It's all @Paul B's fault... my journey to an immune reef (hopefully!)

[Gweeds1980]

Right... the pics posted of my heni yesterday need to be framed... here we have the most resilient fish I've ever come across...

So he kicked the velvet... Didn't get hit by ich the first time around and brushed off the brook without a second thought. Following the velvet episode over the past few days, his immune system was shot to bits... so today, bless him, guess what? Nice perfect little salt sized spots appeared this am... no other ich symptoms at all and fed normally etc.

Just checked on him now... no more spots! Now I'm not stupid enough to assume he's kicked ich in 12 hours, but, come on, that's good going to be free of the spots in that time! (And yes @Humblefish, I know those spots aren't the parasite, they're dead skin, but hey, still impressed!) Breathing is normal, just fed like a trooper and been active and normal all day, no flashing, nothing

I'm thinking the plague, smallpox or anthrax would be a breeze for this guy now!

 

[Gweeds1980]

Ha ha, good luck sir!

Keep popping back to this thread for regular updates... im not shy in showing / telling the whole truth, let's see how this plays out... fancy a wager?

 

[Paul B]

See you did all this the Very hard way and there was no need to do it that way, but you could if you like it is just harder on the fish.
We get the fish from the ocean already immune as long as we don't screw it up by quarantining the fish or feeding it dry or all commercially available foods with dead bacteria in them. Even if new fish show spots, they have immunity, it is just suppressed by stress and not eating for a few weeks. But I am sure no one believes this and won't even if Gweeds fish continue to fend off disease, spawn and their babies grow up to win the Nobel Peace prize for medicine. My fish have been immune for decades but it falls on deaf ears and it will continue to as long as we have all these medications that we have to use to keep the medicine people in business.
But as always, I wish everyone to be well and have super healthy fish no matter what you do. Now I have to go and shake chicken bones over my tank and throw in four leaf clovers and rabbits feet for luck.

Good Luck to you and your fish Gweeds. I hope your experiment succeeds.

 

[jasonrusso]

See you did all this the Very hard way and there was no need to do it that way, but you could if you like it is just harder on the fish.
We get the fish from the ocean already immune as long as we don't screw it up by quarantining the fish or feeding it dry or all commercially available foods with dead bacteria in them. Even if new fish show spots, they have immunity, it is just suppressed by stress and not eating for a few weeks. But I am sure no one believes this and won't even if Gweeds fish continue to fend off disease, spawn and their babies grow up to win the Nobel Peace prize for medicine. My fish have been immune for decades but it falls on deaf ears and it will continue to as long as we have all these medications that we have to use to keep the medicine people in business.
But as always, I wish everyone to be well and have super healthy fish no matter what you do. Now I have to go and shake chicken bones over my tank and throw in four leaf clovers and rabbits feet for luck.

Good Luck to you and your fish Gweeds. I hope your experiment succeeds.

I'm not arguing with you, but I am intrigued. Can you explain what you meant by QT makes fish not immune?

 

[Gweeds1980]

I'm not arguing with you, but I am intrigued. Can you explain what you meant by QT makes fish not immune?

IMO... quarantine removes all the parasites and diseases so you don't get them in your DT. That means the fish are not exposed to said pathogens and thus do not need to be immune. The immune system is expensive, in biological terms, so if a fish doesn't require extra mucous, or an antibody or additional DHA in the skin then it stops producing it, thus immunity is lost. By all accounts it takes about 6 months of no exposure to lose the immune response.

My problem is that I decided to go down this route AFTER having carried out 'sterile QT' procedures and thus none of my fish were immune. I got ich and decided to try to turn my tank into an immune one. I felt the best way to do this was to add diseases in a semi controlled manner and run UV to limit parasite numbers. I also had to (in my mind) develop a somewhat backwards QT procedure in order to acclimate new purchases immune system to the pathogens in my DT. My assumption is that all new purchases have no diseases and no immunity.

On a separate note, I figured what the heck and popped my copperband back in tonight

 

[Paul B]

I'm not arguing with you, but I am intrigued. Can you explain what you meant by QT makes fish not immune?

