A Hypocrites View on Not Using Quarantine

[atoll]

I think people are confusing healthy as opposed to infection. Apparently we all have cancer within us if so does that make us unhealthy? IMO and FWIW I don't consider the fact a fish may have the odd parasite unhealthy far from it. The fact the fish has a few parasites but in all other respects is in good health swimming eating good colour and normal behaviour means it's able to deal with parasites to the point the fish is not overwhelmed by them. Like Paul B I am sure there are various parasites and diseases lurking in my tank waiting an opportunity to explode but the fact my fish are healthy prevents such an event taking place. I firmly believe the way I keep my fish keeps them in good health. A fish might look healthy displaying some if not all of the above and yet break out in a bad infestation of itch or whatever. Now that is what I would call an unhealthy fish to begin with. If I see a spot or 2 in any of my fish which may happen from time to time with my Royal grammas for instance I just let it run it's course, no need to panic like some and certainly no need for any form of medication. I have been keeping my fish my way for over 30 years now and disease has never been an issue and I am talking never QTd and with about 10 tanks in that time from nanos to 130 gallons.

 

[ngoodermuth]

Isn’t this what happens in nature? The parasites are always there, just in numbers that are asymptomatic...

In the ocean, sheer water volume plays a huge part in managing parasites. A fish might get one or two parasites at a time... not one or two hundred.

Our little closed box allows them to reproduce and attack fish in much larger numbers if we don’t do something to keep those populations in check.

As important as nutrition and the immune system are...I don’t think this works if there is not also a population control mechanism. This is where UV,under gravel filters, filter feeders, etc come into play.

 

[Sallstrom]

:eek::eek::eek:
If I had an observation tank like that I would be divorced!!!

Yes. Maybe not for the hobby aquarist :rolleyes: But I do think size matters. In both our 10000L and 26000L reef we've added fish directly from wholesalers, without quarantine or other treatments. And with a very high survival rate.
So IMO for a fish to get a stress free(or at least low stress) environment after a long shipping might be the most important.
And we don't have that high density of fish.

 

[Brew12]

Our little closed box allows them to reproduce and attack fish in much larger numbers if we don’t do something to keep those populations in check.

As important as nutrition and the immune system are...I don’t think this works if there is not also a population control mechanism. This is where UV,under gravel filters, filter feeders, etc come into play.

This is where I expected this conversation to focus. How do we limit the parasite numbers while fish build their immunity? How do we do it when we add a naïve fish? Or a stress event like a heater failure?

Nutrition is important to supply the building blocks, like gut bacteria, needed to allow the fish to become immune but there still must be something done to give the fish time to build that adaptive immunity.

 

[WVNed]

I thought the parasites only reproduced after using a fish to complete their life cycle. They are not hiding somewhere in my tanking making millions are they?

And how about at least a sticky on running a tank without water changes. Something I have always wanted to do but never felt I had the time and knowledge to pull off.

Right now I am 100% the other way. I haven't added anything to the tank or done any testing in 2 months. I am changing 29% of my water weekly.
I am down to only having to clean the glass once a week. I have some cyano that grows every day and goes away every night.

 

[Mortie31]

This is where I expected this conversation to focus. How do we limit the parasite numbers while fish build their immunity? How do we do it when we add a naïve fish? Or a stress event like a heater failure?

Nutrition is important to supply the building blocks, like gut bacteria, needed to allow the fish to become immune but there still must be something done to give the fish time to build that adaptive immunity.

This is true for tanks that have quarantined everything and could prove challenging, but doesn’t seem to be the case for non quarantined systems, why don’t the numbers of parasites explode? Could the fish immunity to them cause the parasites to die out over time, or are they being eaten or both? Something is interrupting the normal life cycle, if @Paul B adds a fish with CI why dont the CI reproduce in the huge numbers the science predicts?

