Quarantining New Fish

[Rick40]

I saw in some other posts that I should quarantine new fish before I add them to my pond. My questions are how large of a container do I need and for how long should I leave them in the container before I add them to my pond ? In the past I have always just floated the bag with fish in my pond for about 1/2 hour to get them acclimated to my pond temp,then I opened the bag,and netted the fish before I put them in my pond. I do this also with my tropical fish that I add to my aquarium and have never had any problems doing this . Are Goldfish that much more prone to disease than tropical's ?

  Rick

[Reedman]

Bad idea not to quarantine new fish . . .

I used to just do what you do, but then 2/3 of my fish were wiped out a few weeks after adding some new fish.  The new fish might have some parasites/etc. in early stages.

Best to quarantine them a few weeks and observe them for strange behavior like laying on the bottom, flashing (quick rubbing against the bottom or an object), etc.

[Rick40]

Thank you. Should i acclimate in some of my pond water ?

[Reedman]

Sure - that would be good.

[skarol98]

so the water that u use to quarantine the new one is water from the pond? do you add some salt or something? I rubbermaid crate for that what should be the right way of doing it?

[HTH]

It is a bit rough if you just grab a container and toss in some water.    It is far better to have a small cycled pond you can use for the purpose.   When you are not using it for quarantine keep a few fish in it to keep it read for use.