Good Day all,
I have a question for @Paul B, let me start by saying I live in Miami Florida, have been in or around this hobby for the majority of my life, I have taken the QT approach many times and do see a difference in health of the fish from my non quarantined FOWLR tank that I harvest myself from the ocean and my mixed reef tanks, I DO NOT QUARANTINE ANYTHING IN MY WILD CAUGHT FOWLR but most other things get quarantined. even with quarantine I have gotten outbreaks of ich in my tanks every so often. there is no question that my non quarantined fish in FOWLR are much healthier, happier, more colorful, and much hardier with certain fish pairing up and spawning, I go out every couple of weeks and load the FOWLR tank up with live silver sides and sargassum shrimp and crabs so that the fish have somewhat of a natural diet, I Have an out door baitwell where I keep the silver sides but the sargassum shrimp are so small that the silversides will likely eat them as well,
My question for you Paul is, if I were to run an "Immune" tank system and instead of feeding blood worms and white worms for their gut bacteria I feed small wild caught sargassum shrimp which are about the size of adult brine would the gut bacteria in these shrimp have a similar affect to the black worms and white worm? the reason i Rather do live shrimp over worms is because it it much easier, I live 5 minutes from the ocean and can harvest them weekly if I needed to or I can catch a bunch and keep them in a floating mesh basket in the tank and feed as the fish need. I also feed Frozen Krill and a frozen sponge/calm mix.
I am tired of letting my tank run fallow for x amount of days every time there is an outbreak and am tired of having an extra 55 gallon system just as a QT when I can utilize it to keep more wild caught fish. I Currently have five display tanks running and one QT and rather turn that QT into display tank #6.
Any advice would be appreciated.
I have a question for @Paul B, let me start by saying I live in Miami Florida, have been in or around this hobby for the majority of my life, I have taken the QT approach many times and do see a difference in health of the fish from my non quarantined FOWLR tank that I harvest myself from the ocean and my mixed reef tanks, I DO NOT QUARANTINE ANYTHING IN MY WILD CAUGHT FOWLR but most other things get quarantined. even with quarantine I have gotten outbreaks of ich in my tanks every so often. there is no question that my non quarantined fish in FOWLR are much healthier, happier, more colorful, and much hardier with certain fish pairing up and spawning, I go out every couple of weeks and load the FOWLR tank up with live silver sides and sargassum shrimp and crabs so that the fish have somewhat of a natural diet, I Have an out door baitwell where I keep the silver sides but the sargassum shrimp are so small that the silversides will likely eat them as well,
My question for you Paul is, if I were to run an "Immune" tank system and instead of feeding blood worms and white worms for their gut bacteria I feed small wild caught sargassum shrimp which are about the size of adult brine would the gut bacteria in these shrimp have a similar affect to the black worms and white worm? the reason i Rather do live shrimp over worms is because it it much easier, I live 5 minutes from the ocean and can harvest them weekly if I needed to or I can catch a bunch and keep them in a floating mesh basket in the tank and feed as the fish need. I also feed Frozen Krill and a frozen sponge/calm mix.
I am tired of letting my tank run fallow for x amount of days every time there is an outbreak and am tired of having an extra 55 gallon system just as a QT when I can utilize it to keep more wild caught fish. I Currently have five display tanks running and one QT and rather turn that QT into display tank #6.
Any advice would be appreciated.