 

[ngoodermuth]

This is true for tanks that have quarantined everything and could prove challenging, but doesn’t seem to be the case for non quarantined systems, why don’t the numbers of parasites explode? Could the fish immunity to them cause the parasites to die out over time, or are they being eaten or both? Something is interrupting the normal life cycle, if @Paul B adds a fish with CI why dont the CI reproduce in the huge numbers the science predicts?

I think that is where Brew was going with the conversation, what is it that makes those systems able to handle parasite loads better than others. I’ve always fed my fish pretty well and offered live a quality frozen foods, and I’ve still had parasite epidemics. I’ve run UV and still had ich outbreaks.

So why don’t they see these same issues? Tank maturity play a huge part, I agree with Paul there. I think there is something specific or a combination of things that makes it possible to add an infected fish without the total wipe-out that other tanks face. Until I know without s doubt that I can add a fish without risking my currently healthy and robust community... I’ll continue to QT.

 

[MnFish1]

I find it hard to believe though, that just because a fish has been treated at some point for a disease, that it will never have a healthy enough immune system to protect it in the future.

I agree. I mean take cancer chemotherapy - no one would do it prophylactically (just in case they had cancer) - but once you have cancer the risk of not treating it is worth the potential benefit.

Copper - will affect the immune system of the fish. - It may have worse effects the longer its used and based on the dose - but I believe that the immune system recovers. But - the immunity to the 'treated' pathogen may not be as strong as it might have been if the fish wasn't treated.

 

[MnFish1]

In the ocean, sheer water volume plays a huge part in managing parasites. A fish might get one or two parasites at a time... not one or two hundred.

This is thought to be the case - but - the most recent study from Vietnam suggests this may not be the complete answer (i.e. there were 7-8 trophonts per 4x magnified field (on average) There were also fish with >10 trophonts - which had a high likelihood of mortality. - Also - I dont know if you read the article I posted about parasites - where they talked about how its very difficult to determine the incidence of parasites in the wild - because especially with fish sick fish are almost instantly eaten after death - or before - so it appears there are no 'diseased fish'.

If you think about the sheer number of fry produced by one spawning - besides predation (which is probably the biggest cause) - something must be killing the fish.

 

[Mortie31]

I think that is where Brew was going with the conversation, what is it that makes those systems able to handle parasite loads better than others. I’ve always fed my fish pretty well and offered live a quality frozen foods, and I’ve still had parasite epidemics. I’ve run UV and still had ich outbreaks.

So why don’t they see these same issues? Tank maturity play a huge part, I agree with Paul there. I think there is something specific or a combination of things that makes it possible to add an infected fish without the total wipe-out that other tanks face. Until I know without s doubt that I can add a fish without risking my currently healthy and robust community... I’ll continue to QT.

I think we need to think of a new philosophy as opposed to potentially just looking for new quarantine protocols... if people want to cram as many fish into a tank as is possible then Paul B’s method just isn’t going to work. The commonalities between a lot of the really successful non quarantined tanks isn’t special food, it’s a whole system approach, mixed corals, a balanced number of fish, filter feeders, cycling, CUC, the list goes on... the way a lot of tanks are cycled in the US is in the main different from Europe, unfortunately the dry rock and bottled bacteria is getting more common place over here as well. Cycling tanks the old fashioned way as in @Lasse article is a good place to start. Its going to be an interesting few years, as these challenges and discussions continue..

 

[ReefWithCare]

This is not an easy answer and it is in what I like to say, "The Fusion Zone". If you have a brand new tank with dry rock and ASW your fish will get sick even if your brother is Saint Peter. New tanks with new rocks with new ASW used by a Noob will have problems, there is no way around it. Sorry Noobs but thats the way it is. Bacteria need quite a bit of time to do what we pay them for and a Noob does also.

