Diatom filter for treating external parasites?

[Paul B]

What do you disagree with me on? I agree with your entire post and do not advocate dry foods, just the opposite.
Quote:
All dry fish food contains fish meal with all nutrients removed for sale to humans and farm animals, or the waste and dead fish from fish farming and terrestrial plants which marine fish have never eaten in the wild. This can be done because of the lack of regulations in the pet food industry.

 

[laga77]

Just how you feel the main benefit comes from the bacteria in the worms gut. Since it is a fresh water worm I do not think the bacteria will survive in a marine environment. It could be that since both white and black worms are relatively high in fat, and with the fact that marine fish get their energy from the fat in their food, just like humans get theirs from carbohydrates, the worms supply a great deal of energy for the fishes immune system.

 

[Paul B]

I just wrote this on this subject and yes I believe the bacteria will survive in the fishes gut. A fishes gut has a certain pH just as ours does and it is not the same as seawater.



I don't know if you noticed but there are an awefully lot of people posting on disease forums. Why is that? Fish in the sea are almost always healthy until someone puts them in a tank. I have been diving since the early 70s and don't remember ever seeing a sick fish on a reef. How many fish refuse to eat while in a tank? Way to many. How many fish live long enough to die of old age in a tank? Very very few. Why is that? I think I know.

The only thing I think I do that may be different from many people in regard to fish health is to feed food every day that has living bacteria in it. Why is that important? It is important because it is the gut bacteria in the fish, and all living creatures that determine the state of health the fish is going to be. Not the water parameters but the gut bacteria. Gut bacteria in fish is directly responsible for the condition of the immune system and the immune system is directly responsible for the fishes health. In humans it is also partly responsible for mental health, moods and the risk of obesity and cancer. It also helps manufacture vitamins such as vitamin B and K. We don't normally think of gut bacteria until we kill it off by either drinking to much alcohol or taking antibiotics. That hangover is partly due to the of dying of bacteria. Antibiotics have the unfortunate habbit of only killing some strains of bacteria while leaving others unscathed. After taking some antibiotics it could take up to a year for our bacterial flora to return to normal levels. I am not sure how quickly it occurs in fish. The study of gut bacteria in humans and to a lesser extent fish has recently brought about some interesting insights. Experiments are being done by transfering gut bacteria from healthy people to people with all sorts of maladys and in many cases the bacteria returns the ill person to health. They found that if they take stomach flora from an obese rat and put it in a normal rat, the normal mouse becomes obese. That in itself is, to me anyway, totally astonishing and opens up an entire new world of research. This even happened to a person. In trying to cure a disease, they took gut bacteria from a healthy person and deposited it into the stomach of a sick person. But the doner was obese. Guess what happened? Not only was the sick person cured, but he became obese also.

Gut bacteria is probably 2/3rds of the mass in the colon of us humans and probably also in fish. They compromise over 1,000 species of bacteria and the population of bacteria is unique and different in every fish. Gut bacteria is largly determined by what the fish is eating including what types of bacteria and in what condition it is in. We (and fish) have ten times more bacterial genes in us than human genes.

We humans aquire gut bacteria from our Mothers as soon as we are born through breast feeding. It is now known that babies that are fed on formula do not have the correct gut bacteria and are at much more of a risk for allergies later in life. Fish fry get their first dose of gut bacteria from the Mother while they are still in the egg and that is how tiny fry can live in a soup of diseases and parasites as they grow.

One reason why so many people have so much trouble keeping fish healthy is because they feed nothing but dry, sterile foods. Dry foods have all been sterilized through the process of drying or they have preservatives added. If dry food had bacteria in it, it would go bad very quickly and most bacteria (like everything else) needs moisture to live. If you feed nothing but dry foods I believe you should add some frozen or fresh food to the diet.

