Getting a fish from a friend.. should I quarantine?

Someone I know just bought a reef tank secondhand and set it up at his shop. It's a 75g with an adult chocolate tang. We agree that the fish is too big for his tank so I'm going to trade him for it and put it in the 220g FOWLR that I have at work. Initially I was thinking I'd quarantine it because... well, for all the obvious reasons that you quarantine a new addition, no reason to list them again! - but now I'm wondering if that's really necessary. I've never gotten a fish from an established aquarium before. If I can make sure that every fish in there has been in there for at least 2-3 months, then any illness would have presented itself, correct?
And now for part 2.. I have a 3-4 inch sailfin tang in my QT right now. It has been in there for 19 days. Ideally I'd like to add both tangs to my DT at the same time. I don't really want to ask J. to hold on to the chocolate tang for another 5 weeks, especially because I know that he wants to get new fish in there and if he adds anything before I get the chocolate tang out then I'd definitely have to quarantine it. So, should I add the chocolate tang to my QT with the sailfin until both are ready for the DT? If I do would I need to restart my quarantine countdown? Or (assuming I can determine that the choc. is disease-free) just continue counting from here?
TIA

 

Going against the grain, and using all abandon, - I say go for it.

Either fish would have shown signs of sickness by now.
I've got 'fish form friends', from established systems, didn't quarantine, and I was fine.

Your mileage my vary

 

I agree, if you know the tank and have seen the fish I would say its okay but at the end of the day your call with what you are comfortable with.

 

I still would for the sake of it. theirs always the "what if" possibility. you just never know if theirs something in the tank in his that the tang could be immune to or use to, he could bring it in your tank and cause an out break or vice versa. I think it's just part of good husbandry to be over protective and nick picky with this hobby.

 

Agreed.

FTR, in the 40+ years I've been in the hobby, I have never QTed fish, and I have never had a single one contract or spread disease or parasites, and yet time and time again I read of someone who QTed a fish for several weeks, then just hours after it was placed into the DT it contracted ich which eventually spread. Why? Fish can carry dormant parasites forever without causing an outbreak unless it becomes stressed. Getting caught equals stress. Moving equals stress. A small environment with no natural hiding places causes stress... IMO/E, the best you can do for any fish is place it into the DT, lower the lights, and don't fuss over it, just give it time to adapt to it's new environment.

 

I would QT. why take the risk? Especially if you already have a lot of fish in your tank. A coupe weeks could save you a lot of hassle and money.

It's my understand fish have parasites on them already. And certain stress of water conditions can make tangs weak and parasites establish themselves. The transfer could cause enough stress and bring it on. I learned the hard way.

How about QT for a couple days and give to reduce transfer stress?

I'd like to see the tank. Sounds nice. At work? That's cool

 

Thanks for all the responses!

I think I will put it in the QT with the sailfin and watch them together for any signs of illness. Better to be safe than sorry, especially since I already have a quarantine set up and running, so why not? And that way I'll be able to introduce them to the DT at the same time.

Ballgame - I love having a tank at work! It's fun to hear from customers that I've been seeing for years that they have or had reef tanks and be able to talk to them about the hobby! Maybe one day I'll get around to posting a thread about it..

 

Truly? I thought the longest life cycle was 9 weeks and that if you quarantine for that period of time then you are free and clear. Does this mean that stress in my DT with fish I've had 6+ months could cause a dormant illness to pop up? I know that tangs are more susceptible to disease so I was a little skeptical in getting one, but I was operating under the assumption that you could declare a fish absolutely disease free after a certain time period. I guess I need to read more about this.
I didn't used to quarantine, in fact I don't think I quarantined any of the fish in my personal 55g reef, but when we set this tank up at work one of the fish in the first group was sick. It was such a pain in the a** to treat ~275 gallons and very expensive. Setting up a QT was very cheap and it's a lot easier to keep an eye on the fish that way.
I know that most people don't quarantine at all, and those that do typically have had a catastrophe and that's why they do it now. I fall into that category

 

Man its like I have a twin brother.Scary??I am in over 30+ years.Stress is the enemy.Load up the tank and it just makes matters worse.
I would be more worried about aggression between the tangs in qt.Everytime you move the fish you are just prolonging its adjustment period to a total alien way of life for that animal.Some animals cope better then others and not all qt's are created equal but Tangs are schooling (and most pelagic)fish to begin with. I feel the faster you get them in there hopefully clean/appropriate system the better there chances of fighting off infection/parasites.
Keeping fish in an aquarium is no different from caging any other type of animal including ourselves.What happens when you have 12 people in a tight confined dirty space?One gets sick.They all get sick and eventually die.