on the market.
Thanks to quarantine, fishes with a disease in the incubation period can be identified. The duration of this period ranges from several days to several weeks and depends on the fish’s susceptibility to the pathogen, its general condition, the virulence of the pathogen, environmental conditions, and a number of other reasons. Sometimes quarantining does not help identify all fishes that are in the incubation period of a disease or are carriers of parasitic disease pathogens.
It happens that several pathogens of invasive diseases, representing not only different species and families but also phyla, parasitize a fish. For example, on a single fish, you can find the flagellate Costia necatrix of the family Bodonidae, phylum Protozoa, the ciliate Chilodonella cyprini, the monogenean viviparous fluke Gyrodactylus elegans, and the crustacean Lernaea cyrinacea of the family Lernaeidae. Such an infection is called mixed.
During the period of keeping acquired fishes in the quarantine aquarium or sick ones in the isolation ward, the nets assigned to these aquariums are best kept constantly in a disinfecting chloramine solution. For this purpose, a 3% chloramine solution is poured into any glass or porcelain dish, and the nets are placed in it, fully immersing their mesh part in the solution. Before each use, the net is rinsed with tap water. Once a week, the chloramine solution is replaced with a fresh one. Inadequate disinfection of aquariums and fish-farming equipment is one of the causes of disease outbreaks in both private and state fish farms.
Identification: Diagnosable fish disease species.
Quarantining newly acquired fishes.
Quarantine is a system of measures to prevent the spread of infectious diseases from an epidemic or epizootic focus: prohibition or restriction of entry and exit (import, export, and regrouping of susceptible animals), detection and isolation of sick individuals and those in contact with them, isolation of sick animals, etc. From the definition, it is clear that the quarantine period is a fairly long stretch of time.
How do diseases get into our aquarium? That’s right, from the external environment, with water, plants, food, and new fishes. Sooner or later, every aquarist strives to expand their fish collection with new species. In this regard, along with the addition, there is a danger of introducing various infections into the aquarium. Naturally, the main source of diseases is fishes. To protect the well-being of your aquarium, all newly acquired fishes should be placed in a quarantine aquarium.
At the time of acquiring new fishes, even an experienced aquarist does not always manage to notice the clinical signs of a particular disease, since the latter do not appear consistently, and fishes that are carriers of disease pathogens are practically impossible to identify during external examination. Remember, any guarantees given to you regarding the “purity” of certain fishes do not relieve you of a set of preventive measures.
Therefore, all new fishes must undergo quarantine (separate keeping), during which the newcomers are closely observed, their integument is inspected, and so on. Particular attention should be paid to specimens supplied from the wild (lakes), as they are sometimes teeming with various parasites. Pay no less attention to preventive measures regarding captive-bred species. Introducing even one sick or outwardly healthy fish that is a carrier of disease pathogens into the general aquarium is often enough to cause an outbreak of an infectious or invasive disease, and young fishes fall ill first.
This is why newly acquired fishes are subjected to quarantine. During this time, suspicious fishes should be monitored and treated if necessary. Usually, the normal holding period for a fish is considered to be one month (to cover the entire development cycle of known aquarium fish pests, see their possible manifestations, and choose treatment), and the short period is 2 weeks. In one week, it can be assumed that the fishes are healthy, but there will be no certainty. For wild-caught fishes, the quarantine period can reach up to 3 months.
Newly acquired fishes are subjected to prophylactic treatment, strictly following the sequence of applying therapeutic drugs. The quarantine vessel should be weakly aerated and lit with diffused light, which decomposes medicines less. For this, corrugated glass can be placed under the lamp. The required temperature must be maintained. Every day, equipment is disinfected with boiling water, chloramine solution, hydrochloric or sulfuric acid.
• Days 1-5: 10 mg copper sulfate + 660 mg neomycin sulfate + 130 mg chloramphenicol per 10 l of water. Every day, the bottom is cleaned of excrement and food residues, and 9/10 of fresh water with the specified amount of medications is added. If symptoms of the disease appear, treatment is initiated.
• Days 6-10: 10 mg copper sulfate + 110 mg streptomycin sulfate per 10 l of water. Every day, the bottom is cleaned of excrement and food residues, and 9/10 of fresh water with the specified amount of medications is added.
• To relieve stress and accelerate adaptation to new conditions, Stress Coat, activant, or similar vitamin preparations, as well as Indian almond leaves, can be added to the water of the quarantine tank. If you are dealing with rare or knowingly delicate and expensive specimens, it makes sense to add roncoleukin (or other interleukin-based immunostimulants) to the aquarium water at the rate of 50,000-100,000 units per 10 liters. You can buy this drug, which has a truly magical healing effect on fishes, at a veterinary pharmacy. A much cheaper, although significantly less effective remedy, is human leukocyte interferon, which can be purchased at a regular pharmacy.
• During this time, you need to monitor the purchased fishes for the presence of disease. If disease symptoms appear, treatment is started by introducing the necessary medications into the quarantine aquarium. Perhaps this intervention will not be without negative consequences. One can make a mistake and kill a perfectly healthy fish through clumsy actions. Therefore, if the fish you bought looks ideal, do not rush to use harsh remedies. Fishes that have not shown signs of disease throughout the entire quarantine period are transferred to the general aquarium.
