Importing Fish

[rdebonis]

Has anyone had experience buying fish from overseas?

How would I go about bringing in Fish from Asian fish dealers?

1. Do I need an import license of can I just buy them directly from the dealer?

2. How long do they have to be quarantined?

3. What type of disease prevention do I have to use, to prevent or control potential Parasites and Diseases brought in by these fish? What about food?

[alazandv]

doesn't that require some sort of license?

[Kyle H]

Has anyone had experience buying fish from overseas?

How would I go about bringing in Fish from Asian fish dealers?

1. Do I need an import license of can I just buy them directly from the dealer?

2. How long do they have to be quarantined?

3. What type of disease prevention do I have to use, to prevent or control potential Parasites and Diseases brought in by these fish? What about food?

1. you don't need an import license however the distributor needs an export license what you will need on your end is a Phytosanitary Certificate this is a certificate the distributor usually makes you buy to ensure there are no noxious or evasive pests in the package. this certificate will make things go by a LOT faster when the package is making it through customs

2. you should usually quarantine a new fish for the first 1-2 weeks upon recieveing him before introducing him to your community tank and risk infecting the other fish. use a good ani-fungal and anti-paracidic medicine such as two parts formalin (anti paracidic medicine) mixed with one part machalite green (anti fungal remedie, basically just a die) thse two elements will maje sure your fish will be healthy and happy when they finally make it into your tank

you can also feed them foods that have been pre soaked in praziloxaline such as the product prazipro to get rid of any internal worms that you might not see from the ouside. usually if you get a fish in and it looks too fat or too skinny chances it has internal worm also check the gills for flukes or the excriment for like white strands all of these are sighns of internal worms which can be treated with praziloxaline

[alazandv]

1. you don't need an import license however the distributor needs an export license what you will need on your end is a Phytosanitary Certificate this is a certificate the distributor usually makes you buy to ensure there are no noxious or evasive pests in the package. this certificate will make things go by a LOT faster when the package is making it through customs

2. you should usually quarantine a new fish for the first 1-2 weeks upon recieveing him before introducing him to your community tank and risk infecting the other fish. use a good ani-fungal and anti-paracidic medicine such as two parts formalin (anti paracidic medicine) mixed with one part machalite green (anti fungal remedie, basically just a die) thse two elements will maje sure your fish will be healthy and happy when they finally make it into your tank

you can also feed them foods that have been pre soaked in praziloxaline such as the product prazipro to get rid of any internal worms that you might not see from the ouside. usually if you get a fish in and it looks too fat or too skinny chances it has internal worm also check the gills for flukes or the excriment for like white strands all of these are sighns of internal worms which can be treated with praziloxaline


interesting, seems like a lot of precautions have to be taken when importing fish, more so than regular quarantine that's recommended when buying at LFS. Thanks for the info Kyle.