A discussion on immunity

[Humblefish]

Soon quarantining will be a thing of the past.

Only once most of the fish we keep are being captive bred. :D

 

[Paul B]

That's true, but it is the healthy immune ones that spawn. :D

 

[Humblefish]

That's true, but it is the healthy immune ones that spawn. :D

Or ones who were QT'd and are in tip top shape because they have no diseases for their immune system to worry about. :D

 

[Paul B]

Nah, I'm not buying it. :D

Fish with no diseases for their immune system to worry about, have no immune system. :eek:

 

[Humblefish]

Fish with no diseases for their immune system to worry about, have no immune system. :eek:

Even thorough QT won't eliminate all diseases from an aquarium; just the ones a fish's immune system has a difficult time managing in a glass box (parasites, worms, etc.)

Viruses and harmful bacteria will still often make it thru to the DT to keep the immune system busy. :)

 

[mcarroll]

Where's the balance. Is there one.

You know there is! Isn't it a law of physics?? ;)

Bear with me - probably lots of words to follow!

Read it twice if you feel like it! You've been warned tho - all I promised is lots of words. :) :)

I'm with everyone I think, in that when you get down to it, there doesn't seem to be One Way for a beginner to succeed with fish in a reef tank.

Why must this be a problem rather than the solution?

Kick back from your current mode and think about this with me for a sec.

To borrow someone else's turn of phrase*, our brains are built for having ideas...as well as observing problems...and learning from error/experience.

So catering to these things is where the "balance" or bulk of our time as beginners should be spent - having ideas, observing problems and learning from experience.

This kind of balance still allows for any of the "traditions", "methods" or drug treatments or any other concoction of rituals we've drummed up - when they really are called for. And I do think almost all of them are called for in certain circumstances. (For most of them, not too often in the home setting.)

What this kind of balance means is that when we don't have 40 years of experience reefing, why not own up to that and give ourselves a few years to learn and get it right by starting slowly? Really slowly!

I mean we're going to have these reef tanks for just as long as someone would have to take care of a dog or cat - 10 or 15 years....maybe more. What's the rush??

Why is everyone's tank fully loaded within the first year?

Stocking a tank full within the first year (or two or three maybe) is what seems to be the real recipe for disaster that crosses all "methods" "treatments" etc.

You've removed every iota of balance doing it by using this "old formula" – you truly may need to be lucky to succeed keeping fish alive into old age this way.

What about a new approach?

If the approach for a beginner was to set up a fishless reef, with only some corals to begin with, that'd be a more logical place for a beginner to start IMO – and still fun.

Also still possible to do wrong, but much easier for the beginner to do right. They should feel somewhat free to go nuts and stock it up with frags as long as they read up on the proper use of a test kit and lux meter. This helps them set their lights correctly, set up an automated doser if is a stony coral reef, and otherwise guide their maintenance.

This can definitely be done successfully, in the scope of weeks or months, and will hopefully "scratch any itch" to stock fish before the beginner is ready for them.

Within that context - a booming coral reef - the first fish can come whenever the the tank matures and has a biofilter, but more than likely the beginner will get the tank running smoothly and assure their corals are happy and growing for a few weeks, or even months, first.

• But the beginner should ideally not add more than one fish.
• They should ideally make it a captive bred fish.
• And the beginner should plan on keeping that fish alive for at least a year or two before considering more fish.
• See how healthy that fish can be made.
• Breeding condition should be the target and based on some experiences, even some of my own, it seems to be attainable. But close is probably close enough.
• Raising fry is not the idea.

Based on the experiences had after that year or two - learning every tip and trick, inventing some new ones, making some mistakes where the worst you can do is kill "all one of your fish", etc....just imagine how much better equipped that beginner would be at selecting healthy fish to bring home in the first place, and taking care of them.

I think we might be able to mint people (slowly!) with PaulB's success this way.

Call it "The mcarroll's Reply To Saltyfilmfolks's Query On Paul_B's Immunity Thread On Reef2Reef Method". "The MRTSQOPITOR Method" for short.

We'd be virtually drowning in tanks of really old fish. o_O ;):D

But seriously....that was a lot of words.

* Not a source related to reefing...just a useful concept that applies: youtube link

 

[mcarroll]

Or ones who were QT'd and are in tip top shape because they have no diseases for their immune system to worry about. :D

You know we joke about this, but do you know there really is such a thing as germ-free livestock?

And QT is nowhere in the realm. Barely on the same planet as germ free.