Jason, I can but I wrote that so many times that if I do it again I may get ich. I wrote a thread about it here. https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/a-discussion-on-immunity.209701/

In short, as Gueeds said. We need a thriving population of disease pathogens as well as parasites to keep our fish immune. (Just like in the sea where fish are exposed constantly and the fish they eat at every meal have parasites) If we quarantine or medicate them to remove parasites they will not be exposed to pathogens and in time (different with different types of fish) they lose their immunity that they had all their lives. Fish constantly exposed to pathogens "and" fed the correct foods (which are no dry foods and almost no foods with no live bacteria in them and other foods besides store bought commercially available foods) will always be immune from diseases as all my fish have been for about 40 years no matter what diseased fish I add to my tank. It takes a lot of energy to add immunological chemicals to their slime and if they don't encounter pathogens, they lose the ability to manufacture them. Fish Slime https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/fish-health-through-slime.175736/

There are 2 ways to run a successful tank, quarantining everything and making sure no diseases get in and running a natural, immune tank. I wrote a thread on that also. https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/two-methodoligies-to-keep-a-reef-tank.226995/

The two methods can not be mixed.

 

[Humblefish]

Just checked on him now... no more spots! Now I'm not stupid enough to assume he's kicked ich in 12 hours, but, come on, that's good going to be free of the spots in that time! (And yes @Humblefish, I know those spots aren't the parasite, they're dead skin, but hey, still impressed!) Breathing is normal, just fed like a trooper and been active and normal all day, no flashing, nothing

If the same spots came & went in 12 hrs, then you are dealing with velvet. Unless it was just sand.

 

[Gweeds1980]

If the same spots came & went in 12 hrs, then you are dealing with velvet. Unless it was just sand.

Nope, we had the fine dusting of velvet as per pics for about 11 days and these today were far bigger, grains of salt size as opposed to almost a powder. Same spots that made an appearance on my regal a few weeks back, again they were gone in 12 hours.

Can that be ich, or do I potentially have 2 strains of velvet?

 

[Humblefish]

Can that be ich, or do I potentially have 2 strains of velvet?

Everything that has been studied on ich showed that trophonts have to remain for at least 3 days before dropping off. However, with velvet the lifecycle is accelerated and some strains feed for only 12 hours before dropping off.

 

[Gweeds1980]

Everything that has been studied on ich showed that trophonts have to remain for at least 3 days before dropping off. However, with velvet the lifecycle is accelerated and some strains feed for only 12 hours before dropping off.

Thanks Humble, I'll put that down to two separate strains of velvet then... interesting the second bout had none of the other symptoms... immune response perhaps.

 

[Paul B]

Everything that has been studied on ich showed that trophonts have to remain for at least 3 days before dropping off.

That's because everything that has been studied on ich is probably wrong as it was done in a laboratory and not in real life where the fish could have immunity and the ant parasitic properties in the slime killed it.
Just my opinion of course which could be wrong.

Nope, we had the fine dusting of velvet as per pics for about 11 days and these today were far bigger, grains of salt size as opposed to almost a powder.

There were parasites, then they croaked and got bigger as they rotted.

 

[Gweeds1980]

The spots disappearing is all part of the velvet cycle. I've dealt with two crashes from this. It will return and be worse in a couple days. It will also affect your other fish too. Not trying to be negative here just sharing my experience with it

It hasn't btw... all spots now gone

Bare in mind this tank includes a PBT... who should by rights have died about 2 months ago, according to most

 

[Gweeds1980]

I may move in a few months and take my tank down. If I do, I should try that first.

Paul, if you do, I am putting in a begging letter now for a bit of your sand / rock / water... postage paid obvs

 

[Paul B]

You are a little far from me and I think If I tried to mail that, I would get shot.

 

[Gweeds1980]

Some interesting reading on a pertinent subject...

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0145305X17301118

 

[Paul B]

Gweeds, that is an excellent article and everyone, especially people who feed sub standard foods which is almost everything, should read it. The proper foods are one of three important parts of my system (or more precise, the fishes system because I didn't invent it) Proper food with the correct oils, vitamins, minerals and other nutrients are essential for fish to become and stay immune. Flake food, freeze dried food and many, but not all commercially available foods are not adequate which is the reason for all the disease threads. There is no reason our fish should get any disease.
Almost all live, water related foods will supply the proper fats, oils and other constituents to keep fish immune. But that alone is just one part of the equation. Pathogens need to be present to goad the immune system into acting and keep it healthy and a stress free environment is very important. That includes a large enough tank that is decorates with something the fish recognizes and not PVC elbows as the only fish that ever see that is fish in a plumbing supply that sunk under the sea.
Gweeds, you can link all the articles you like and your fish can live 50 years even if you add velvet parasites every week but many people will still just say you are lucky because many people just won't believe it.
Quarantining and many foods are just to deep embedded in this hobby to change and it will take many more years of brave experimenters like yourself to convince people.
But I salute you for doing this. I myself am to old and almost out of this hobby to make a difference.