So If I were to start a tank like that, I would fill it up (cycle it very good with something dead but not your cat or the fur will clog the filter) and get some fish. Not $300.00 tangs, coelacanths, manta rays etc. But maybe wrasses, gobies, bleenies, cardinals etc. I would then treat them in copper.
Yes I know, I am totally against medication but this is for a brand new tank with a Noob. 11 or 12 days in the recommended dose of copper then put them in that new tank. Their immunity from the sea would still be intact but the fish will feel under the weather (or under the water as the fish will say) and maybe have an upset stomach like when you drank to much at your first wedding. :rolleyes:

If you did that correctly, your fish should not have parasites, or if they do, the parasites will also be under the weather.
You need to get all the dry food, pellets and freeze dried food you have, find your garbage can and throw it in there, don't use it no matter how pretty the angelfish is on the box.

Get LRS frozen Reef Frenzy and some big fresh live clams from a Supermarket or live worms, either black or white, they don't consider race a thing. Even earthworms.
Take the clams and throw them in the freezer. In 2 days open them up and shave off paper thin slices to feed the fish. Your tank is new, there is no bacteria so it may cloud the water a "little".
That is fine and if it is a little, it will clear. If your glass looks like 3 day old wax paper that you wrapped your happy meal in, change a lot of water. Increase circulation no matter what you do.

The cloudyness is just a bacterial bloom which is actually good. The fish may not like it but they have to get over it because if they don't like it, they should have run away from that collector.:confused:

The bacteria are floating around looking for a place to call home and start a family so we need this. :p

If the fish get some spots, I would just hope they get better. If they get a lot of spots I would throw them back in that copper because you didn't monitor that first copper dose well enough. (I told you you will have problems) :eek:

After a while when the water clears, the fish seem healthy, you notice some growth like algae, cyano, Godzilla Larvae etc. that is good. Add some more fish using the copper.

In time, maybe 6 months of feeding that food I mentioned, add more fish one at a time with (no copper). Don't worry about a few spots, that is actually good because if you followed this, your fish will be immune.

But if you used dry food pasta or pellets, I will know about it so don't blame me when you have to go on the disease forum saying something like "OMG" I followed that Jiboni Paul B's advice and my fish got so sick I had to call 3 paramedics and they are now being airlifted to the Mayo Clinic for MRIs. :eek:

You can continue to use copper for new fish, but I would not advise that because with no parasites, the fish will lose their immunity to them.

You don’t recommend live rock?

 

[Brew12]

Yes. Maybe not for the hobby aquarist :rolleyes: But I do think size matters. In both our 10000L and 26000L reef we've added fish directly from wholesalers, without quarantine or other treatments. And with a very high survival rate.
So IMO for a fish to get a stress free(or at least low stress) environment after a long shipping might be the most important.
And we don't have that high density of fish.

I was really inspired when I saw that the Seattle Aquarium had greatly reduced the amount of treatments they perform and in doing so they reduced their mortality rates.
They used to do an observation QT and would treat everything in the tank if a single fish showed a health issue. They switched from doing that to removing the fish showing a sign of illness for treatment and continued observation for at least one more week.
Unfortunately, they don't release much information that I can find about exactly what they do and I can't speak for their current results.

 

[Brew12]

I thought the parasites only reproduced after using a fish to complete their life cycle. They are not hiding somewhere in my tanking making millions are they?

If we are talking Ich and Velvet, the parasite feeds on the fish, drops off, encycsts on a hard surface then hatches to release possibly hundreds of baby parasites which go looking for a new fish to feed on and start the cycle again. This is why parasite numbers can explode in a short period of time in a glass box. Velvet can complete it's lifecycle in as little as 2 days. A single velvet dinospore can go from 1 to 25o in 2 days. 2 days after that those 250 could become 50,000. 2 days after that there could be as many as 12 million. Not many fish can survive that.

Could the fish immunity to them cause the parasites to die out over time, or are they being eaten or both?

The adaptive immunity system of the fish uses a combination of chemicals that surpress the ability of the parasite to feed. This limits the damage it can do to the fish and also results in significantly fewer viable daughter parasites each generation.

 

[Brew12]

And how about at least a sticky on running a tank without water changes. Something I have always wanted to do but never felt I had the time and knowledge to pull off.