This cognitive disconnect is why I think we (the vast most of us) tend to be overconfident in what a quarantine process will be capable of.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germ-free_animal

http://science.nd.edu/about/history/ (1935)

University of Notre Dame pioneered the creepy processes back in the day to produce germ free mice for lab experiments. CREEPY CREEPY CREEPY research, but very interesting....and I think kind of mainstream (and still CREEPY) today.

The the details of what it takes to maintain them and what they've learned from them is quite riveting. Wish I could find the article I originally bumped into where they went into more detail.....thought it was smithsonianmag.org, but I didn't find it on a quick search there.

This is where they learned that a well-timed injection of antibiotics makes for fatter (more profitable) livestock, just to name one creepy example. ;)

 

[mcarroll]

But it seems to me, our concept and and methodology of QT is in a sense wrong. As most dont really understand the difference between Hosp and qt any way

This is something that's been glossed over to my knowledge - good bringing it to light!!

QT ≠ treatment tank....or at least it's not ideal. In that model, the QT is definitely not for sick fish....only for observation. The hospital tank is engaged if anyone turns out to actually be sick based on observations. Not based on worry. Worry is a misuse of imagination. ;)

A qt should be a biologically established tank, but with all the same stress reducers of a normal tank

+1 it'll have to be within reason for a tank that's not going to be up in a few weeks, but that's doable!


That whole post was dead-on. :)

 

[edosan]

This tread is one of the best I have read lately.
2 opposite alternatives pointing to the same goal. With a lot of respect.

I do belive that most diseases on fishes are just a week inmune system, but probably there are some others that need attention.
What is missed (probably) from the equation is strains of parasites/viruses/bacteria, some are light and others are very heavy and some others might be deadly. Lets take Flu in humans, H1N1 kill humans, but there are other strains that need nothing but "Orange Juice".

I have learned about probiotics and good bacteria and the impact in the inmune systems (for all living things on earth aplies..I Belive), thanks PaulB!

Paul and Humble THANKS again, and keep the debate comming & sharing! (and of course thanks to all contributors).

 

[Paul B]

Edosan, me and Humblefish love each other (In a fish only sort of way, nothing weird) and we are not arguing or anything even close. We have always had opposing views on fish health but as you said are looking for the same end result. Of course quarantining or not quarantining can achieve the same result, you just get there on different paths. There are advantages and disadvantages of both techniques. If you don't want to quarantine, your fish better be in the proper condition or you will lose all of them. Also if you quarantine, you better make sure you never introduce diseases into your tank as they would need to be quarantined forever. Some tanks need to be quarantined, like all Noob tanks, and some tanks just can't be quarantined. Tanks like mine where I use some NSW and introduce all sorts of creatures, bacteria, seaweed and food into the tank. In a quarantined tank that may crash it. But if you have a quarantined tank and live near the sea you can't introduce those things into your tank so you need to decide what type of system you are planning to keep and stick with that.
I just collected this red seaweed

 

[Humblefish]

Edosan, me and Humblefish love each other (In a fish only sort of way, nothing weird) and we are not arguing or anything even close.

Once Paul & I went to the beach together and we took our shirts off. But we had a supermodel with us just to make sure things didn't get weird. By "weird" I mean she would change the subject anytime we started talking about aquarium stuff. :D

 

[omykiss001]

So I found out a couple of cool immunity things, plus a bonus, tonight:

1) Fish that get immunity from a prior infection are known as "convalescent carriers".

2) Velvet is not automatically lethal thanks to "histone-like proteins."

BONUS) Scientists have figured out how to measure levels of HLP's as a stress indicator.

Carriers
I haven't found too much on fish so far (still looking), but fish are a lot like people in this matter, so I found this:

http://health.mo.gov/training/epi/Mod2StudentOutline.pdf


Inappropriate treatments can prolong the carrier phase.

Without more some form of positive ID of the targeted pathogen, it seems like most of the treatments we perform on fish are inappropriate treatments.

Why do algae control nuts spend more time behind microscopes than fish nuts?

Velvet
"Histone-like protein: a novel method for measuring stress in fish"
http://www.int-res.com/abstracts/dao/v44/n2/p97-107/

"HLP-1" is a histone like protein generated by fish that is a powerful antibiotic that can control Velvet.

Look what happens to HLP-1 when fish are stressed:


Very interesting for the sick fish we encounter...

Even more interesting for the non-sick fish we want to quarantine "just in case".

After perhaps not even a week in QT there's a chance you've eliminated any resistance a fish might have had left from the wild or built up since then by impairing their HLP production through stress. Seems like elimination of resistance might be a near-certainty after just 2-3 weeks. What about those extended QT's people do?? And TTM's with all that catching and moving of the fish?

