Why We Should Use A Quarantine Tank

I have a quarantine tank. I should use it. Why didn't I?

I bought a pair of Nannacara a few months ago but after the male relentlessly attacked the female every time her saw her, I came to the conclusion she was a he. The big male finally killed the other fish. Last week, I bought another female. I have just done a water change and noticed some of my fish have whitespot. A couple of emperor tetras have one spot each. The original nannacara has one spot on each side and one on his head. Two of the green neons have several spots (they always get it badly). No sign on the other fish yet, including the new nannacara. Of course I have no whitespot med left so I'll have to get some tomorrow, then try to find all the nerites I only recently returned there after treating for camallanus worms.

I am now panicking because I got 4 habrosus cories from the same shop and they are in the tank with the cherry shrimps. I can't see anything on the fish in there. Yet. The cories were in a completely separate rank so fingers crossed. I can't medicate with shrimps in the tank so if they do come down with it I'll have to move the fish to the big tank for a month or two till the whitespot bugs die out from lack of a host.

The moral of the story is - if you have a quarantine tank, use it!!!

My QT is 25 litres, which is fine for the size fish I have. Anything bigger than a couple of inches would obviously need a bigger tank.

Fish that need a mature tank are a problem. I get round it by using mature media from another tank and taking decor from a mature tank as well. For fish that don't need a mature tank I still steal media but use plastic plants and sections of drainpipe as caves which live in a box when not in use.
It is possible to use a plastic storage box as a temporary tank but the downside to using one as a QT is that you can't see the fish from the side to see if they have come down with something.

And as this whitespot appeared 8 days after buying the fish, quarantine should last at least 2 weeks.

One of the green neons has half a dozen spots, another has three or four and the male nannacara has three. It is possible that only a few of the parasite made it to the tank; once these spots fall off and multiply I could be in for a massive infestation.

I have just got back from the shop, the nearest Maidenhead Aquatics and the smallest one near me. I normally use King British original formula WS3, but that was only because it didn't kill the amano shrimps in the big tank. Since I no longer have amanos it doesn't matter what I use. MA had a full range of Interpet and Waterlife meds and eSHa 2000 but not Exit. So I got Waterlife's Protozin.

Now to find the nerites.