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

[brwaldbaum]

I believe beef farmers cure cattle warts by tying off or crushing one of them, causing an immune response that clears the remaining warts. Has anyone tried lancing a Cryptocaryon cyst on a fish to elicit a similar response?

 

[4FordFamily]

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

For the casual reader — as far as odds go and the percentage that your methods worth with with regards to this fish, this is as close to statistically insignificant as any other fish other than perhaps Achilles tangs.

 

[Gweeds1980]

For the casual reader — as far as odds go and the percentage that your methods worth with with regards to this fish, this is as close to statistically insignificant as any other fish other than perhaps Achilles tangs.

Tbf, I can't disagree with that.

 

[Ento-Reefer]

For the casual reader — as far as odds go and the percentage that your methods worth with with regards to this fish, this is as close to statistically insignificant as any other fish other than perhaps Achilles tangs.

Tbf, I can't disagree with that.

Do you both think this is absolute truth when it comes to this family of tangs? Is it just that 1 fish in 100, or 1 in a million, that can live in a well maintained immunity type tank?

I found this thread doing research on PBT and convicts. I have been stressing every since I put these fish in my tank watching them and my other fish for any signs of parasites. Even though every fish in my tank was qt not every fish went through prophylactic copper and none of my corals and or inverts were qt. I find myself in the position of oh crap what have I done. Have I doomed myself because I don't qt. my corals and inverts? I have been keeping marine fish for almost 30 years, but I have never kept any from this family so everything I think I know is just from others experience. I have been happy with my level of success keeping fish and corals in tanks with similar methods to these guys, and I guess I am looking for cases where this is possible because I know I am not going to be able to or likely to qt everything wet before it goes into this tank.

Will the fact that I run ozone and UV help stack the odds in my favor? I was thinking about this yesterday and I add new corals about twice a month right now as I am in the process of stocking the tank. Having to worry about introducing something by way of corals is sapping all the joy out of my tank. I never worried about this stuff before I just dipped the corals looking for pests and never had any issues. Maybe I should have passed on these fish? I don't want to have to worry about nuking my fish, but I am human and even if I qt corals something is going to eventually get in through user error. If I continue to feed as I do with live, and frozen, and keep water quality excellent will my UV and ozone keep the PBT and convict healthy?

 

[Paul B]

I believe beef farmers cure cattle warts by tying off or crushing one of them, causing an immune response that clears the remaining warts. Has anyone tried lancing a Cryptocaryon cyst on a fish to elicit a similar response?

You would need an awfully small tweezers.

Ento-Reefer. I have kept every type of tang in my tank for many years and after I "Saw the light" and got my fish immune I never had any trouble with parasites with any fish. Tang or not. In a few weeks I will move and set up a new, slightly larger tank and if all goes well and my livestock make it there I will add some tangs just to see if my theory still holds. I will have to wait a while until the tan settles down but it shouldn't take long because I am transferring my rocks and gravel to the new tank. When the tangs get big, I will give them to 4FordFamily because I don't particularly like tangs.

 

[Ento-Reefer]

You would need an awfully small tweezers.

Ento-Reefer. I have kept every type of tang in my tank for many years and after I "Saw the light" and got my fish immune I never had any trouble with parasites with any fish. Tang or not. In a few weeks I will move and set up a new, slightly larger tank and if all goes well and my livestock make it there I will add some tangs just to see if my theory still holds. I will have to wait a while until the tan settles down but it shouldn't take long because I am transferring my rocks and gravel to the new tank. When the tangs get big, I will give them to 4FordFamily because I don't particularly like tangs.

Paul, thank you for giving me some confidence that I can maybe do this... lol I have to laugh because all these years I have thought my way of maintaining my tanks was just wrong and that with my new dream tank I was finally going to do things the right way.

I can remember getting slammed on RC for posting about a chaoti leopard wrasse I added straight to my display tank. It didn’t matter what I said I was told I was irresponsible and had risked the lives of all my fish. That fish lived fine and was very healthy for 2 years before it managed to jump to its death. I have kept quite a few “difficult “ fish over the years and haven’t had any issues. Honestly I have never lost more then a few fish to disease and those were mainly when first starting a tank. I hate new tanks for this reason.

I remember reading your thread on RC and thinking I should post about my experiences, but I don’t think I ever did. I have been thinking about this whole issue in the wrong way. For years I have been keeping my tanks the way that works well for me, and I should stick with what has always worked, even if it goes against the majority. I study the parasites of wood boring beetles and help design experiments to help understand how we can use them for bio-control programs. One of the things I have learned over the years is that we can’t prove everything and don’t need to. Sometimes we just have to realize that we may never know all the reasons why something works or doesn’t work.