Why can I put fish in my tank from anywhere without quarantining with no fear of a disease while some tanks are ich magnets and no matter what they do, they can't keep fish alive. I think it is due to the correct gut bacteria that my fish get every day through live worms, or frozen foods such as clams which are filter feeders and are loaded with bacteria. Or as many people like to say, I am "lucky" and have been for 40 years. If you are the type of person that quarantines, I believe you should be feeding types of foods that have living bacteria in them. Frozen foods have bacteria in them in a dormant state that should revive as the food warms up. Live foods such as worms, brine shrimp, mosqueto larvae etc are also full of bacteria although some live foods would be better than others nutritionally. Remember we should not only focus on the nutritional value of a food, but maybe even more important, the bacterial population as that is the key to fishes health and more importantly, our own.

For the many people that don't believe in any of this, think it is fantasy or that I made it up because I have nothing to do, just google Gut Bacteria and how it effects health.

 

[justingraham]

@Humblefish did you ever try this experiment?

 

[Paul B]

I just got this today from the MS Society, (my wife has MS) it goes along with what we have been discussing:

Quote:
Gut Bacteria Differ in People with MS and May Respond to Disease-Modifying Therapies, Say Researchers Co-Funded by the National MS Society

June 28, 2016

Summary Harvard researchers found significant differences between the gut bacteria of people with MS and without MS, and also between treated and untreated people with MS.
The differences included increases in bacteria associated with inflammation in people with MS, and suggestions that treatment may help “normalize” some of the MS-related changes seen in gut bacteria.
This study adds to growing evidence of the possible influence of gut bacteria on immune activity. Further study is needed to determine whether alterations in the gut microbiome play a role in MS disease activity, or are a consequence of it.
The National MS Society is funding The MS Microbiome Consortium, a comprehensive analysis of gut bacteria in people with MS to determine factors that may drive progression and to develop probiotic strategies for stopping progression.
This study was funded by the National MS Society, the National Institutes of Health and the Harvard Digestive Disease Center.

Background: MS involves immune-system attacks against the brain and spinal cord. The gut, including the small and large intestine, is the largest immune organ in mammals, including people. Each of us has millions of “commensal” bacteria living within our guts. Most of these bacteria are harmless as long as they remain in the inner wall of the intestine. They play a critical role in our normal physiology, and accumulating research suggests that they are critical in the establishment and maintenance of immune balance by the molecules they release.

The Study: Investigators used advanced genetic tools to look at gut bacteria (“microbiome”) in fecal samples from 60 people with MS and 43 people without MS. In the group with MS, 32 were “treated,” that is, had received interferon or glatiramer acetate for at least six months; 28 were “untreated,” meaning they had never had MS treatment, no steroids (for one month), no interferon or glatiramer acetate (for three months), and no other treatments (for six months).

The results show differences in gut bacteria between people with MS and people without MS, including increases in bacteria associated with inflammation in people with MS. These differences correlated with differences in the activity of genes related to the key pathways related to immune activity in MS. Also, there were differences in certain types of gut bacteria between treated and untreated people with MS, suggesting that treatment may help normalize some of the MS-related changes seen in gut bacteria.


Next Steps: This study adds to growing evidence of the possible influence of gut bacteria on immune activity. Further study is needed to determine whether alterations in the gut microbiome play a role in MS disease activity, or are a consequence of it. The authors note the possibility that treatment strategies of MS in the future may include some designed to affect the microbiome, such as probiotics. The National MS Society continues to fund research in this area, most recently The MS Microbiome Consortium, a comprehensive analysis of gut bacteria in people with MS to determine factors that may drive progression and develop probiotic strategies for stopping progression.

 

[fab]

The only way to know for sure is to introduce a fish that Is highly susceptible and see what transpires.

Hmmm...this sparked an idea in me mind for testing System water, a canary in a coal mine.

Set up a small tank in series with the drain side of your system's AWC. Call this tank a coal mine tank. It will always be filled with a current sample of your system water, but your system will not be exposed to whatever goes on in the coal mine.

Then introduce the canaries into the coal mine. Keep a fish, or a few fish, that are highly ich-prone, velvet-prone, brook-prone in the coal mine tank. This could provide early indications and warnings of impending problems in your main system. Or this tank could be used for conducting experiments on your system water with no flow back into your system.

