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

[Paul B]

All still immune here, all is well. I took down my blackworm tank for the move. I think we sold the house and their inspector is coming over today to inspect things. Even he will find my fish immune although all the outlets and "creative" electrical work he may not appreciate or understand.
But I will try to convince him that all of that will be gone when I take everything out of the tank and attempt to move it 60 miles.
This will be a good test of immunity because I am buying a new tank and filling it with NSW from the beach near my home there and will just warm it up before I throw in any fish and coral that survive the move.

They will go from very old water with 160 nitrates to very new water with no nitrates which may upset their stomach a little. I will add some of the old water to keep some of any bacteria and parasites that are in there just for kicks.

The water will come from here. I suppose it will warm up a little before then or my powerheads will make a lot of noise.

 

[atoll]

Will be very interesting to see how the move goes Paul. Good luck with the move and hope the fish travel well and come through it all.

 

[Paul B]

We will see.

 

[atoll]

Well, one thing is for sure it's going to be a real test for them, new tank, new environment, new clean water new substrate along with the move. My money is on a no loss move. Place your bets, everybody.

 

[jasonrusso]

All still immune here, all is well. I took down my blackworm tank for the move. I think we sold the house and their inspector is coming over today to inspect things. Even he will find my fish immune although all the outlets and "creative" electrical work he may not appreciate or understand.
But I will try to convince him that all of that will be gone when I take everything out of the tank and attempt to move it 60 miles.
This will be a good test of immunity because I am buying a new tank and filling it with NSW from the beach near my home there and will just warm it up before I throw in any fish and coral that survive the move.

They will go from very old water with 160 nitrates to very new water with no nitrates which may upset their stomach a little. I will add some of the old water to keep some of any bacteria and parasites that are in there just for kicks.

The water will come from here. I suppose it will warm up a little before then or my powerheads will make a lot of noise.

I think that the corals will be affected the most by the drop in nutrients.

 

[Gareth elliott]

I wont bet, just say good luck . When you use nsw paul how far out do you go from shore. I live on the water, but during the summer we are a busy inlet for fishing and tourism. Always afraid im going to be adding 90%water 10% diesel lol.

 

[Brew12]

My money is on a no loss move. Place your bets, everybody.

That is a suckers bet.

The fish will only suffer doing the move if something unforeseen happens. The stress from the move won't be a problem. Dropping their bucket in the parking lot and having a few slide under the low rider pickup next door? That may cause issues.

 

[Paul B]

I wont bet, just say good luck . When you use nsw paul how far out do you go from shore. I live on the water, but during the summer we are a busy inlet for fishing and tourism. Always afraid im going to be adding 90%water 10% diesel lol.

About 18" or up to my knees. The water on the beach was in France a few months ago and swirling off Tahiti a little before that. These people that think you have to go 37 miles offshore are doing a little overkill.
The tide comes in and goes out every `12 hours and has been for quite a few years. That sand near shore is pretty well cleaned by now.
The issues with the move are the temperature and the lights may not be on the tank for a while. There is one outlet in that room so i will need to plug everything into an extension cord until I wire the place which isn't happening over night

 

[Gareth elliott]

About 18" or up to my knees. The water on the beach was in France a few months ago and swirling off Tahiti a little before that. These people that think you have to go 37 miles offshore are doing a little overkill.
The tide comes in and goes out every `12 hours and has been for quite a few years. That sand near shore is pretty well cleaned by now.
The issues with the move are the temperature and the lights may not be on the tank for a while. There is one outlet in that room so i will need to plug everything into an extension cord until I wire the place which isn't happening over night

Thanks maybe when its warm will grab a bucket.

 

[Maritimer]

I suppose I could try NSW ... I mean, we're on the water here . . . but our water is Western Long Island Sound, and the last time I tested it (admittedly rather a number of years ago!) I think it was 1.014 or some such . . .

Not reef ready.

~Bruce

 

[Mark Gray]

All still immune here, all is well. I took down my blackworm tank for the move. I think we sold the house and their inspector is coming over today to inspect things. Even he will find my fish immune although all the outlets and "creative" electrical work he may not appreciate or understand.
But I will try to convince him that all of that will be gone when I take everything out of the tank and attempt to move it 60 miles.
This will be a good test of immunity because I am buying a new tank and filling it with NSW from the beach near my home there and will just warm it up before I throw in any fish and coral that survive the move.

They will go from very old water with 160 nitrates to very new water with no nitrates which may upset their stomach a little. I will add some of the old water to keep some of any bacteria and parasites that are in there just for kicks.

The water will come from here. I suppose it will warm up a little before then or my powerheads will make a lot of noise.

wow will you donate the old one to a museum? what size tank will you set up? Oh and good luck I hate to move, but you will find all those things that have been lost forever

 

[Gareth elliott]

I suppose I could try NSW ... I mean, we're on the water here . . . but our water is Western Long Island Sound, and the last time I tested it (admittedly rather a number of years ago!) I think it was 1.014 or some such . . .

Not reef ready.

~Bruce

Found some daily measurements from a rutgers station for seven years(97-03). Its for a little south of me. Average daily salinity was 31 with maximum 34(july 98) minimum 24(feb 99). Assuming some correlation with 97-98 el nino.

Maybe i could use to start the nitrogen cycle on dry rock, bring the salinity to 35 with reef salt? Save a few dollars on salt mix?

 

[Paul B]

The water in the western sound is the water I started my tank with but it is not the best. I would go a little east from there. You will have to add salt because the water here is a little weak in salinity but you can keep kissing gouramies if you like.
You may get red algae growing as that is what covers much of the Sound. It isn't cyano but looks like it.

