Copperband feeding issue and redish spot on tummy

[Areseebee]

Let's play a game and highlight every definitive statement up there that is entirely inferred.

 

[Humblefish]

Don't you quarantine your hands for 72 days before you stick them in your tank?

I take a dip in a heavily chlorinated swimming pool before I go from QT to DT.

I am sorry but that copperband now has absolutely no working immune system. "If " he lives you will need to be very careful to keep any bacteria or other pathogens away from him for the rest of his life.

So any fish (or person) which has been treated with medication (e.g. antibiotics) will lose their natural immune system?!?

 

[Paul B]

I take a dip in a heavily chlorinated swimming pool before I go from QT to DT.



So any fish (or person) which has been treated with medication (e.g. antibiotics) will lose their natural immune system?!?

I didn't say people, I heard you say people, I didn't. But even people have problems after antibiotic treatment as you may know because of how your stomach feels for a few days after you destroy stomach bacteria.
But most of us are not fish. A fishes immune system depends heavily on the bacteria in their gut and kidney which is where those antibiotics end up. A fishes immunity is mostly manufactured in their kidney as they have no bone marrow like you have.
Being our imunity comes mostly from our bone marrow, it is much more protected from the immediate effects of antibiotics. But in a fish, the antibiotics go right to the kidney where the bacteria, and immunity is destroyed. I didn't make that up but I wish I had.
You know we already went through this and that copperband right now has no immune system. Nada, nothing, Zip, Zilch, zero, nothing.
If he lives, he will have a very hard time for quite a long time unless he is kept sterile. Lets watch his progress and I hope he fares well.
Like I hope you do for a very long time or at least until I croak because I enjoy these encounters immensely

I hate to quote journals, but I have to now because I know you think I make this stuff up in my sleep.

(ISRN ImmunologyVolume 2012 (2012), Article ID 853470, 29 pageshttp://dx.doi.org/10.5402/2012/853470Review ArticleAn Overview of the Immunological Defenses in Fish SkinMaría Ángeles Esteban)

."The first demonstration that probiotics can protect fishes against surface infections was against Aeromonas bestiarum and Ichthyophthirius multifiliis in rainbow trout [330]. The research on this topic is considered of high priority at present because enriched diets could be used as preventive or curative therapies for farmed fishes. End Quote

From "Popular Science" August 2015

He also states that a loss of gut bacteria correlates with many diseases and could impede longer space travel. If we lose our gut bacteria, our immune system goes dormant.

"Not all of the next 2 paragraphs came from "Popular Science" Most of it did, Some of it came from other scientific publications but I am sure I added other parts."

In the real world bacteria, viruses and parasites evolved right along with other organisms that help keep each organism in check. They have their enemies and friends. When we mess with the system by using antibiotics or extended periods of quarantine, or remove living bacteria from their food, we are dooming the fish to a life where they are on the verge of getting a fatal disease.
This is also the reason so many diseases are contracted in hospitals, a place where great pains are taken to keep the place clean. They are clean, so the only bacteria present are from sick people with no other bacteria or viruses to counteract them. It is now thought that people using those hand sanitizers from very young are at a higher risk of becomming an allergic toddler.
Human babies born normally pick up Lactobacillus in the birth canal which helps them digest milk and lowers the gut's pH to the normal range. but babies born by C-section miss out and could be born with Staphlococcus and sometimes antibiotic resistant bacteria. (Rinku Patel Popular Science August 2015)

 

[Areseebee]

You know we already went through this and that copperband right now has no immune system. Nada, nothing, Zip, Zilch, zero, nothing.

Just to start with one statement so we can pin this down, why do you believe this?

 

[Areseebee]

As always you are badly conflating fish quarantine with a sterile environment. I assume you'll never stop doing this but you know better.

