Can I pour some ick medicine into the fish bag when I get it home??

Question

Dont have money for quarantine tank right now and wanted to know would this bring down the chances of my introducing that disease into my tank that I have had for 10 years. I guess I have a good lfs or I just happen to wind up with the really healthy fish in the store tanks because I have never had ich in my tank..

Answer 1

only if you want to poison your fish

find a local fish store instead of a chain store usally they have less diseases and fish that are much healthier in general

Answer 2

No, I am sorry to say that a quick dose of ich meds in the bag during the acclimation process will not protect your other fish from the parasite.  

All you need is to have a disease come home with a new fish and wipe out all your beautiful pets once, to realize the value of a quarantine tank.

A 10g quarantine tank is less than $10, a small plastic box filter is less than $4 and an air pump to power the filter is about $6.  So for a $20 dollar bill you could have a quarantine tank that will protect your 10 year old tank and all of the fish in it from diseases or parasites.  A small price to pay for peace of mind.  If you don't have the cash right now, do yourself a favor and hold off on buying new fish until you can afford the quarantine tank.

You don't need gravel or plants, just something for the new fish to hide in or behind during the 2 week stay in the quarantine tank.  Yes, 2 weeks is the minimum reccomended time to wait for diseases or parasites to present themselves in a new fish.

As far as having a good lfs, they get shipments of fish every week and put them into their tanks with their healthy fish all the time.  If just one of the new fish is sick.... well, you get the picture.  It may not show up in the lfs tank for a week or two and you may buy one of them a week after it is infected or shipped in.  I have worked in both the retail and wholesale tropical fish industry and know how things are done.  There are very few prophylactic measures taken to protect fish at the lfs level.

Do your old fish a favor and protect them by quarantining new fish for at least 2 weeks.

Answer 3

no ick is a parasite and the treatment only works on the free swimming stage of the parasite. a dose in the bag will do nothing, this is a coarse of treatment that takes days to have an effect.