Ich in the aquarium. So what?

[Rip Van Winkle]

I have seen several collection methods, I am friends with some collectors, and I have been in communication with others who have gone out with collectors.

Well Brother, I'll tell you. I haven't "been in communication with others who have gone out with collectors". That's easy to say but doesn't mean that much to me, because that's the situation right now. You're in communication with someone who has. So what does that mean for you?
I don't visit here "once in awhile", I live here. These guys are friends, that I go out fishing with them because they willing take me out pretty much any time. Sometimes every week. They're on my FB. I communicate with them regularly. I can tell you exactly who they are, where they collect, what they collect, where they bring it and how they do it, etc,....
For collection methods, you know.... I really want to see one group spending a lot of time and effort net collecting, when another group - who sells to the same wholesalers - collects with cyanide. Heh,... Like really, I want to see that happen. No way, ever. These guys make next to nothing to go out and get fish. You think they'll take a pay cut because they care about the industry?? An industry that doesn't care about them?
Please be sensible.
I'm not trying to make it seem like I know every single fisherman/collector in the coral triangle. Maybe there are some who collect without cyanide. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt about it because I know I do.
I'm on the front lines here, going out with these guys, watching the needless waste and death of reef fish. I need to be not only silent but also cool with that because, if there's ever going to be any change in how they do things, it will have to be to their advantage. Me telling them, "... hey there's a better way,.... blah blah,..." will absolutely not work. As they say, money talks. I told you they don't care about fish the way us reefers on the forum do. I need to be very very sly and cunning, along with a lot of resources, if I'm ever going to bring about a positive change, believe me.

Some of this info is accurate, some is still going on, and soe is outdated.

Cyanide is still being used, but more and more collectors are moving away from it.

From collectors I have seen,...............

I think for you to come in like a boss and say to everyone on here that what I said is outdated and untrue (ie: "accurate"), right after I just said it, is not only inappropriate but downright rude. I'm a regular person and a humble person and fine with being that way, with nothing to prove. I just want to be friends and get along with everyone. So don't try to pin things on me or make it seem like you're the authority and automatically know more. Cause in this situation you're clearly not and you don't. I wouldn't do that to you or anybody else because I respect myself. Doesn't mean that I can't speak up when something needs to be said, though.

You may feel like you need to tell yourself that collectors are moving away from cyanide if you need to but doesn't make it real. I wish it would stop also but trying to convince people who are not involved (like people on a forum from another country) in what's actually going on, in an effort to try to make yourself feel better, is not the way.

It just is what it is, right now. That's the communication from someone who has.

 

[Paul B]

I'm going to try that with my wife

Did your wife enjoy the worms?

 

[Bug235]

I have had my 150 reef tank going successfully now for close to three years and I do not quarantine my fish ( 15 5 wrasses, 2 clowns, larger blonde Naso, red hawk, 2 anthias, 2 dart fish, cleaner goby and diamond back goby) when I purchase them because I just can’t have a secondary tank set up just for that but I have not had any problems probably due to the fact that I purchase small reef fish and mainly Wrasses that appear to be stronger in transportation than some of the other fish you would find in non-reef tanks. I use the stuff called reef keeper when I do go to add a fish which is some type of immune booster type thing. The smart thing is obviously to quarantine but some of us just can’t due to circumstances. I spend a lot of time watching a fish before I buy it and try my best that way, I had a fish only and lost all my awesome fish to velvet. My Naso and red hawk are the only survivors from that tank 3 years ago.

 

[Paul B]

This hobby went from 700k saltwater hobbyist to 2.5 million within 6-7 years, that tells me the turnover is massive,

The turnover rate is massive and I don't know why. But I am fairly sure much of it has to do with algae, hitchhikers and diseases. Financial loss is another major concern, but you would think a person knows what this stuff costs before you get into it.

if you have had a bad case of it/velvet, you will know that 30-50% looses are normal. And total wipe outs are usually due to the first five days going untreated-

This is horrible. 30-50% loss!
To me any loss is unacceptable, especially that high.
I feel a successful tank has no losses except for jumping out, or dying of old age. Anything else is a failure. If I died at age two, I would be very mad at my Mother.
If you lived in a town where if someone got the measles and 30-50% of the people died, You may not want to live there.
The vast majority of tanks on here and other forums are less than 5 years old in a hobby that is almost 50 years old. That is also like a town that gets burned down every five years. OMG whats going on here?
Most of our fish live between 10 and 20 years and corals are immortal. Why do so many people drop out or have so many problems. This stuff is not that hard so my only answer is that we are the cause of the failures, not the fish or the collector or the store.

I also don't think you can call any tank successful if it is not up for at least the lifespan of some of the inhabitants. How do you know if it successful if the animals did not reach old age. Even hermit crabs live longer than 10 years.

