Pond Quarantines

Pond Quarantines

Your sick fish, goldfish, koi or any others, are going to need a place where you can quarantine them to save your other fish from becoming sick with disease or parasites. One of the first considerations in a quarantine area is that the tank or holding area is going need to be small enough so that you can observe and treat the fish without excessive amounts of water.

If you do not have a resource for learning and identifying diseases and parasites that holding area for your fish is simply going to be a place where your fish will die because you will not be able to help them.

Your holding area is also going to be a great quarantine for new fish that you buy, or baby fish that are in your water garden or that you have purchased as well so that other fish do not eat these babies until they are big enough to survive on their own. Keep on the look out for ‘baby’ fish or fish eggs in the spring months.

You can make a holding area or quarantine area out of anything that is large enough to hold the fish or a number of fish that you need to watch when they are having problems. You can make these out of a plastic bucket, a large container, an aquarium or another water garden that does not have fish in it.

Examining your sick fish is easier when you have a shallow area that allows the fish enough water to swim but easy for you to catch them. You are going to want your quarantine area in a well-lit room, where you have a flashlight and a magnifying glass handy as well for examining the smallest parts of the fish for parasites and other disease.

It is also important because you are going to be using a more shallow area for your quarantined fish that they are not exposed to the direct sunlight where the water could overheat and put additional undo stress on the fish.

The best situation for a quarantine or holding tank is going to be about 100 gallons. Using a light blue color in the water is going to help when you are using lights to identify certain problems with the fish. When you are using the tank for quarantining fish you should also consider adding a bit of slat. Non-iodized salt is what you are going to use as this is going to kill more parasites without having a toxic effect on the fish. You need about two to three pounds per 100 gallons of water, and non-iodized salt is very inexpensive compared to some of the treatments that you can purchase for fish.