Long rant on Ick I guess. Can be very touchy topic.Be Warned Plus a Story!

[Gweeds1980]

Are the worms you are feeding live? Where do you get them from? Also where are you getting the freshly frozen mussels? I need to look into getting better foods. So far I only feed a mix of these.

I could tell you but I'd have to kill you...

Joking aside, I'm in the UK so not much point sharing sources I'm guessing?

For the record I get blackworm from a FW buddy down the road, mussels from the north Norfolk coast (they are live, sold in bags outside people's houses... I just chuck the bag in the freezer at home).

I also make my own food... whole fish, guts and bones and all, seaweed, omega 3 capsules, shellfish... whatever I can get hold of in the fishmonger, blend it all up and freeze it.

 

[Gweeds1980]

What about corals. Do you quarantine or treat corals?

Also what happens if the fish you add has brooklynilia or velvet?

I don't remember these diseases being so common 20 years ago. Or maybe I was just lucky. At the time I was stationed in Virginia in the Navy close to the ocean and there were better fish stores with more knowledgeable staff. Unfortunately being 350 miles from the ocean I don't have that luxury anymore.

So far my lfs has ordered me three fish and every one was dead by the time I went to pick them up the same week. Out of the four I did buy one had intestinal parasites that I treated and two died the next day after adding them to my display tank. Petsmart fish look like the worst I have ever seen. And basically I am left with ordering everything online. That was when I decided to setup a quarantine.

I dip corals using iodine, but I don't QT them. Mobile inverts go straight in.

I did use a QT to good effect initially, might be worth taking a look at my thread about my journey to immunity...

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/i...y-journey-to-an-immune-reef-hopefully.310714/

I honestly believe that if a fish is 'unwell' when you buy it, putting it into such an unnatural environment as a bare bottom, pvc pipe filled QT, will just stress it out.

I would take that fish and add it to a QT which is furnished just as your main tank is... feed the heck out of it with good quality, whole (guts, skin, bones, the lot) seafood and live food if you can get it. Then start to introduce water from the DT, followed by a few rocks etc. That way you are giving it a chance to recover from the shopping process before exposing it to the pathogens in the DT.

If it already has ich or velvet... feed it! Esp omega 3... DHA is basically poison to parasites... fish use it in their mucous, subcutaneous fatty layer and in the gut.

Beta-Glucan would likely work in this situation too - it's an immunostimulant. Add it to homemade foods. I am yet to experiment with it, but there are articles out there already on it's effectiveness.

 

[Gweeds1980]

I'm not jumping on the latest unproven trend. I will let everyone learn the hard way from that one. I still say it's the worst idea ever. Why overcomplicate something that's not complicated.

I can do a 25 gallon water change in 10 minutes using my mixing station. No need to send my water samples out and worry about dosing and keeping consistant levels of everything. Everything my tank needs is in the salt I add.

Nice set up... sorry, I was being flippant. I don't use the Triton method and whilst I can see it makes sense, I still do WCs. I use NSW though...

 

[Bouncingsoul39]

I just wanted to say: if you try the ich management route, you're taking a big gamble. It could go either way. I recently went through this myself, tried to manage it, but it went to my wrasse's gills and the fish did not improve, but got worse. Luckily still eating, but did not improve.
I was not about to lose a singe fish to ich, so despite my strong wishes to not QT and trying everything I could to avoid it, I folded and setup a hospital tank and dosed copper immediately. Fish are now ich free and looking great almost 30 days later. QT works and copper, hypo, and TTM are proven methods to completely wipe out ich. After copper is done, I will be dosing Metro into the water for internal parasites.

 

[Gweeds1980]

I just wanted to say: if you try the ich management route, you're taking a big gamble. It could go either way. I recently went through this myself, tried to manage it, but it went to my wrasse's gills and the fish did not improve, but got worse. Luckily still eating, but did not improve.
I was not about to lose a singe fish to ich, so despite my strong wishes to not QT and trying everything I could to avoid it, I folded and setup a hospital tank and dosed copper immediately. Fish are now ich free and looking great almost 30 days later. QT works and copper, hypo, and TTM are proven methods to completely wipe out ich. After copper is done, I will be dosing Metro into the water for internal parasites.