I thought there was one somewhere... maybe not though. Either way, I'll leave that for someone else.

 

[Lasse]

I would suggest putting the fish into observation for a few weeks, and slowly start adding some water from the display. Slowly, a bit more water every few days until you are doing large water changes with water from your display. This would hopefully give you an indication of if the fish would react or not. From there you could put the fish in the sump for a couple of weeks and if all is still well then you can move it to the display?

This is exactly what I have try to say for a long, long time. All my experiences with fish that die when you introduce them show that it is the newcomer that will die first. And in the disease section - there is a numerous of complains - I did a perfect QT with all the stuff, when I introduce them - they got sick. IMO all QT protocols whatever you use should contain WC from the DT the last weeks - just in order to observe if there is something in your tank that will make the newcomers sick. There is another good thing with this – your newcomers get the same smell and my experiences of thousand of introductions say that there are less fights and bullying in this case. Less stress for the newcomers.

I do not have place for an observing QT and I use my refugium as introduction. It is around 30 litres - half full of chaeto and a pass through of around 2300 litre and hour. Stocked with pods and other food items. The fish have hiding places and will be very isolated from the outside world. They get food when I feed the other fishes. I have lost fish here - but no disease in my DT. This have been the best acclimation path I ever have used – succeed with introduction of normal sensitive fish.

I don’t think it’s fair to bash the disease forum team for offering advice on treating sick fish. There are many fish that have survived because of the advice we offer, too.

This is exactly why I have not take up this type of discussion before. You do a great job and have helped many people in acute situation . It is easy to see any critic of the common knowledge as bashing. It is not - but lately it has been the same way of thing it was when zero NO3 and PO4 was on the wallpaper because of some sensitive acroporas that 4 % had. Every thred start with - whats your PO4 or NO3 - if it zero - it is surly to high - you have done a wrong measurement. The only difference is that today it is chemoprophylactic QT secured high up on the wallpaper. I´m glad that @Brew12 brought this up because in this way I do not need to be the battering ram against the wall up in the north :) :)


Sincerely Lasse

 

[MnFish1]

Anyone interested in QT should read this article - which is fascinating to me - as compared to some of the things 'we' do:
Fish quarantine: current practices in public zoos and aquaria.

Here is one paragragh - as a 'taste':
3 At the National Aquarium, quarantine for fish not treated for protozoal ectoparasites is a minimum of 90 days; some pathogens have presented up to 65 days into quarantine (e.g., Amyloodinium in temperate species).

Unfortunately - as of yet - I haven't been able to get the 'full text'.

The key message I've received - is that the 'durations' that we seem to take as gospel concerning fallow periods, QT periods, observation periods ALL seem to have exceptions - and the 'professionals' that use these methods - often use different timing than we do. The example above - where the national zoo uses a MINIMUN of 90 days observation for all new arrivals (with detailed notes, etc multiple times/day) in non-treated fish suggest maybe some of the reasons for all the QT failures are duration related (or technique) - including fish that are treated for disease if is shows up. (i.e. trying 14 days vs 30 or whatever).

 

[soflmuddin]

IMO all QT protocols whatever you use should contain WC from the DT the last weeks - just in order to observe if there is something in your tank that will make the newcomers sick.


Sincerely Lasse

That is a great idea. I have never really quarantined but my new 2mo fowlr tank took a hit from velvet recently and I might start. If I do I will use this. Much easier to control an outbreak in a quarantine tank.

 

[bluprntguy]

I think we have a communication issue. Can a "healthy" fish be a carrier of parasites? I feel the answer is yes. If a person is defining a healthy fish as "parasite free" then a fish that hasn't been QT'd can not be healthy.

I think this was generally the point I was trying to make days ago. We seemed to have definitions of “healthy” that were completely at odds. I apparently wasn’t able to communicate it as well as I should have. Apologies if it caused frustration. Wasn’t my intent.