I sure hope my tank works for these fish without qt every coral and crab. I will keep doing what I have always done and hopefully it will turn out well. So far so good.

 

[Gweeds1980]

Looks like velvet to me, just a matter of time before your other fish come down with it. I've had fish live with it for over a month before succumbing to it. Good luck with that experiment.

Ummm... still nothing.

 

[MnFish1]

Most of this is mythology. In fact if you buy or get a ‘new’ fish there is no way to ‘create immunity’ without risking that fish. If that is a risk one wants to take great - but it is still a risk. Adding a ‘new fish’ to a tank with numerous pathogens there ‘on purpose’ is like playing Russian roulette. The main reason people don’t have problems with this method is the fish are already immune or partially immune - or there are really no pathogens in the new tank. Unless a person takes a new fish and puts them in a separate tank and fattens them up for weeks to be sure they are healthy - or buys their fish from a documented clean souce there is no way to create immunity so quickly. Just because a couple people are lucky putting mud (from environments that are no where near the tropics and contain none of the tropical pathogens) does not mean it’s a good idea. IMHO. It is foolish to think that adding bacteria from Massachusetts will somehow create immunity in fish that come from surinam

 

[Paul B]

Just because a couple people are lucky putting mud (from environments that are no where near the tropics and contain none of the tropical pathogens) does not mean it’s a good idea. IMHO. It is foolish to think that adding bacteria from Massachusetts will somehow create immunity in fish that come from surinam

Maybe I will stop doing that.......Not.

Still waiting for that global warming and Russian Roulette thing to kick in.

 

[Paul B]

IMHO. It is foolish to think that adding bacteria from Massachusetts will somehow create immunity in fish that come from surinam

IMHO it's also foolish to see a 47 year old tank that has not has a parasite issue in decades and think it is playing Russian Roulette or is very lucky. Then look at virtually every tank on here and other forums, many of which are quarantined and discover all the disease issues. How long does a theory have to hold up to be proven fact? 50 years, 60?
It's like reverse UG filters, they can't possibly work, and yet mine has worked longer than any other tank, possibly in existance. That is also luck. My mandarins have been spawning for many years due to my feeder, luck also.
My 27 year old fireclowns (who like all my fish have never been quarantined ) spawn every few days. It is luck that the live foods and mud I add from New York doesn't kill them.

Show me one fish that was quarantined that is very old and spawning. (very old means near it's life span) Show me one quarantined tank that is very old. OK show me 2.

 

[Gweeds1980]

Off topic again, sorry... but this happened yesterday [emoji16][emoji16][emoji16]

 

[Brew12]

Off topic again, sorry... but this happened yesterday [emoji16][emoji16][emoji16]

Adorable!!!!![emoji4]


I mean.... how dare you get off topic! [emoji849]

 

[Ento-Reefer]

Off topic again, sorry... but this happened yesterday [emoji16][emoji16][emoji16]

She is adorable. Congrats !!!

 

[Ento-Reefer]

The main reason people don’t have problems with this method is the fish are already immune or partially immune - or there are really no pathogens in the new tank. Unless a person takes a new fish and puts them in a separate tank and fattens them up for weeks to be sure they are healthy - or buys their fish from a documented clean souce there is no way to create immunity so quickly

I agree that new fish, especially if placed into a newish tank, are a risk. This is why I hate new tanks. It is also why I always try to add multiple sources of bacteria from as many different environments or tanks into mine. In my current tank I added mud and live sand from IPSF, rock rubble from 2 LFS, and from my 95g tank that was probably 10 years old. The goal was to add as much bio-diversity as possible especially because I used 130 lbs of dry rock. I think ozone and UV are both great ways to help with new tanks. I have always run ozone and I wouldn't run a tank without it. I also think a tank should be stocked more heavily with corals and fish added gradually. The corals and associated inverts and filter feeders all contribute to the healthy ecology of the tank and they likely consume some of the parasites.

IMHO. It is foolish to think that adding bacteria from Massachusetts will somehow create immunity in fish that come from surinam

I think the goal is to create and or maintain bio-diversity which helps keep the system healthy. I don't think there is any magic immunity in the mud??? Bacteria rule the world so including a wider variety and continuing to add them would IMHO be a good idea no matter where they originate from. If it works why stop?