Coincidentally:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Histone#Conservation_across_species

I think you might be taking a bit of license regarding the authors results. First histones are highly conserved proteins found in most eukaryotic cells. The main function of these proteins is to act as a scaffold upon which the cells DNA is wrapped and organized for cellular division. HLP proteins were first identified in prokaryotes (bacteria) and serve to help orientate the bacterial DNA during gene expression and regulation. They are only referred as histone like in that they bind to DNA is similar fashion. Eukaryotes have evolved similar protein sequences to HLPs in bacteria that can slow microbes cell division and metabolic activities, thus they are said to have anti-microbial activity. Dinoflagellates are not prokaryotes, but eukaryotic cells and would probably not be affected by HLPs.

I think you should reconsider your interpretation of the authors results and conclusions. Specifically this the authors noted in the discussion and abstract,

“In contrast to HLP-1 levels, antibacterial activity in the skin was significantly greater in fish stressed for 1 wk compared with unstressed fish; in addition, antibacterial activity was the same in fish that were unstressed or stressed for 3 or 4 wk. This suggests that other antibiotics besides HLP-1 may be induced in the skin, especially during early stages of stress, that may compensate for de- pressed HLP-1 levels.”

Really what they are saying is the anti- microbial activity in skin extracts were higher in stressed fish than non-stressed fish, and were no different in 3 week stressed fish over non-stressed fish in plate clearing assays. So, they actually have heightened anti-microbial activity when first stressed, and really no different at week 3 over control. The conclusion the authors arrived at is HLP may be a good protein to monitor to evaluate the stress level in fish before any clinical onset of disease so action might be taken to prevent loss as it can be easily monitored by a relatively cheap and accurate assay ELISA.

Furthermore, no one has shown with a controlled study similar to this that our fish suffer any more stress for any longer period of time in a properly setup and maintained QT tank than when introduced into a well setup and maintained DT, especially depending on the welcoming party that might be there to greet them in the DT. Personal experience I do quarantine and what I have observed time and time again is yes a fish may be mildly stressed for the 1 st day or 2 and at an extreme a week in QT. I have always noticed they settle in and show no outward symptoms of ongoing stress. Same is true when they go to the DT once fattened up and comfortable with the food they will see in the DT. They often act stressed again for a day or two and maybe up to a couple of weeks depending if they get any harassment from current tank inhabitants. Difference is the fish now has some fat reserves and an opportunity to recover their immune function to some degree before joining the general population. I don't disagree long periods of chronic stress is deleterious to any animal, but there's no real proof QT is a chronically stressful environment if done correctly with stress mitigation in mind when setting one up.

Until someone can show me a controlled study that demonstrated depressed levels of HLP for a fish kept in a QT environment vs a fish in a DT environment. I'll continue to QT my animals. When data like this is presented I'll reconsider how I do things. I've never seen good evidence QT done correctly is any more harmful to the fish than just dumping them into the DT. I won't even bring the current tank inhabitants into the equation of just dumping a fish from who knows where and the possible zoonotic diseases that might come along with that.

End of the day it's a choice and risk management decision we must all make. We just need to make sure we are interpreting the results of a paper like this in context so the data is relevant to the discussion at hand.

 

[Paul B]

Omykiss, nice post.
I would like to see a controlled study of the spawning behavior of quarantined verses non quarantined fish along with their lifespans. I have always believed (for no apparent reason except my own experience) that non quarantined fish are healthier due to their better immune system and spawn more frequently. All of my paired fish are spawning and I don't mean only clowns which will spawn on a damp paper towel in a dark closet in an abandoned nuclear facility that Myley Cyrus once sang in. Does anybody here have a tank full of quarantined fish where all the (Non damsel) type fish are spawning? I determine the health of the fish by it's spawning as all healthy fish spawn all the time and the natural state of a fish is pregnant. I also determine health by the lifespan. A fish should "only" die by either jumping out, hearing Rap music or old age. :eek:

 

[Paul B]

We also can't determine the health of a fish by it's temperature or blood pressure as we can with humans due to the apparent lack of rectal thermometers and tail blood pressure cuffs for fish. I am sure they would hate that anyway. o_O
All we have is it's resistance to infection, it's spawning ability, it's score on standardized tests and it's longevity. There is no accurate measure of fish lifespans but if there is a type of fish that has lived 30 years (as clownfish can live) we would assume that is their lifespan. We humans can live about 100 years. Yes one or two lived to 118 but they were ugly and couldn't broad jump) Most of us don't but we can. Our normal lifespan is a little more than 3/4s of that. So a typical clownfish should live at least 15 or so years.
I have had a few watchman gobies for 12 years so I know they can live at least that long. Probably longer but I would need statistics to know. Mine died of old age (yes I can tell when they do that) so they should live at least 10 or so years. Tangs (hippo's) I have not had more than 12 or 14 years. I know they live longer but again, I would need statistics. They should live at least that. If your fish are dying sooner, there is something wrong.
These guys lived for 12 years.