 

[4FordFamily]

It hasn't btw... all spots now gone

Bare in mind this tank includes a PBT... who should by rights have died about 2 months ago, according to most

I've seen a PBT in ich management tanks before, I even owned one that was resistant, as well for about a year before trading it for aggression (ironically it died of parasites in its new home within 30 days-- a stress event).

This is a very, very, very rare thing but there are exceptions to every rule.

The difference with "immune" (resistant) in the ocean and resistant in a glass box, as mentioned, is a lot more fish, in a smaller enclosed space, in far less optimal conditions (typically) which makes them "sitting ducks".

Think of it like this --- kids get sick before daycare-- but boy take them around a bunch of other kids in a small enclosed space and they're perpetually sick (and so are the parents if it's their first) for 6 months to 1 year. Then, they become more resilient.

The issue is that the kids are in far more ideal environments, we have access to better medicine when needed, kids can communicate better what is wrong, and they're unlikely to die of the really dangerous things because of vaccinations.

Parasites are animals, and thus there is far less we can do. I'm not really worried about a resistance to ich with my fish because I won't expose them to it. If I ever do, I'll start from square one again. In the long run, I'm losing far less fish and I find this practice more ethical.

That's my personal opinion, coming from ten years of "ich management" myself. We miss the immense difference between "ocean immune" and "small glass miniecosystem immune" with these arguments, time and time again. IMO

Let us also remember if a fish doesn't live 8-10 years or more in captivity, it was not a success.

 

[jasonrusso]

You are a little far from me and I think If I tried to mail that, I would get shot.

You think that shipping water is cost prohibitive, lol?

 

[jasonrusso]

Gweeds, that is an excellent article and everyone, especially people who feed sub standard foods which is almost everything, should read it. The proper foods are one of three important parts of my system (or more precise, the fishes system because I didn't invent it) Proper food with the correct oils, vitamins, minerals and other nutrients are essential for fish to become and stay immune. Flake food, freeze dried food and many, but not all commercially available foods are not adequate which is the reason for all the disease threads. There is no reason our fish should get any disease.
Almost all live, water related foods will supply the proper fats, oils and other constituents to keep fish immune. But that alone is just one part of the equation. Pathogens need to be present to goad the immune system into acting and keep it healthy and a stress free environment is very important. That includes a large enough tank that is decorates with something the fish recognizes and not PVC elbows as the only fish that ever see that is fish in a plumbing supply that sunk under the sea.
Gweeds, you can link all the articles you like and your fish can live 50 years even if you add velvet parasites every week but many people will still just say you are lucky because many people just won't believe it.
Quarantining and many foods are just to deep embedded in this hobby to change and it will take many more years of brave experimenters like yourself to convince people.
But I salute you for doing this. I myself am to old and almost out of this hobby to make a difference.

I am very interested in this thread. I do have to admit that I am in the process of doing the no parasite method because the healthy fish don't get sick method worked horribly for me this year, however I didn't go to the lengths that you people do in preparing the food. I buy Larry's chunk food, how do you feel about that particular food?

I have to say that one "hole" I see in your method is that you need to constantly re introduce potential sickness into the tank. If you don't introduce crypt (or etc) into the tank then the fish lose their immunity. Where do you find the parasite? If you didn't re introduce it, how do you go about introducing it again?

 

[Gweeds1980]

I am very interested in this thread. I do have to admit that I am in the process of doing the no parasite method because the healthy fish don't get sick method worked horribly for me this year, however I didn't go to the lengths that you people do in preparing the food. I buy Larry's chunk food, how do you feel about that particular food?

I have to say that one "hole" I see in your method is that you need to constantly re introduce potential sickness into the tank. If you don't introduce crypt (or etc) into the tank then the fish lose their immunity. Where do you find the parasite? If you didn't re introduce it, how do you go about introducing it again?

Thanks, I'm not aware of that particular food, but I doubt it includes unsterilised fish guts, bones, skin and organs... thus it won't give the fish everything they need for immunity. You mentioned effort... a little secret... it's easier AND cheaper to feed the type of foods I feed

As for the immunity, the pathogens remain in your tank, they keep attacking the fish but the immune system fights them off before they have a chance to damage the fish itself. Same as with us, our immunity doesn't put up a force field around us, it just means we don't get sick AFTER we have encountered the illness we're immune to.

To take ich as an example, the parasite doesn't actually want to kill the fish, it wants to feed and reproduce, like every other living thing. But it's used to immune fish in the ocean, so it has to attack in numbers so that one or two individual parasites get a snack, fall off and reproduce. If we limit the numbers of parasites, along with giving the fish immunity we're effectively backing our own horse. This way the pathogens remain in your system and are able to reproduce and the fish remain immune.