Goldfish Quaranitne

On The Day of Arrival 

Goldfish are placed in the required quarantine tanks at a temperature 22-24c degrees depending on the time of year as travelling temperatures can change. Bags are floated for around 40 mins to acclimatise to the required water temperature of the water in the bag.

We then slowly add some water from the quarantine tanks to the bag before placing the Goldfish into a bowl for inspection. We never allow the water from the bag to get into our system due to the high levels of ammonia that may be present in the bag from travelling, this then allows us to have a very quick inspection of the Goldfish.  At this stage a couple of skin scrapes will be performed to test for parasites and inspected under the microscope.

Goldfish are always placed into 0.65% of salt in all our quarantine tanks and this is done for all Goldfish arriving from Thailand.  This can help with stress and with a number of parasites that may be on the Goldfish when they arrive in the UK.

Oxygen levels are placed as high as possible at this point and we also tend to add Evolution Aqua PURE+ Filter Start Gel to our filter system which helps with the high levels of Goldfish that have arrived and sudden change in ammonia nitrite and nitrates.  At this point we spend some time checking the slides to see if we can find any parasites.

Day 2 

A water change normally takes place around 30-40% depending on stocking levels, this also allows us to bring down the salt level to 0.3%.

We do spend a little time to have a good look over the Goldfish to make sure they have all settled in well and there has been no damage over night.  We ensure a good inspection of each Goldfish and if no parasites were found on the slides the night before we will will take further samples from the Goldfish just to ensure nothing has been missed, we often check 50% of them at one go.

If at this stage we find any parasites we will treat with the required treatment and redose with the required time. Depending on the amount we find will depend on treatments we use and how many minimum of 2 required.

At this stage the temperature will start to be increased to 28 degrees if not already and this is when we will add the required parasite treatment if it can not be treated with salt or heat. If parasites are at a very low levels we will try to hold off treatments until after 7 days for the Goldfish to settle after there long jorney

Continuation Plan

Follow up treatments will be given after the required time frames dependant on what is being used at the time. Skin scrapes are always done 2-3 days before pre sale 

We do take our quarantine very seriously here at Northants Goldfish and take every possible steps we can to assure the Goldfish can be taken home in the best possible health they can be. 

Our Goldfish are quarantined in a separated building away from the sales tanks to assure that no cross contamination can take place. Also sales and QT tanks are run on their own filter systems and no nets or bowls are shared in any way between ponds. No breeders are mixed until quarantine is complete and moved to our sales tanks.

After the 4 weeks of quarantine and everything is at the highest of standards we will move the Goldfish to one of the sales tanks ready to be sold to the public.