The canaries would have to be thoroughly quarantined and vetted before qualifying as card carrying canaries. Otherwise, an independently infested fish would set off false alarms, defeating its whole purpose.

Such a coal mine tank could be kept as a small display tank on its own merit. It could even be a species tank.
fab

 

[Humblefish]

@Humblefish did you ever try this experiment?

Unfortunately no. The space I need to conduct the experiment is being taken up by a 150 gal (which I currently have up for sale.)

 

[fab]

See any ich in there? Look closer!!!!! :rolleyes:

I tried but all I can see is pixels in my microscope! NO ICH! Just pixels.

 

[Humblefish]

So I talked to a sales rep from Vortex, and there are two problems:

1. The impeller used on their DE filters contains a brass insert. This would be fine for a QT or fish only, but obviously would be a no-go on a reef. :(
2. They recommend running their DE filter for only 6-8 hrs at a time to prevent the motor from overheating. This means you'd need to have TWO diatom filters hooked up and set to timers to provide continuous siphoning of the free swimmers.

The diatom filter powder itself only last 2 weeks, and after that it needs to be changed out or recharged.

 

[cono]

So how are people running them on reef setups?
Also I thought they weren't making them anymore

 

[Paul B]

I have been running a diatom filter on my tanks a few times a year since probably the 60s. I still use it on my reef. My tank is set up so that it requires a diatom filter a couple of times a year. I also use it sometimes for NSW if it looks to be cloudy or have a bunch of stuff in it that I may not want in my tank. There is a tiny brass threaded screw behind the impeller but with the impeller screwed against it I doubt any of it is in contact with the water. It has never bothered my tank and sometimes I run two of them together.
The powder is cheap but sometimes hard to get. It gives you cancer if you live in California but if you live in Brooklyn, Bayone New Jersey or France, you will be fine.

 

[Humblefish]

Also I thought they weren't making them anymore

You can buy right off their website: http://www.diatomfilter.com/products.htm

 

[Paul B]

You can also get it in a swimming pool store for practically free. But the pool may be expensive

 

[cono]

Lol

 

[cono]

What pool store

 

[omykiss001]

You can buy right off their website: http://www.diatomfilter.com/products.htm

They still make em' I bought one when managing an ich outbreak back in Feburary to see how it works. The motors are garbage I hate to say. Mine didn't last more than a few days even though it says can be run continuously. I think this are a good idea and I had the main filter parts, but was not going to buy that replacement motor. Bear Valley Aquatics makes a retrofit using a magdrive style pump on top that at least in theory will be a much more dependable pump.

If you go this route I'd buy the jar, stand, powder, and bag from vortex, then get the lid/motor from bear valley. This might be a good working filter if done this way. Also does not have a shaft through a seal that is notorious for leaking in these filters.

Anyway just thought I'd pass on my experience with the company these days, they used to be much better motors back in the early 90's when I used them a lot. We pretty much ran em' 24/7 and the motor would more than a year, but even that is pretty poor come to think of it, lol. We just didn't have a better option.

 

[Humblefish]

@omykiss001 Thanks for that. I'm wondering if I should even bother to experiment with this. The plan was to setup a 30 gal QT with the "XL" Filter. Take a fish with velvet, give him a FW dip + acriflavine bath like I usually do, and then drop him in this tank with no meds. The thought process is to use the DE filter to siphon out the free swimming dinospores in lieu of using copper or CP to eradicate them.

 

[Paul B]

Don't et the XL filter. The small one is better and has a much larger impeller. I don't know why. All their pumps are garbage. I have a bunch of them for parts as they rust badly.
The one on the left is the XL

 

[Humblefish]

Looks like the Bear Valley Aquatics retrofit pumps are the way to go.

For Model D1: http://www.bearvalleyaquatics.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=4_5_7&products_id=185

For Model XL: http://www.bearvalleyaquatics.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=169

 

[reefwiser]

Nice find Bobby.:)