Here they were when they were old and on Social Security.


This is her with eggs.


And this is her when I got her as a baby. That is the life of a watchman gobi.
Anything less is a failure.

 

[mcarroll]

I think you might be taking a bit of license regarding the authors results. First histones are highly conserved proteins found in most eukaryotic cells. The main function of these proteins is to act as a scaffold upon which the cells DNA is wrapped and organized for cellular division. HLP proteins were first identified in prokaryotes (bacteria) and serve to help orientate the bacterial DNA during gene expression and regulation. They are only referred as histone like in that they bind to DNA is similar fashion. Eukaryotes have evolved similar protein sequences to HLPs in bacteria that can slow microbes cell division and metabolic activities, thus they are said to have anti-microbial activity. Dinoflagellates are not prokaryotes, but eukaryotic cells and would probably not be affected by HLPs.

This makes me think you may not have read the article.

I will still read the rest of your post asap and try to provide feedback if it seems like it would help.

 

[mcarroll]

Personal experience I do quarantine and what I have observed time and time again is yes a fish may be mildly stressed for the 1 st day or 2 and at an extreme a week in QT. I have always noticed they settle in and show no outward symptoms of ongoing stress.

Prisoners in jail act like that too...what are the demographics on prisoners living into old age? ;)

Even better, did you give your fish a choice? o_O

Check out this article from @jeremy.gosnell – experiments have been done in this direction:
How behaviorally complex are marine fish?

I'd like to see QT tanks set up like that experiment tank.....half treatment tank, isolated however they did it for the pain experiment – and the other half reef so the fish could get treatment or escape treatment as they saw fit.

I can dream. :)

It may be worth reiterating that QT doesn't have to be "out" for the knowledge presented to be accepted and used.

But it would seem that considering all available info, QT is stressful.

I can't think of a reason it wouldn't be stressful, so it doesn't even seem controversial to me. Maybe you can imagine some reasons QT would not be stressful?

Here's what I say which seems as though it should be uncontroversial(along with post [HASHTAG]#146[/HASHTAG]):

• Don't believe any solution is bullet proof - we always need the fish's immune system for that
• Use QT and other treatments only as needed.
  There will be at least some sicko cases in a context where direct treatment makes sense.
  And there's nothing wrong with a minimal QT for every fish, for another example. Worth noting that some people have no problems adding fish directly to their displays, but use your judgement. (See last point.)
• Minimize the amount of stress you apply to the fish and realize that's what any treatment we select does.
• Use your judgement to know when fish are on the mend vs deteriorating and remove them from QT and other treatments to the display asap.
• Don't buy any more fish if you don't have this level of judgement to apply. Take more time - it comes with experience.

 

[mcarroll]

Dinoflagellates are not prokaryotes, but eukaryotic cells and would probably not be affected by HLPs.

One fact jumped out of the Wikipedia article on Histone (which I am reposting)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Histone#Conservation_across_species

Histones are found in the nuclei of eukaryotic cells, and in certain Archaea, namely Thermoproteales and Euryarchaea, but not in bacteria. The unicellular algae known as dinoflagellates are the only eukaryotes that are known to completely lack histones.

This is also not the first time HLP-1 has popped into this discussion. (Hopefully I'm thinking of the right thread...perhaps it was not specifically in this thread.)

This may help:

https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q="hlp-1"+amyloodinium+|+cryptocaryon​

Results such as:

Histone-like proteins from fish are lethal to the parasitic dinoflagellate Amyloodinium ocellatum​

 

[mcarroll]

In a nutshell, and from memory, they mess with the dino's reproductive cycle.

 

[jeremy.gosnell]

Quite frankly, if you want an interesting read that covers fish immunity (and I am not saying I agree 100% with it) I recommend Paul's book "The Avant Garde Marine Aquarist." It's probably the funniest and most entertaining aquarium book in publication and that I fully agree with.