 

[Paul B]

Areseebee, I am glad you asked. I didn't want to get into the entire immunity thing on this thread which is not about immunity, but I believe this for a few reasons. First off from my experience and I have been keeping fish for over 60 years. But that means nothing because I could just be very lucky. (or lying)
The second reason I believe it is because as I have said, in about 40 years I have never had a fish die from a communicable disease. I may have lost fish from a swim bladder thing (but I can't remember that happening) or some other weird thing, (also can't remember that)

Before about 40 years ago I lost fish to all sorts of things. I probably killed more fish than StarKist tuna. My tank used to be an ich farm and for years I had to keep copper in my water continuously. Before liquid copper was invented I had to use copper pennies for the copper. (You can look that up in "The Salt Water Aquarium in the Home" by Robert Straughn, or read my book. I also speak on the history of the hobby.)

But besides that. (because I could be making all of that up) I have been posting pictures of my spawning fish since computers were invented and before that my tank has been in a few paper magazines. Paper is what we make trees out of.
I read a lot and have researched this for many years. You can peruse this thread which links many studies from scientists, not me. https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/a-discussion-on-immunity.209701/

Many of us assume fish come to us already infected with something. Maybe they do, I don't know. What I do know is that almost all fish come to us already immune because all fish in the sea have immunity. If they didn't they would have died way before we got them.
I try to post in pictures what I write to prove things. I have posted for years fish that I have gotten when young, when they are teenagers and when they die of old age. I also have posted many times my fish spawning or already with eggs.
I have asked many times to see pictures of a tank full of very old, quarantined fish spawning, but I have yet to see that.
Not that quarantined fish can't spawn. But it is much more difficult for them to spawn because their immune system is a large part of their health and only the healthiest fish can spawn.
I have also said, many times that our fish should only die from two things, jumping out, or old age. Anything else and we failed.

I am sorry but that is the way I run my tank and that is the way I feel.
If you saw a town where all the people died as teenagers, you may not want to live there. But if we keep having fish die in 5 or 6 years, that is exactly the same thing as most of the common fish we keep should live about 15 years and much longer for damsels which can live about 30 years.
I know I come off as arrogant, a big mouth, braggart or just a bald guy. I try very hard to teach the method that has kept my fish disease free for many years because I want people to succeed in this hobby that I love, but it always seems like I am trying to argue. I am not. If I wanted to argue, I would tell my wife she looks fat in those shorts.
If a guy has been keeping fish for 60 years, and seems to have a fairly decent looking tank, that was started the week salt water fish were imported into Manhattan with very old, spawning fish, is that a bad thing?
Should that guy change his practices or keep secret what he does?
Or should I just go and keep my method secret and hide under a rock. A very large rock with a Supermodel.

 

[Paul B]

As always you are badly conflating fish quarantine with a sterile environment. I assume you'll never stop doing this but you know better.

In this post I didn't say quarantine. Quarantining in a tank "large enough" for that type of fish with "natural rocks and the proper food if fine".
I can tell by the looks and actions of this particular copperband that he is extremely stressed which is what I mentioned. Antibiotics are usually not appropriate for a fish for the reasons I stated and linked articles for.
In this specific thread there is an awful lot of medications being used. That is what I was talking about, not sterility. But antibiotics make sterility which is the purpose of antibiotics. And sterility leads to a lack of immunity which is why I linked those articles. I didn't make that up. You can read about gut bacteria in fish and how it effects immunity, it's all over the place.

 

[Paul B]

double post.

 

[Paul B]

double post

 

[Areseebee]

No I mean physically, what is the mechanism by which you believe a fishes immune system "is gone" in a week from a broad spectrum antibiotic. Shorter answers will help us unravel this faster, honestly, without getting distracted. I'm not asking about fish spawning or Manhattan, I'm asking about evidence for that statement.

 

[Humblefish]

^^ He's got a point, Paul.

 

[ngoodermuth]

My fish were treated with 8+ medications in my QT fiasco. I had so many bugs come in on those fish: ich/velvet or some sort of mutant hybrid (half joking), flukes, intestinal parasites, and a nasty, resilient bacterial infection/fungus type thing that wouldn't quit. The supply chain is teeming with them. I lost only one fish through all of this.

