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No question that following this type of protocol would give a degree of assurance that new fish would not introduce pathogens to an existing collection. I think it is rather over done, simply because most of the organisms being treated are always going to be present in a pond. The length of the proposed quarantine would give great benefits because any condition the new arrivals might have would surely exhibit itself, and the new fish would have plenty of time to adjust. Of course, the filtration etc on the quarantine has to be equivalent to a separate permanent pond.
There will be many who automatically react that no treatment should be given without first identifying that a pest is present and that a need to treat exists. I would go that direction myself. However, I have very little experience with bacterial infections. I do know that I have never had hole disease except on new koi within 60 days of arrival. Perhaps automatically treating with antibiotics would take care of those couple of occasions. All reports indicate that prazi and supaverm are very safe for use on koi, providing little or no risk to the fish unless the keeper is truly a fumbler. So, in the end, it is primarily the automatic use of formalin/malachite green that causes concern. That is coming at the end of a lengthy quarantine, by which time any signs of problems would already be known. And, formalin is potentially dangerous, and malachite green is a carcinogen.
Assuming you are going to do all these things, why wouldn't you start with formalin/mg, since costia, chilodonella etc are very dangerous on newcomers and flukes will get handled (or at least set back) by the treatment. The treatment can occur fairly quickly, and eliminating the vermin which can be a cause for bacterial infections would seem more logically to precede a prophylactic anti-biotic treatment. Typically, if there was costia and flukes and early signs of an ulcer, wouldn't you get rid of the parasites immediately?
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