Just my opinion of course

 

[Yuki Rihwa]

@Paul B Can I call my tank a success if I have 5 years old fire shrimp? else where listing them 2~3 years lifespan hehehe.

 

[Paul B]

Well I guess it is successful enough to keep a fireshrimp for it's " assumed lifespan". I am not sure. That may be the oldest fire shrimp in history, or maybe they can live longer than Betty White who is about 150.

I don't know where they get these lifespans from but I think it is a scientist someplace who kept one that long so he comes up with that lifespan. Or more likely thats how long they lived in a public aquarium. I think thats longer than I ever kept one. But in the 70s I kept these Banded Coral Shrimp for about (I think) 7 years. I am not sure if that is good or bad either.
My Bangai's just died from I am assuming old age. I think they were about 5 but their lifespan is written as 2 or 3.

But I am sure there is more in your tank than that shrimp

I think your tank will be very successful as more of your animals live to their normal lifespan. But it is off to a much better start than probably 90% of the tanks out there. I am assuming of course because I haven't seen 90% of the tanks out there.

Remember, this thread is about ich and shrimp don't get ich. Maybe rickets or migrain headaches, I am not sure

 

[Seame]

ALL This is just sad to hear, but at the same time I think more people in NA should be aware of the collection practices, maybe it would make a difference but how i dont know. I also thought there was less cyanide used these days just because i read it somewhere.

I do quarantine my fish for Ich and somewhat take precautions with coral and anything wet including quarantine, happy fish happy life.

I also wanted to say that I'm at the other end of the hobby here in the Philippines. I see the fish wholesalers here as well as the divers that collect from the ocean.
I will tell you this is a third-world country. 50 Pesos is about a Dollar (USD). The fishermen definitely use cyanide to collect. I will throw a possibility in here (although I can honestly say I really think it's unlikely) that maybe they are getting better at minimizing the dose?
If you don't know anything about it, first of all, they usually go down to collect with an air hose to the surface (which is very dangerous) and are lucky if they have swimming goggles. The fins they use are wooden. (so don't imagine they have any SCUBA instruction or gear. The cyanide is in a small plastic squeezable bottle with a nozzle tip. They spray cyanide at the target fish or invert and it paralyzes it. Too heavy a dose will insta-kill the organism. Heavy doses will paralyze but not insta-kill. The effects will still be fatal but will take time depending on the size and species of fish. That's why sometimes your fish won't eat / will die for no real reason in your tanks. Sometimes the does is just right and will only stun the fish without any lethal after effects. Depends on water currents, size of the fish, species, the strength of the solution in the bottle, experience of the fisherman, etc, etc, .... (in other words, luck)
Keep in mind there is more than just one fisherman collecting for that business and they need to compete with each other to make money for that day, so that they and their family can eat something. Then, there are a lot more than just that one collection business getting fish from the ocean. So businesses are also competing with each other. So, ......no pressure.
Now the fishermen get maybe 1 or 2 Pesos for each fish they can catch (after triage) - and trust me, that's being generous. And honestly from what I see here, that's never going to change. That's the way it is. EVERYONE catches with cyanide because it's not realistic to catch with a net compared to the number of fish they can get using cyanide and they need to eat, period. Here, Indonesia, etc,... I'm pretty sure it's the same everywhere, just to be able to compete.
Another thing, please please don't even imagine that they care about lives of ornamental fish. They absolutely don't care about the health of the fish at all. It's a commodity for them, nothing more. They are not raised like people in the west and their priorities are very different.
Aside from that, once the fish are taken out of the ocean, don't imagine a nice facility. It's plastic bags. [When I first saw this, I absolutely couldn't believe it] Maybe hundreds of bagged fish all over the floor.
The wholesalers/exporters get the fish from the collection businesses, maybe the next day. Wholesaler facilities vary greatly in quality from one wholesaler to the next. This post is already long so to be brief, I'll say that the wholesalers are experts at triaging the fish that are fatally dosed or not. The fatally dosed are rejected and go to local fish shops and the quality fish get exported. The norm is keeping the fish that come in from the collection businesses in the original plastic bag they were put in, for about a week, meaning 5 to 7 days.

So I respectfully disagree with the idea presented earlier in the thread that more and more fish are being collected ethically. No way.

In those local fish stores here, (again to be brief) thousands and thousands of really beautiful reef fish die. That's per week. For example a (large) moorish idol is about a dollar and very common here. Powder blue tang, 1 Peso, very common, etc,....