The fish that made it through look awesome. The male wrasses are flashing and changing colors, the sand wrasses are pod assassins, the kole tang has a beautiful purple "sheen" to him, and they happily eat all the variety of tasty foods I dump in the tank (I'm a heavy feeder)

I don't know if these fish will live 15 years but I feel like they would not be in the shape they are now or even alive, had I not acted. Spending more time in the disease forum, I'm seeing so many fish being lost and so many being saved...and more often the ones saved are following sound advice.

 

[Paul B]

No I mean physically, what is the mechanism by which you believe a fishes immune system "is gone" in a week from a broad spectrum antibiotic. Shorter answers will help us unravel this faster, honestly, without getting distracted. I'm not asking about fish spawning or Manhattan, I'm asking about evidence for that statement.

I will try a short answer even though I am very wordy. In a short answer. A fishes immune system comes mostly from it's kidney. Much of it's immunity is in it's slime. That is it's first line of defense. The antibodies in it's slime come mostly from it's kidney. In a fish, food is processed in it's intestine, like ours but the food and parasites and other organisms the fish naturally eats gets filtered through the kidney (unlike us) where it is recognized as an invader and the fish makes antibodies to that organism. Fish eat parasites with almost every meal because parasites are very prevalent in the sea in the food it eats. It has also recently been demonstrated that when a fish eats or gets infected by an organism it makes antibodies to that "and" similar organisms which is different from our immune system which only recognizes that one particular organism.
A fishes natural immunity lasts a limited amount of time differing in different species. Fish fry get immunity from their parents that last until the baby fish eat normal, bacteria and parasite laden meals which it was designed to eat.

OK so far. I am trying to be short.

When we give a fish antibiotics, there is no more living bacteria in the fishes guts. The fishes immune system depend on daily input of living bacteria to remain immune. The antibiotics in a quarantine or hospital tank make that water and the fishes gut sterile. Then if we feed the fish commercially available food or dry foods, those foods are sterile, especially the frozen foods that say "Irradiated to kill harmful pathogens".
Now we put that fish, with the sterile guts (due to the antibiotics), into a tank full of quarantined fish where there is no diseases or parasites.
Like the article I linked. Those tanks are free of harmful bacteria and parasites. If you quarantined for 72 days, even if you didn't add medications, all the parasites will be eliminated. Now if a parasite accidently gets in on say a clam, coral or rock, those fish have no immunity against that particular pathogen and "never" will because they are never exposed to them.

OK, I wrote that entire thing without saying a word about my own experience or tank.
Now I will mention my tank only because it annoys Humble.

I certainly don't have the nicest tank on here and never will say I do. But because I feed normal fresh or live foods with " living bacteria" and add live bacteria in the form of mud a few times a year. My fish are constantly exposed to disease organisms and parasites. (like in the sea) The more parasites and disease organisms I add, the stronger the immune system becomes. But I must add living bacteria in the form of live or fresh foods almost daily because those foods are needed to keep up the immunity. I can't prove it unless some of you want to come and live with me and keep throwing sick fish into my tank, but I will charge you rent and you will have to help my wife clean the house.
Now, unless I am lying, my fish are and have almost always been immune.

My method is simple
Buy fish that look healthy. Contrary to popular opinion I don't purposely look for sick fish unless I get them for free and want to experiment.
Acclimate them and put them in a natural tank that has been fed every day with food that has living bacteria in it. I use live blackworms and I buy live clams that I freeze. Your home freezer is not cold enough to completely kill bacteria. If it did, when food defrosted it would not spoil because it would be sterile.
I also use LRS food because it is to expensive to feed only live worms and clams.
Almost without exception fish that I add to my tank are eating the next day and completely un-stressed.

"You can not, and should not use my method with a tank full of quarantined fish" or they will all die, guaranteed because of their lack of an immune system.
A tank needs to be set up with this method to be successful.

If anyone has another method that will keep your fish free from disease no matter what you add and keep spawning and dying of old age, I am all ears and would like to know about that as I love learning.
I still made this into a long post so just read the beginning.

