Ich had ruined this hobby.

[alain Bouchard]

one option would be to go FOWLR, and treat the DT

 

[Teemingtank]

I am not sure about that as my fish have never had Crypto and some of them are almost 30 years old.
My fish have also had plenty of stress in the last four decades of disease free living with the power going out many times sometimes for days. I just don't understand it.

It could be a misquote, I’ll try to find the literature again! I had one bad go with it and it was only my tangs. Someone told me to fallow my tank for a year... like that’s gonna happen lol

 

[Beefyreefy]

I think what happens in such tanks is that parasites are always in there at a low level (as they are in the sea) and they keep trying to infect the fish causing the fishes immune system to stop it and keep up the fishes immunity.

In those tanks, fish will never become sick no matter what we add which in my case, Is totally what I want.
I want diseases to be a non issue and never want to think about them which is what I have achieved.

I would like to thank you PaulB, for you have given me the courage to run a tank similar to yours. I agree that fish do have an natural immunity to these diseases and the goal is to keep this immunity going. I work in medicine and we've now discovered that one of the worst things you can do is use antibiotics unnecessarily or destroy the natural good bacteria and microbiome contained within the human body. I think its reasonable to assume that its probably not good for fish either. I've never medicated a fish. I don't have a fifty year old tank, mine is 4 year old, but its a pretty good run and the only fish I've lost is a couple jumpers and one strange incident of failure to thrive without outward disease signs. . I think diet is probably the most important thing for keeping fish healthy and I feed black worms, clams, various frozen food, selcon soaked pellets and all the nori my fish want. I never did any quarantine at all until recently but now I started one with live rock and water from my display tank. I now put the fish in my QT tank as described and get them eating before they go in the DT, no medications. I'm almost certain there is ICH in my tanks because from time to time a few white spots show up on new arrivals to the QT or DT, but within a few days they are all gone. I always hear that you cant have tangs in an ICH management tank, which in my case is far from the truth. I have 3 tangs, a yellow, a powder brown, and a blue eyed tang. Not once did any of the tangs suffer any significant infections. Anyhow, I'm not saying this is for everyone but it works for me. Everyone says I'm playing with fire but, I don't know. If something ends up wiping out my tank, I'll make a post about it, we have a forum for that, LOL!

 

[Paul B]

Finally the voice of reason, and from someone in medicine.
I just don't get it and I feel this is a very easy hobby but the enormous amount of information, much of it wrong is what is causing all these problems.
WE are making our fish sick, no one else and the fish are not in worse shape now than in the past. It's our obsession of using drugs instead of common sense which allows the fishes immunity with associated gut bacteria to do it's job.

Like you said, ich is in your system as you occasionally see a spot or two. Fish in the sea also get a spot or two. That is what you are supposed to see because it is normal and natural and not a sign to disrupt the entire tank so you can catch anything to drug and medicate them as that rarely turns out well.

That is how fish get and stay immune. But don't mention it much or you will hear all about the Russian Roulette thing that I have been hearing for almost fifty years.

 

[lolmatt]

Two different schools of thought for sure. For me, I've resigned to have fish that are "relatively" disease free (maybe they have ich). I've seen you assert two things in the past: your fish in my tank would wipe the tank, and my fish in your tank would be toast very quickly. Definitely has merit and definite applies to my fish, imo.

I think there is some huge incentive for vendors to push QT fish, then they get to sell their meds. I think the barrier to entry into an immune tank like yours @Paul B is also fairly high, partly due to the lack of information out there on the subject, though not for your lack of trying to spread it which I sincerely respect. Someone just starting out might read all about importance of QT, and once you go down that route you can't really turn around. I have a nano tank too, and while it only has a few small fish I planned from the start not to treat any of them. I've yet to lose a fish to disease in that tank in 2+ years.

I've therefore taken a middle ground. I do take a few notes from the paulb playbook - I feed my fish quality foods like live black worms (my lfs sells portions for a dollar and I get about 5/week), half shell clams (sometimes from the grocery store seafood section), lrs, nori, etc. some combination of the above every day, in addition to daily pellets on an auto feeder. I like to hope that this keeps up their immune system. I also run UV 24/7. I do also QT, but I don't always medicate. If the fish is healthy and eating I will usually only treat symptoms that pop up, particularly for wrasses (though I do often treat with prazi and metro, it's easy and every wrasse I've lost has had internal worms or gill flukes).

Thus far I've had relatively good success, particularly after a year or two of experience knowing what actually defines a healthy fish. I chose to keep many wrasses and learned their healthy patterns well. I also make a point to buy fish from a store that I trust that has a great reputation. My recent addition (blue spot jawfish) was treated with prophylaxis for blue spot jawfish disease, and with CP due to where I acquired him (different LFS that has systems ridden with disease and low level copper).

Overall, I can say after my initial freak out and stress induced post, I am no longer concerned about ich. Perhaps I will not ever keep a very ich prone fish (like a powder blue tang, which I don't care for anyways), but as far as fish go I'm quite satisfied and I don't feel afraid of disease anymore.