That is a real shame, there is general confusion on this forum around ich management and immunity. Ich management will ultimately always end in failure as you are (as the name suggests) attempting to deal with the situation by focussing on the parasite and limiting it's ability to infect...

Building an immune / resistant system is as different to ich management as quarantining is to not quarantining!

In building immunity we focus on the fish, diet (quality not quantity) and enabling the immune system to do what it has evolved over millions of years to do. Frankly the parasites and diseases can do what they want... they are irrelevant.

 

[Gweeds1980]

I just wanted to say: if you try the ich management route, you're taking a big gamble. It could go either way. I recently went through this myself, tried to manage it, but it went to my wrasse's gills and the fish did not improve, but got worse. Luckily still eating, but did not improve.
I was not about to lose a singe fish to ich, so despite my strong wishes to not QT and trying everything I could to avoid it, I folded and setup a hospital tank and dosed copper immediately. Fish are now ich free and looking great almost 30 days later. QT works and copper, hypo, and TTM are proven methods to completely wipe out ich. After copper is done, I will be dosing Metro into the water for internal parasites.

I'd be really interested to know how you 'tried to manage it'?

 

[Daltrey]

I'm starting to realize why the thread title says "touchy topic and be warned" ha!

I can only say that I personally would like to keep on open mind. So many times that I thought I was right and years later I realized not so much, ha.

 

[Bouncingsoul39]

That is a real shame, there is general confusion on this forum around ich management and immunity. Ich management will ultimately always end in failure as you are (as the name suggests) attempting to deal with the situation by focussing on the parasite and limiting it's ability to infect...

Building an immune / resistant system is as different to ich management as quarantining is to not quarantining!

In building immunity we focus on the fish, diet (quality not quantity) and enabling the immune system to do what it has evolved over millions of years to do. Frankly the parasites and diseases can do what they want... they are irrelevant.

I feel like I'm being preached to by a cult member. I've seen your many posts here and your love affair with PaulB and his methods. Great if they work for you guys but I don't much expect they will work for everyone. Nor do I believe that feeding live or fresh food is the answer to all parasite issues. There a reason the concept of immune systems is not main stream. I personally would rather follow what professional institutions practice and what has been proven by science than a couple guys wacky ideas. No offense.

 

[Gweeds1980]

I feel like I'm being preached to by a cult member. I've seen your many posts here and your love affair with PaulB and his methods. Great if they work for you guys but I don't much expect they will work for everyone. Nor do I believe that feeding live or fresh food is the answer to all parasite issues. There a reason the concept of immune systems is not main stream. I personally would rather follow what professional institutions practice and what has been proven by science than a couple guys wacky ideas. No offense.

None taken... although I have to challenge that the accepted quarantine methods 'work'... it would be interesting to see the average fish loss numbers for quarantined tanks Vs those run on the basis of immunity / resistance. Looking at the disease forums I would suggest that a lot of people must be doing it wrong.

As an aside, I'm based over in the UK where almost no-one quarantines in the same way as is recommended here... our disease forums on UK sites are a lot quieter, even taking into account the membership size difference.

My background is as a biologist, I understand immunity and piscine physiology and more specifically bacteria and the benefits of diversity, I spent years quarantining fish, both SW and FW... every now and then something would come along and wipe my tank out... I'd got it wrong, messed up somewhere. If there is one thing you can guarantee about people it's that we can't do something 100% accurately, 100% of the time... the joy of running a system like myself, Paul and countless others do is that this point of failure is removed. Instead we are relying on a natural process, which has evolved over millions of years, alongside the parasites, viruses, bacteria and fungal infections... I would guess that's a little more reliable.

Having said all of that, I am also a mod on a UK reef forum and I run the disease forum there. Whilst I will always explain my methods to anyone who asks, and the science behind them and even offer them as an alternative, anyone who comes looking for advice on disease management will be recommended quarantine, with prophylactic treatment to eliminate all diseases. It is the accepted method and it does work (which is where I do differ from Paul's opinions!) It's just a heck of a lot more work and will always have that point of failure built in.