One other item that hasn’t been discussed is whether we should be removing fish from the ocean and putting them in our tanks anyway. It seems a majority of the fish most people keep in their aquariums are available as captive bred specimens at this point in time. The ones that haven’t been captive bred tend to be more difficult to keep. We don’t get dogs and cats from the wild. Why should “pet fish” be any different.

Most companies that are captively breeding fish have already eliminated most if not all of the problematic diseases/parasites from their systems and have staff to accurately treat new specimens. If the entire supply chain switched to using captive bred fish (and inverts) instead of wild caught fish, many diseases could easily be significantly reduced or eliminated.

 

[Paul B]

. Sometimes you can see parasites on it, sometimes not.

To me this is a sign of a healthy, normal tank.

This is where UV,under gravel filters, filter feeders, etc come into play.

I think parasites will have no problem swimming in, around and under an undergravel, but I am guessing.

but there still must be something done to give the fish time to build that adaptive immunity.

Fish from the sea all have adaptive immunity. If they don't, they are dead fish as nothing can live in the sea without immunity. Even if another fish sneezed on them, they would croak.

You don’t recommend live rock?

I do, but we were talking about a new tank with dry rock as many people have to start their tanks with. Live rock is of course best as is real sea water and an old, experienced, preferably good looking aquarist, but we all don't have that. :rolleyes:

 

[MnFish1]

I think this was generally the point I was trying to make days ago. We seemed to have definitions of “healthy” that were completely at odds. I apparently wasn’t able to communicate it as well as I should have. Apologies if it caused frustration. Wasn’t my intent.

One other item that hasn’t been discussed is whether we should be removing fish from the ocean and putting them in our tanks anyway. It seems a majority of the fish most people keep in their aquariums are available as captive bred specimens at this point in time. The ones that haven’t been captive bred tend to be more difficult to keep. We don’t get dogs and cats from the wild. Why should “pet fish” be any different.

Most companies that are captively breeding fish have already eliminated most if not all of the problematic diseases/parasites from their systems and have staff to accurately treat new specimens. If the entire supply chain switched to using captive bred fish (and inverts) instead of wild caught fish, many diseases could easily be significantly reduced or eliminated.

Which species are you talking about (I mean everyone knows clowns and some tangs and a couple angels) - but with other 'common fish' are widely being bred?

BTW - I want to clarify something - I have had the argument multiple times on this forum with people that there is no 'disadvantage' to removing CI, velvet, etc from our systems (i.e. QT/treatment). Just like Bill Gates is trying to eradicate malaria (with nets), or smallpox or measles, etc. There is no advantage (to humans) that these diseases are present. There is no advantage (Sorry @Paul B, @Lasse, @atoll) there is no advantage to these parasites being in our aquaria. )

The problem I have - and I think the reason there is such a debate - is that rather than following 'standard' protocols - people decide - I'll fiddle with the method. I'll try more - or less copper than recommended or not test properly, etc etc. (there are multiple videos on youtube for example on 'how to QT a saltwater tank'). Here on R2R I have read QT methods from @Reefahholic @HotRocks and others that all differ from each other - and at least the first 2 are members of the ReefSquad. Not to mention that neither method matches what the 'standards are' (i.e used by public aquaria (many of which also use different methods)). So - what is the average aquarist to do? According to polls here (if I remember correctly - less than 50 percent QT (that may be incorrect - it might be slightly more than 50%). Im going to start a poll - about QT practices thats a bit different - it will be posted soon...

Firstly - for the average aquarist - (Just go look at the threads that discuss the use of the Hanna Low PO4 checker) its hard to do testing or anything science related consistently correct - This is not a slam against those people - its seriously difficult (even with a proper method).

Secondly - the average aquarist MAY not have hours /day to do the proper observation required for an 'observational QT' - or the resources for a second tank or third tank etc etc.

etc etc. Sorry for the long post - and it wasn't directed at you personally - but I think its somewhat realistic as to 'whats happening' vs 'what should be happening'.