 

[Paul B]

Matt, it sounds like you have a decent plan. The live worms and clams will take your fish a long way to good health.
I don't think your UV sterilizer will kill to many parasites which is a good thing because if you killed them all, you couldn't keep an immune tank.

I also have nothing against quarantine, as long as you can do it in the same size tank and decorated with as many hiding places as your main tank. It is the small, bare, medicated tanks that are causing all these disease problems, not the other way around.

 

[lolmatt]

Matt, it sounds like you have a decent plan. The live worms and clams will take your fish a long way to good health.
I don't think your UV sterilizer will kill to many parasites which is a good thing because if you killed them all, you couldn't keep an immune tank.

I also have nothing against quarantine, as long as you can do it in the same size tank and decorated with as many hiding places as your main tank. It is the small, bare, medicated tanks that are causing all these disease problems, not the other way around.

Same-size tank is quite an aspiration

I use a 10 gallon, with a bunch of real media and rock. Been solid for about 2 years. A hermit crab lives in there full time.

 

[Erick Armanii]

Sometimes i like to buy the sickest looking fish in the store just to prove that his death wasnt inevitable lol

I did that with a purple tang 4 years strong and FAT!!

 

[Marc88]

Two different schools of thought for sure. For me, I've resigned to have fish that are "relatively" disease free (maybe they have ich). I've seen you assert two things in the past: your fish in my tank would wipe the tank, and my fish in your tank would be toast very quickly. Definitely has merit and definite applies to my fish, imo.

I think there is some huge incentive for vendors to push QT fish, then they get to sell their meds. I think the barrier to entry into an immune tank like yours @Paul B is also fairly high, partly due to the lack of information out there on the subject, though not for your lack of trying to spread it which I sincerely respect. Someone just starting out might read all about importance of QT, and once you go down that route you can't really turn around. I have a nano tank too, and while it only has a few small fish I planned from the start not to treat any of them. I've yet to lose a fish to disease in that tank in 2+ years.

I've therefore taken a middle ground. I do take a few notes from the paulb playbook - I feed my fish quality foods like live black worms (my lfs sells portions for a dollar and I get about 5/week), half shell clams (sometimes from the grocery store seafood section), lrs, nori, etc. some combination of the above every day, in addition to daily pellets on an auto feeder. I like to hope that this keeps up their immune system. I also run UV 24/7. I do also QT, but I don't always medicate. If the fish is healthy and eating I will usually only treat symptoms that pop up, particularly for wrasses (though I do often treat with prazi and metro, it's easy and every wrasse I've lost has had internal worms or gill flukes).

Thus far I've had relatively good success, particularly after a year or two of experience knowing what actually defines a healthy fish. I chose to keep many wrasses and learned their healthy patterns well. I also make a point to buy fish from a store that I trust that has a great reputation. My recent addition (blue spot jawfish) was treated with prophylaxis for blue spot jawfish disease, and with CP due to where I acquired him (different LFS that has systems ridden with disease and low level copper).

Overall, I can say after my initial freak out and stress induced post, I am no longer concerned about ich. Perhaps I will not ever keep a very ich prone fish (like a powder blue tang, which I don't care for anyways), but as far as fish go I'm quite satisfied and I don't feel afraid of disease anymore.

Seeing this post gives me hope. I have a 625xxl that I set up with signs of ICH on 3 of my 4 tangs. Because I don't have a tank big enough to QT all the fish I have, I was somewhere between dosing copper in the display then replacing all my rocks.

Knowing ich is not an instant death sentence is helpful. With all the talk it sometimes seems like it is. People certainly freak out like it is. When I hear you road through the outbreak it gives me hope that I don't have to do a complete teardown. I think I'm going to slap on a UV and fee some more variety.
Thank you for your honesty and providing a different perspective. Same to you @Paul B

 

[lolmatt]

Seeing this post gives me hope. I have a 625xxl that I set up with signs of ICH on 3 of my 4 tangs. Because I don't have a tank big enough to QT all the fish I have, I was somewhere between dosing copper in the display then replacing all my rocks.

Knowing ich is not an instant death sentence is helpful. With all the talk it sometimes seems like it is. People certainly freak out like it is. When I hear you road through the outbreak it gives me hope that I don't have to do a complete teardown. I think I'm going to slap on a UV and fee some more variety.
Thank you for your honesty and providing a different perspective. Same to you @Paul B

I use a jebao UV sterilizer. Got it on ebay. Cheap and effective.

 

[itgoeson]

I have some jars of grindal worms going for my freshwater dwarf puffers - any reason not to feed them to my saltwater fish? They are smaller than black worms but do they accomplish the same thing if I feed enough of them? They are much easier to culture.

 

[Beefyreefy]

I have some jars of grindal worms going for my freshwater dwarf puffers - any reason not to feed them to my saltwater fish? They are smaller than black worms but do they accomplish the same thing if I feed enough of them? They are much easier to culture.

They will work and definitely are better than processed food. Black worms in particular have near perfect nutrition for fish I'm told, I'm not sure about grindal worms being on the same par though. I'm no expert though so take that for what its worth.