I normally take it off Jones Beach in the Atlantic. A lot of rivers dump into the western sound right where you are.

My new tank will be a 125 if all goes well. I bought redwood to build the stand with but I also built a bed frame which takes up much of my garage so I don't have room to build it yet. The old tank is staying with the house. I think the new people will put goldfish in it.

You can see some of that red algae here. I kind of like it but most people won't.

 

[Ento-Reefer]

I just found this thread last night and I am in the process of working my way through it. I think this could be the answer to Why I never experienced a complete wipe out with disease. I have been keeping saltwater fish/reefs since the early nineties and I learned from an old geezer that owned a LFS. This paragraph by Paul B sums up almost exactly what I was taught way back then.

Then, if the fish lives through quarantine and is fed non living food and no living bacteria and is exposed to no parasites, it's fate is sealed and it must try to live out it's life in a bubble because anything it encounters will kill it.

I have a lot more reading to do, but just wanted to thank the OP for sharing his methods and experiences. I jumped on the qt methodology the past couple of years mainly because marine velvet scares the crap out of me. However, I really am interested in this immunity discussion as I feel I was mostly practicing this with my reefs and did not realize it for many years. Ich management is what many would call it, but I have always fed a diet of frozen, live foods, and just a small amount of dried. I never qt anything up until 2014 and I lost what I would consider to be a small number of fish.

One question before I get back to reading: Do you do anything to treat new fish for flukes or just let the immune system take care of those also? I haven’t come across anything on flukes yet in this thread.

Back to reading.

 

[Mark Gray]

I just found this thread last night and I am in the process of working my way through it. I think this could be the answer to Why I never experienced a complete wipe out with disease. I have been keeping saltwater fish/reefs since the early nineties and I learned from an old geezer that owned a LFS. This paragraph by Paul B sums up almost exactly what I was taught way back then.



I have a lot more reading to do, but just wanted to thank the OP for sharing his methods and experiences. I jumped on the qt methodology the past couple of years mainly because marine velvet scares the crap out of me. However, I really am interested in this immunity discussion as I feel I was mostly practicing this with my reefs and did not realize it for many years. Ich management is what many would call it, but I have always fed a diet of frozen, live foods, and just a small amount of dried. I never qt anything up until 2014 and I lost what I would consider to be a small number of fish.

One question before I get back to reading: Do you do anything to treat new fish for flukes or just let the immune system take care of those also? I haven’t come across anything on flukes yet in this thread.

Back to reading.

I don't treat mine with anything

 

[Gweeds1980]

I don't treat with anything for flukes, but they don't seem to be as common here in the UK, I've never come across them tbh. I guess they are slightly different to the likes of ich etc, but that would depend upon the species of fluke you have.

Personally, I would assume a wild fish would live with a certain amount of parasites, hence the evolution of species that clean others, I'm not sure if cleaner shrimp or wrasse are effective against flukes?

By way of an update, here's a few pics taken last night...

All those tangs are covered in ich and velvet obviously [emoji6]

 

[Paul B]

One question before I get back to reading: Do you do anything to treat new fish for flukes or just let the immune system take care of those also? I haven’t come across anything on flukes yet in this thread.

I never treat for anything and have no hospital tank or medications. This disease stuff is all ridiculous to me and if I had to go through all of that stuff with the quarantining, treatments etc. There is no way I would stay in this hobby. Thats way too much work and I am sure the fish don't want to go through it.

 

[brwaldbaum]

I never treat for anything and have no hospital tank or medications. This disease stuff is all ridiculous to me and if I had to go through all of that stuff with the quarantining, treatments etc. There is no way I would stay in this hobby. Thats way too much work and I am sure the fish don't want to go through it.

Paul's tank isn't even cycled. His fish are immune to nitrifiers.

 

[Ento-Reefer]

All those tangs are covered in ich and velvet obviously

This is remarkable to me, but it really shouldn’t be. I have bought into the premise that Acanthurus tangs can not survive long term in a tank that has been exposed to ich or velvet. I have never kept these tangs until last week so I don’t have any personal experience with this belief, just what I have read.

. I was given a PBT and a convict last week and I keep looking to see if they are going to end up with ich. I have no idea if it is in my tank or not because I haven’t seen it yet. All of the fish in my tank, these new ones included, were qt. However, they were not all treated with medications, but had observational qt periods of 30-60 days. The only fish that had meds were my scopas and the 3 firefish which had prazi pro and copper. I wish I had not done the prophylactic treatment in those fish now. I will see how things progress from here. I did my best to seed this tank with as many different sources of bacteria when I started it up and thus far it has been progressing just fine. Thanks again for the great information posted here.

 

[Gweeds1980]

This is remarkable to me, but it really shouldn’t be. I have bought into the premise that Acanthurus tangs can not survive long term in a tank that has been exposed to ich or velvet. I have never kept these tangs until last week so I don’t have any personal experience with this belief, just what I have read.

. I was given a PBT and a convict last week and I keep looking to see if they are going to end up with ich. I have no idea if it is in my tank or not because I haven’t seen it yet. All of the fish in my tank, these new ones included, were qt. However, they were not all treated with medications, but had observational qt periods of 30-60 days. The only fish that had meds were my scopas and the 3 firefish which had prazi pro and copper. I wish I had not done the prophylactic treatment in those fish now. I will see how things progress from here. I did my best to seed this tank with as many different sources of bacteria when I started it up and thus far it has been progressing just fine. Thanks again for the great information posted here.

PBT... now there's a disease magnet... here's mine... verge of death as you can see [emoji23][emoji23]