A Hypocrites View on Not Using Quarantine

[Jon Fishman]

I don’t want my fish to get sick and I don’t want to wipe out my tank...........







But I don’t quarantine because I’m lazy

 

[Jon Fishman]

I’m curious as to if any of you find that using the same lfs or supplier helps?

My local shop I go to has a date written on the tank for every fish in it...... I got a Powder Blue Tang a few days ago...... They had 3 they got 4/26, a powder brown from 4/10 (other tanks) and the Powder blue I got was in the tank since 10/2018

His tank-mates were both from December as well, not to say another fish hadn’t been in there recently, but I went with the October one because I knew he was acclimated to tank-life


I float, then dump through a net, and release

 

[EmdeReef]

Very well written and raising/addressing some important topics for this hobby! IME the problems have been getting worse due to some less than ethical players in the supply chain who cut corners for a quick profit.

For a long time I used to be able to observe a fish for a period of time and then decide whether and what to treat for. Last few years that approach just hasn’t worked. Unfortunately, anesthetizing a fish to take a sample/scrape for proper diagnosis is often more stressful to the fish than the treatment itself.

IMO the best development we have to look forward to is captive breeding and direct sales by breeders. I think we should all support captive breeding and be willing to pay the premium.

I recently got some fish from Poma Labs. Felt like Xmas being able to just acclimate the fish and put in a DT without the usual~40 days of observation and treatment.

 

[Lasse]

Same for NFG?

If you with NFG mean nitrofurazone - the answer is yes. It is one of the few antibacterial substances that has been used as treatment in Fish farms because of its lipophilic properties that make it usable for water bath even among fresh water fish. (they do not drink – therefore use of water-soluble antibiotics like kanamycin is worthless to use in FW bath). However - these types of drugs are banned for use in production of human food today because of cancerogenic properties. Because its lipophilic properties – just dust on your skin will enter your body – therefore – gloves and respiratory protection can be a good idea. I have seen some posts at the R2R that the half live is around 5 hours, hence dose more often. It is true that the half life for the active substances is around this in the body, it is because of a fast metabolism of the active substance but the metabolites can be tracked for a long time. Do not overdose This is a drug that can be used but only if there are clear indications of bacterial disease. And with all lipophilic substances – short time and dose and a huge WC after treatment. All of these drugs are sledge hammers – do not use them in order to treat invisible pathogens. People tend to use them in combination too - like a medical bouillabaisse. We do not no anything how these drugs interact with each other. Just the case that the fish survive the mix is not a good indication. You have no ideas what’s going on under the surface.


Sincerely Lasse

 

[Lasse]

IMO the best development we have to look forward to is captive breeding and direct sales by breeders. I think we should all support captive breeding and be willing to pay the premium.

I´m not 100 % sure of this. The specific immune system of fishes is more developed that we know of before. These fish have not been out for any diseases or pathogen before and the result can be catastrophic. I have an example when adding captive breed fish to a large tank with lot of larger fish (even sharks). We had many times add wild caught fish of the size 3-5 cm to this tank. It was always the same - we did not see any of the new fish for a month or so - suddenly they were everywhere – coming up from their hideaway´s. But we was not pleased with wild caught fish – we want captive breeds if we could get it. We got access to 100 small clowns (the same size as fish we have introduce with success before) and add them. We could spot them from the first day – thriving in a school just above the stone formations we put them in. The second day we could spot them again – but not so many. After a week they had disappear totally. Months later I spot 1 at a certain place and 5 years later – I still could see that fish if I know where to look. What´s happen? The captive bread fish had not idea of what a predator was and become a very good food source for other fish. A total unexpected effect of captive breed fish.

Sincerely Lasse

 

[FlyPenFly]

Hmmm so NFG is a carcinogen?

 

[Lasse]

Can you give me a link to what NFG realy stand for - NFZ use to be the abbervation for nitrofurazone and it is seen as a carcinogen.

Sincerely Lasse

 

[FlyPenFly]

Can you give me a link to what NFG realy stand for - NFZ use to be the abbervation for nitrofurazone and it is seen as a carcinogen.

Sincerely Lasse

Sorry by NFG I meant Nitrofuracin Green

https://store.nationalfishpharm.com...reen?return=/items/search/category:298/page:2

 

[FlyPenFly]

Well I just googled a bit and indeed nitrofurazone does accelerate and cause cancer in mammals. Now I regret putting my hand in the hospital tank so many times...

 

[Lasse]

Our special formulation of Nitrofurazone, Sulfathiazole Sodium, Methylene Blue and sodium chloride

Yes - nitrofurazone is classed as a carcinogen - at least in EU - and forbidden to use in food production. I saw the medicines at the manefactur - is not many of them you can get without a prescription here in Sweden (or EU).

Sincerely Lasse

 

[Lasse]

I can see a paradox here. In the EU - most of these drugs are forbidden without prescription and prophylactic treatment with these products are a bold NO-NO

In the US these wonder products are free to use and prophylactic treatment with these products are in common use.