Fish certainly have immune systems and in fact, fish's immune system (which is tied to their slime coat) is effective and may have a host of uses in modern human medicine. During research, I've uncovered various scientific papers detailing studies done for the aquaculture industry into fish immunity. I would dig them all up and link them here, but most require a one-time $ 24.99 payment or yearly subscription to read. Marine ich is typically the spring-board parasite these studies involve, as it's common in captivity and its attributes represent a host of external parasites. Researchers have found that when exposed to ich, fish increase slime coat production in an attempt to prevent the parasite from adhering. It's a successful measure, as some of the parasites are unable to adhere at all, but research has found that still enough adhere to cause an infection - pretty much in every fish in the aquarium. Once infected, the immune response is hard to gauge - as some fish get better on their own and others die, even with increased slime coat. Those that do recover have been found to be immune to ich for up to 6 months. If re-infected, their bodies automatically start the same immune response that resolved the parasite infection the first time. Sadly, researchers don't know the entire specifics of that response. Some studies have suggested certain fish's slime coats have strong anti-parasitic qualities, others believe it's physiological differences in individual fish. What they agree on is that every fish has an immune response to the external parasite, and that immune response involves increased slime coat. After around 6 months, it seems the surviving infected fish lose their immunity, much like people do if they aren't re-vaccinated yearly.

These findings led to studies into an ich vaccination, I believe it was completed in 2014. For the study, scientists killed live ich trophonts with formalin (a common ich medication). The killed trophins were injected into fishes' bloodstream, providing their body with knowledge that the individual was infected, but only infecting them with a dead parasite. Scientists then found the fish began a similar immune response to live infection, including increased slime coat production. The fish were then placed in an ich infested aquarium - live parasites - just like what we aquarists would deal with. The vast majority (something like 92.4% if I remember correctly) didn't get sick. There is typically a few individuals in any vaccine trial that still get sick, which is why most vaccines have a disclaimer that they are 95-99% effective. It was enough that researchers concluded that a dead parasite vaccine was effective.

To swing this around to immune v. quarantine - my thoughts are this. In the ocean, it's well documented that fatal ich infection are rare, if they even occur at all. Fish that become ich infected are likely saved in the wild by their immune response. Even if they get infected, the first round of parasites cannot re-infect them, simply because the fish isn't contained to a small area that gives favor to the parasite. In the aquarium, it's ich's life cycle (and the life cycle of most marine parasites) that make it so deadly. They are in a closed area that is highly stocked so the opportunity for re-infection is high. The thought that all your fish will become immune to the parasite, recover and then continue on not getting sick is a gamble, simply because of the environmental challenges posed in aquarium life.

We can correctly assume that new fish have been exposed to parasites during the supply chain, it's inevitable. They may be sporting a parasite immunity when you get them, they may not. Unless you have the equipment on hand to take skin scrapes and analyze them for increased slime coat and parasitic infection - you don't really know. The fish that are established in your display may or may not sport an immunity from when they spent time in the supply chain, but chances are if any have been in the display for more than 6 months - they aren't immune to much, if anything. Risking parasite infiltration of your display tank is risking the health of every fish in your tank, it's that simple. I treat new fish like the medical community treated doctors arriving from Africa during the recent ebola infection. Right out of the gate, they need to be quarantined and treated for any signs of disease. Once a QT is performed that lasts longer than the life cycle of most known marine parasites (usually 45-60 days) they can join the rest of the fish in the display. This path certainly sets you up for fish that have little immunity left in your tank outside of a year. To be sustainable, that QT process must remain for every new fish addition. Even when doing so, sometimes parasites slip through the cracks, but it isn't common.

Exposing fish willingly (or possibly) to different pathogens in hopes of boosting their natural immune system IMHO is the same mentality of taking your kids over to play with the neighbor's kids who have chicken pox. It's an unnecessary risk that could bring with it complications. Those complications can wipe out an entire tank. Studies also have shown that proper diet, supplementation of fish food with probiotics and prebiotics along with reduced stress and adequate environment can keep fishes' immune systems in proper working order. I prefer those routes as opposed to Russian roulette.

 

[jeremy.gosnell]

By the way, I wrote this article for another publication in 2015, before I began writing for reef2reef. I know there are rules regarding linking to outside publications, but for the purpose of this discussion I think it may be applicable. When I wrote this article, I reached out to several research scientists involved in the study. I spoke with them at length (off the record) about their personal feelings on matters associated with fish immunity. Since it was off the record, I cannot share the specifics of what they said. I am willing to say, based on those conversations, I feel QT is still the most effective and safe way of preventing parasite infection in marine fish.