Just to give you a realistic idea of where your fish are coming from. [Honestly, it's actually a wonder anything survives][/QUOTE]

 

[Paul B]

Sesame, I have also seen this all over the Caribbean, not for export to the States, but for food.
I saw a fisherman bringing in a net full of tropicals including look downs, moray eels and numerous tangs along with all sorts of unknown things. These were all dumped on to the sand to die in the sun where they were sold for fifty cents a pound. People need to eat and thats the way it is. I am sure we would all do the same thing if that is what we had to do to feed our families.
The nets they were using were just large metal traps that they baited and left on the reef. Whatever swam in, was taken and whatever didn't sell was just dumped back in the sea.

 

[Seame]

PaulB I know this is off topic but I watched a show on the smithsonion channel about An Ocean Mystery:The missing catch and it highlighted how much over fishing is taking place and that even though there are better ships and ways of harvesting fish the annual take is less because there is just less fish available in the oceans today.

I am worried about the future and what our kids, kids life will be like.

Sesame, I have also seen this all over the Caribbean, not for export to the States, but for food.
I saw a fisherman bringing in a net full of tropicals including look downs, moray eels and numerous tangs along with all sorts of unknown things. These were all dumped on to the sand to die in the sun where they were sold for fifty cents a pound. People need to eat and thats the way it is. I am sure we would all do the same thing if that is what we had to do to feed our families.
The nets they were using were just large metal traps that they baited and left on the reef. Whatever swam in, was taken and whatever didn't sell was just dumped back in the sea.

 

[Mark Gray]

I know I have ich in my tank but fish are fine. I do QT but I also believe fish can become immune to many things, Ich for sure

 

[Rip Van Winkle]

...I also wanted to say that I'm at the other end of the hobby here in the Philippines. I see the fish wholesalers here as well as the divers that collect from the ocean.
I will tell you this is a third-world country. 50 Pesos is about a Dollar (USD). The fishermen definitely use cyanide to collect. I will throw a possibility in here (although I can honestly say I really think it's unlikely) that maybe they are getting better at minimizing the dose?
If you don't know anything about it, first of all, they usually go down to collect with an air hose to the surface (which is very dangerous) and are lucky if they have swimming goggles. The fins they use are wooden. (so don't imagine they have any SCUBA instruction or gear. The cyanide is in a small plastic squeezable bottle with a nozzle tip. They spray cyanide at the target fish or invert and it paralyzes it. Too heavy a dose will insta-kill the organism. Heavy doses will paralyze but not insta-kill. The effects will still be fatal but will take time depending on the size and species of fish. That's why sometimes your fish won't eat / will die for no real reason in your tanks. Sometimes the does is just right and will only stun the fish without any lethal after effects. Depends on water currents, size of the fish, species, the strength of the solution in the bottle, experience of the fisherman, etc, etc, .... (in other words, luck)
Keep in mind there is more than just one fisherman collecting for that business and they need to compete with each other to make money for that day, so that they and their family can eat something. Then, there are a lot more than just that one collection business getting fish from the ocean. So businesses are also competing with each other. So, ......no pressure.
Now the fishermen get maybe 1 or 2 Pesos for each fish they can catch (after triage) - and trust me, that's being generous. And honestly from what I see here, that's never going to change. That's the way it is. EVERYONE catches with cyanide because it's not realistic to catch with a net compared to the number of fish they can get using cyanide and they need to eat, period. Here, Indonesia, etc,... I'm pretty sure it's the same everywhere, just to be able to compete.
Another thing, please please don't even imagine that they care about lives of ornamental fish. They absolutely don't care about the health of the fish at all. It's a commodity for them, nothing more. They are not raised like people in the west and their priorities are very different.
Aside from that, once the fish are taken out of the ocean, don't imagine a nice facility. It's plastic bags. [When I first saw this, I absolutely couldn't believe it] Maybe hundreds of bagged fish all over the floor.
The wholesalers/exporters get the fish from the collection businesses, maybe the next day. Wholesaler facilities vary greatly in quality from one wholesaler to the next. This post is already long so to be brief, I'll say that the wholesalers are experts at triaging the fish that are fatally dosed or not. The fatally dosed are rejected and go to local fish shops and the quality fish get exported. The norm is keeping the fish that come in from the collection businesses in the original plastic bag they were put in, for about a week, meaning 5 to 7 days.

So I respectfully disagree with the idea presented earlier in the thread that more and more fish are being collected ethically. No way.

In those local fish stores here, (again to be brief) thousands and thousands of really beautiful reef fish die. That's per week. For example a (large) moorish idol is about a dollar and very common here. Powder blue tang, 1 Peso, very common, etc,....

Just to give you a realistic idea of where your fish are coming from. [Honestly, it's actually a wonder anything survives]

[/QUOTE]


Hunh?? Liked my post from page 3 so much that you took it for your own? ;Wacky