We get the fishes from the same sources - mainly from the Pacicific, Indian ocean, Caribian and the Red Sea

You would aspect a healthier fish stock in the US compared with EU based on this - but it seems to be total opposite situation.

In the US - it is a disease catastrophe – lucky them - they have access to these wonder medicines

In the EU – we can´t access these wonder medicines – lucky us – we have healthy fishes


Or………………….


Sincerely Lasse

 

[Brew12]

I can see a paradox here. In the EU - most of these drugs are forbidden without prescription and prophylactic treatment with these products are a bold NO-NO

In the US these wonder products are free to use and prophylactic treatment with these products are in common use.

We get the fishes from the same sources - mainly from the Pacicific, Indian ocean, Caribian and the Red Sea

You would aspect a healthier fish stock in the US compared with EU based on this - but it seems to be total opposite situation.

In the US - it is a disease catastrophe – lucky them - they have access to these wonder medicines

In the EU – we can´t access these wonder medicines – lucky us – we have healthy fishes


Or………………….


Sincerely Lasse

It will be interesting to see how things go in Canada with their new bans on medications. I knew the ban on antibiotics was coming, but I was shocked that copper is also banned.

 

[Brew12]

It's almost ironic..... I was looking at this picture of my med collection and everything in it was legal in Canada last month. Now, the Prime is the only thing you can buy without a prescription.

 

[siggy]

It will be interesting to see how things go in Canada with their new bans on medications. I knew the ban on antibiotics was coming, but I was shocked that copper is also banned.

I live on the border with Canada and every week there are reports of drug smuggling, now I suspect I'll see more, only now it will include Fish meds

I wonder if Dr.Randy could formulate at least Copper from raw ingredients?

 

[nereefpat]

You'll always be able to get copper sulfate here. It has many uses beyond fishkeeping.

 

[Falcon53]

I don't understand how they would develop a resistance considering they come from various sources. Unless they are all captive breed?

I guess I have the same thought about ich/copper. It doesn't make sense that it would develop a resistance to copper, when the the only place its being exposed to such high levels of copper, is in our tanks, lfs, breeding facilities, ect ect. I'd image the number of captives are a drop in the bucket relative to what's in the wild.

It seems strange to think an entire species is going to evolve based on what's being done to the few in captivity.

This is exactly what I was going to say. Respectfully, the article seems to have a fundamental misunderstanding of how resistance/evolution works, and/or the supply chain of fish. While there certainly could be (and likely already are) strains of diseases resistant to copper, et. al., it is unlikely that this strain would become dominant in the wild, since we aren't dosing the ocean, nor are we releasing fish treated with copper back into the ocean.

 

[Lasse]

This is exactly what I was going to say. Respectfully, the article seems to have a fundamental misunderstanding of how resistance/evolution works, and/or the supply chain of fish. While there certainly could be (and likely already are) strains of diseases resistant to copper, et. al., it is unlikely that this strain would become dominant in the wild, since we aren't dosing the ocean, nor are we releasing fish treated with copper back into the ocean.

The article state that it is in the suply chain there the resistance strains will develope - not in the wild and not normally in our aquariums and I think it show a very good understanding how resistance/evolution works, and/or the supply chain of fish works. We in Europe take our fish from the same sources as the US - but we do not have a supply chain that use prophylactic methods as you do in the US. And we do not have the same problems.

Sincerely Lasse

 

[Brew12]

This is exactly what I was going to say. Respectfully, the article seems to have a fundamental misunderstanding of how resistance/evolution works, and/or the supply chain of fish. While there certainly could be (and likely already are) strains of diseases resistant to copper, et. al., it is unlikely that this strain would become dominant in the wild, since we aren't dosing the ocean, nor are we releasing fish treated with copper back into the ocean.

I hope I didn't give the impression that I was worried about the resistant pathogens becoming dominant in the wild, although I guess anything is possible. I don't think people intended Boa's to become dominant in the Everglades. I was only intending to discuss the potentially resistant parasites that fish would pick up as they move through the wholesale and retail chain.

 

[McPuff]

TTM is very useful against ich for the reasons mentioned. It requires no chemicals and uses the well-known life cycle of the parasite as an advantage. Resistance to drugs doesn't matter and if done properly (i.e., cleanly) then the aquarist should see great results. It is more labor intensive but I fully prefer this to copper or other types of ich treatments. All of my new fish go through TTM upon arrival.

 

[MaccaPopEye]

TTM is very useful against ich for the reasons mentioned. It requires no chemicals and uses the well-known life cycle of the parasite as an advantage. Resistance to drugs doesn't matter and if done properly (i.e., cleanly) then the aquarist should see great results. It is more labor intensive but I fully prefer this to copper or other types of ich treatments. All of my new fish go through TTM upon arrival.

Very true, but TTM doesn't work for velvet as far as I am aware and it also doesn't help with flukes etc.

While CI is probably the most common parasite in the marine hobby, I have been seeing way more velvet outbreaks (including in my own tank) in the last year or so compared to 5 or so years ago when I started in this hobby. And what I interpreted the article to be about was all common parasites and diseases that people commonly treat prophetically.