 

[Paul B]

Fish eating live worms. This was a few years ago when my copperband was much younger. If you have ever dove with copperbands you will see that most of their diet is live worms that they pull from holes in the rocks. That is what they were designed to eat and what they should eat. Food with live bacteria in it. I didn't make that up, the copperbands did.
Now he is almost to big to eat blackworms although he still loves them. I have to give him clams every day as he is my biggest eater and can go through a lot of clams a day.
Every fish in this video, except the copperband are spawning.

 

[Paul B]

^^ He's got a point, Paul.

So do I.

 

[nanomania]

This thread from reefkeeping.com on velvet, the first option is natural immunity. But it needs to be done if ur good friends with a marine biologist (fish doctor) and a lab. I don't think we can do that at home.

It's worth a Read though

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-07/sp/feature/index.php

 

[Paul B]

This is an excerpt from your link
Quote
"After fourteen days a significant number of fish in the experiment showed an immune response, and after twenty-eight days all but one fish in the study were completely free of trophonts. What I found the most interesting was the mode of defense. Immune fish remained susceptible to dinosporic attachment, but for reasons that are unclear, the trophonts never grew, and dropped off their hosts prematurely. It was theorized that the fishes' immune response incorporated an "antitrophont mechanism" by which a host fish that had acquired immunity could "reject trophonts or at least severely ****** trophont development." The authors then proposed, as a mode of protection for aquaculture facilities, intentionally adding immune fish to ****** the infection of previously unexposed fish. Since both would be susceptible to attachment, the immune fish could be used as a sort of decoy, to decrease the total dinospore count in the environment. This would hopefully subject the non-immune fish to a non-lethal challenge of dinospores, and give those fish more time to develop resistance to the parasite."

Nice article by Stephen. It is what I have been saying. I knew about that study.
Stephen goes on to say the fish in that study were them exposed to a different parasite and most of the fish died. That is the problem with scientific studies. They only exposed the fish to that one particular organism and all of the fish but one became immune to it. That only happens in a laboratory. In real life fish are exposed to every pathogen almost every day and as in the study, they become immune to it which is what occurs in the sea, and probably in a tank like mine.
He even states in the paragraph before the one I linked that fish are found with those and other parasites all through their digestive tract. They get there from their food.
I "think" in a natural tank, and the sea, parasites and other pathogens are happily trying to infect fish and in the process they get a small meal of slime. Then the antiparasitic substances in the immune fish force the parasite off and the parasite goes on to try to infect something else. But by doing that, the parasite forces the fish to keep their immunity in place.

Thank you for the article.
Much, but not all of that study was done by Burgess over 20 years ago. I disagreed with much that he said then, and I still do today. But that is only my opinion.

Stephen states it only took 28 days for the fish to become immune and after they were immune parasites just fell off.
He used fish in his study that already had no parasites on them.
The fish we buy are already full of parasites and already immune because they always had access to parasites. All we have to do is feed that fish properly and keep introducing food with living organisms to keep up that immunity.

To be fair he also states.
Quote
"If quarantine tanks were a standard in this hobby, we would not have nearly as many livestock losses, and subsequently people giving up aquarium keeping every year."

Of course that is his opinion. I use a different method.

 

[nanomania]

The copper band has been shifted to new qt from the bucket as the last qt cracked. As it was in the bucket, I didn't see what's going on, had only added prazipro. Now in the new qt with some live rocks (that will never go into dt) it's still thin but looks healthy, had called for masstick, but it's not yet arrived. What you guys think??



@Humblefish @ngoodermuth @aykwm

 

[ngoodermuth]

I think he looks pretty good. He's grazing on that rock, so that's probably a good place to try sticking the masstick. Is he eating the blood worms?

 

[nanomania]

I think he looks pretty good. He's grazing on that rock, so that's probably a good place to try sticking the masstick. Is he eating the blood worms?

Nope, he doesn't. Tomorrow mostly masstick is coming. I don't stick it on glass?
He did eat apitasia though. My tank has a few