 

[brwaldbaum]

I've spent hours reading the disease and treatment forum. It's a horror show: People frantically searching to acquire different medications, fish that are active and feeding dying in quarantine, entire tanks of fish being wiped out in a matter of hours. What sane person would ever enter the hobby after having read some of those threads?

There has to be a better way.

 

[Brew12]

Did you know that a healthy fish can produce hydrogen peroxide and hypochlorous acid as part its immune response to bacteria? ;Wideyed

That blew me away when I found that out. ;Bookworm

 

[Gweeds1980]

Did you know that a healthy fish can produce hydrogen peroxide and hypochlorous acid as part its immune response to bacteria? ;Wideyed

That blew me away when I found that out. ;Bookworm

We're only just discovering what an amazing organ fishes skin really is... it's basically a miniature chemical warfare factory... all we have to do is supply it with the right ingredients.

 

[MnFish1]

1. There is evidence that once a tank reaches steady state regarding the amount of bacteria is contains and that bacteria has filled the niches available, that further adding bacteria is of no benefit
2. The local defense systems and body-wide defenses have been known for some time. There is no evidence that putting bacteria from the North Atlantic helps supply biodiversity to a tropical marine reef tank.
3. Just because people have probema dosing and quarantining fish because they don’t do it properly does not mean it is a bad method. In fact the large numbers of fish deaths previous to the various quarantining programs testified to Its usefulness when done properly.
4. Paul stop dodging what I’ve said many times. People that breed angels clowns etc do not use your method yet are successful.

 

[Paul B]

There is evidence that once a tank reaches steady state regarding the amount of bacteria is contains and that bacteria has filled the niches available, that further adding bacteria is of no benefit

I disagree with this and the guy who discovered this did it in a lab and probably doesn't have a fish tank. I am sure their studies lasted a few months. And added bacteria if it is more virulent will take over other bacteria. Individual bacteria don't have a long lifespan and constantly change.

There is no evidence that putting bacteria from the North Atlantic helps supply biodiversity to a tropical marine reef tank.

There is my tank which is very old and immune. I know that is circumstantial evidence, but it proves it is not harmful. I can't find an older tank that does not do that so there is no evidence that not adding bacteria is beneficial, not even circumstantial.

Just because people have probema dosing and quarantining fish because they don’t do it properly does not mean it is a bad metho

Just because people don't know how to get their fish immune doesn't mean it is a bad method. and as I keep asking, show me older, healthier fish that are spawning, not clowns that quarantine. Healthy fish are always full of eggs. Fish fry get their immunity from their Mother. If their Mother has no immunity, neither does their babies and they will have a very hard time reaching adulthood.

Paul stop dodging what I’ve said many times. People that breed angels clowns etc do not use your method yet are successful.

Mn, we are just discussing and I am not arguing with you.

Most of this is mythology.

But your first statement was that my method is Mythology. It's Mythology if you don't do it properly but all our fish in the sea are immune. My method is much more natural. It is Mythology to take a healthy fish from the sea and expose it to quarantine where it many times gets sick from stress, then subject it with all sorts of medications where it many times dies. Just look at the disease forum which I have never had to post on for parasites or bacteria. That is unusual for a tank that runs on Mythology.
As a matter of fact, I don't even have a method. I just put the fish in my tank and feed them which is not a method, it's just doing to the fish what they were doing in the sea with no intervention from me.

Mn, I am enjoying this discussion and I realize, as I am sure you do that this could go on forever because both theories can work, just in different ways and I am not tying to sell my way of doing things. I believe people should do whatever they want with their own fish. I post what I do along with my successes and failures. If I buy a baby fish, I post that with pictures and keep posting as it grows to adult hood, spawns and eventually in 10 or 15 years I post if it jumped out or died of old age. That is as close to scientific writing as I am capable of doing. If you read my years long thread on here and other forums you will see that. I have done that for many years and have not seen that with quarantined fish, but if you have, I am interested in learning because maybe I am wrong. I amnot the God of fish, just reverse ug filters.
Have a great day and don't feel I am argueing with you. I would like to sit down with you over a glass of Grand marnier and discuss this further. (you buy)

 

[brwaldbaum]

There is an analogue to Paul's ecosystem approach in the freshwater side of the hobby. Freshwater fish-only tanks tend to encounter many health issues (at least early on), but fish in a planted tank almost never get sick. Why that is I can only theorize, but it is a reproducible result. After I started densely planting my tanks, I never had to use a medication again.