Recipes of prophylactic solutions for fishes.
• 50,000 IU of bicillin-5 per 10 liters of water, exposure time 1 hour. Repeat the procedure every 12 hours;
• 6 mg of malachite green per 10 liters of water, exposure time 3 hours. Repeat the procedure daily;
• 1 gram of copper sulfate per 10 liters of water, exposure time 10 minutes. Repeat the procedure daily;
• potassium permanganate (KMnO4) solution at the rate of 1 g per 10 l of water, exposure 10-15 minutes every 12 hours;
• potassium permanganate (KMnO4) solution at the rate of 1 gram per 10 liters of water, exposure 10-15 minutes every 12 hours;
• chemically pure or analytical grade copper sulfate (CuSO4 • 5H2O) solution at the rate of 1 gram per 10 liters of water, exposure 10-20 minutes daily;
• malachite green solution at the rate of 6 mg per 10 liters of water, exposure 3 hours daily;
• bicillin-5 solution at the rate of 50,000 IU per 10 liters of settled water with a temperature of 24-28°C, exposure 1 hour every 12 hours. The drug should be added at night;
• 10 mg of copper sulfate + 130 mg of chloramphenicol + 660 mg of neomycin sulfate per 10 liters of water. Fish exposure for 1-5 days. Every day, the aquarium is cleaned of excrement and food residues, adding 9/10 of fresh water with the specified amount of medications;
• • 10 mg of copper sulfate + 110 mg of streptomycin sulfate per 10 liters of water. Every day, the aquarium is cleaned of excrement and food residues, adding 9/10 of fresh water with the specified amount of medications;
• Erycycline or neomycin (50 mg/l) + griseofulvin (10 mg/l) + trichopolum (5 mg/l). Course of 10-20 days at a temperature of 28-32 degrees;
• Lincomycin (50 mg/l) + trichopolum (5 mg/l) + nystatin (10 mg/l). Course of 7-15 days;
• Nitrofuran (1 mg per 15 l) + trichopolum (4 mg/l) + FMC (1 ml per 100 l). Course of 2 days. If necessary, repeat the course up to 5 times. FMC is Formalin (37-40%) with methylene blue (3.7 g) and malachite green (3.7 g);
• An affordable disinfectant for treating fishes is monochloramine. It should be dissolved in cold water and applied for 10 days at the rate of 1 gram per 100 liters of aquarium water. Since monochloramine rapidly decomposes in light, it is best to apply it in the evening, remembering to turn on the compressor. The use of the drug at the specified dosage helped to suspend the development of such a common aquarium fish disease as ichthyophthiriasis;
All measures from this list are very harsh; if alternated, they will kill almost all ectoparasites, but not all fishes are equally hardy. In addition, it must be borne in mind that none of the indicated treatments by itself destroys the pathogens of all fish diseases. That is, there is no universal remedy for all diseases! Apparently healthy fishes should be kept on medicated food for about a week (at least one feeding per day) and treated with bicillin-5 twice during this period. After a week, it is quite safe to risk releasing them into the general aquarium.
What to do if something in the fish’s behavior or appearance is alarming?
Let’s look at several cases:
• There is some dullness of the integument and frayed fins (bacterial infection can be suspected). In this case, the following agents can be added to the quarantine aquarium water: 
Virkon-S (daily, at half the specified dose; if well tolerated, you can move to the full dose; it must be administered three times every other day or at 2-day intervals), Baktopur (according to the manufacturer’s instructions), or regular Biseptol (500 mg) + furatsilin (250 mg) per 50 liters twice with a 2-day interval.
• Fishes breathe heavily or even begin to suffocate after eating – gill ectoparasites (monogeneans, ciliates, flagellates) can be suspected. Here, Azipirin should be used (this is the safest treatment compared to those listed below), and if it does not yield results, then General cure, Sera-Mycopur, Sera-Costapur (these drugs may be poorly tolerated by catfish, labyrinth fishes, and loaches, so half-dosages should be tested first).
• Fish excrement has a “strange” appearance. They have transparent areas and/or are heavily coated with mucus, and may contain blood (the fish has bacterial or parasitic enteritis). In this case, quarantine (which is essentially treatment!) should be carried out for at least two weeks, preferably a month. The safest way is to treat with medicated food; you can try using Sera Baktopur-Direct, General cure, simply adding 250 mg of metronidazole + 1 g of chloramphenicol per 20 l of water every two to three days, or soaking bloodworms in a solution of furazolidone (500 mg) + kanamycin (1 g) per 50 ml of water for half an hour and then feeding them to the fishes.
Do not forget that in a quarantine aquarium, especially when medications are added to it, biological filtration is not maintained. Therefore, fishes should be fed moderately and only with very high-quality foods. Change the water every two to three days. Do not combine various medication treatment methods without urgent need; it is better to perform them sequentially. Accordingly, the time spent by the fish in the quarantine aquarium will increase.
Advice for the beginner aquarist. Failures in aquarium fish farming.
Transferring fishes to different water, or what to do with acquired fishes? 