 

[Paul B]

I personally would rather follow what professional institutions practice and what has been proven by science than a couple guys wacky ideas. No offense.

I love this and you can not offend me on a fish site because,,,Well,, I am immune.

The science guys you refer to work in a lab and do experiments. Experiments that last a few months or until the money runs out. (Scientists designed the Space Shuttle Challenger that blew up) I have been keeping fish every day without missing one day since 1952 or so. Even when I was in Viet Nam I had a tank home.
Of course you can keep a tank ich free and the fish won't get ich. But why would you want to do that? I can keep myself cold and flu free by never going out or riding on the New York City subway system but that is not natural. I would rather put my hands on those scurvy handrails every day which have been touched by every degenerate in creation and not worry about it because it just makes me stronger.

Have you ever heard of someone breeding a fish that was quarantined and lives in a sterile environment eating food with no live bacteria in it and the fry survived? That would be odd because baby fish get their immunity from their Mother and if their Mother is not immune, neither are they. Baby fish have a very thin slime coat which is supposed to contain anti-parasitic chemicals and macrophages. Parasites will immediately infect a baby fish as will bacteria and viruses if they do not have immunity. I would imagine that if you raised the fry in a sterile place they may survive but they will never be like their wild counterparts and would never be normal.
Normal fish are always in contact with parasites and they don't have any problem with that.

Scientists keep fish in sterile environments because they are experimenting on them and they don't want parasites or bacteria screwing up their tests just like researchers buy sterile rats with no diseases to test medications. Those rats can never escape and run around with wild rats because they would die very shortly.
Having a functioning immune system makes a fish a normal, healthy fish.
I know about the playing Russian Roulette thing but I have the oldest tank on there. I am sure much older than those scientists and in about 40 years I am still waiting for that bomb to go off because immune fish can't become sick. If they do, you didn't get them immune. Just like if quarantined fish get sick, you didn't quarantine them correctly. Just go on the disease forum and see how many quarantined fish are in a tank that crashed from disease. I say "Quarantined" fish are playing Russian Roulette because they can get sick. Immune fish can't.

Normal fish also only die from a couple of things, one being old age. All fish should only die from old age as I want to die, not living in a bubble.
I buy or collect fish, throw them in my tank, parasites or not and I go out to dinner and have a nice bottle of Merlot. I am not sure what my fish do while I am out,but I do know they are not getting sick.

 

[Paul B]

I feel like I'm being preached to by a cult member. I've seen your many posts here and your love affair with PaulB and his methods.

I actually didn't realized he cared.

I also don't preach. I don't care one way or the other how people treat their fish. I eat fish almost every day, just finished a nice Cod that my wife whipped up. They are your fish, quarantine, don't quarantine or eat them.

I just found this on the disease thread on this forum. This is how many stories come out after quarantining. I have bought hundreds of fish in the last few decades and I have never had this problem. My new fish always eat and I never have to buy any medications as they are never needed. I didn't read the rest of that thread but I bet all sorts of medications were advised and used, and the fish died. I don't want that to happen to his fish or mine which is why I seem to be preaching. I have found a better way. I do realize most people will stay with inside the box thinking and that if fine. But don't call my methods wrong. Avant Garde maybe. But I still love you guys.


Quote:
Just starting to put some fish in my tank. Picked up 3 Vanderbilt Chromis' (special order) from my LFS. They arrived to his place same day (according to the owner were only in the bags a few hours) placed in his tanks and I picked them up the following morning. After drip acclimating them I transferred them into my QT and one seemed to be a little off. I know they had a hard time catching one of them from the tank when I went to pick them up but I don't know which one it was so I thought maybe it might have just been stress. Long story short I have been observing them all for the last few days. The one in question has not eaten unless I just haven't seen it. This morning one of the ones that was swimming and eating fine is dead with what looked like a sore on it's side. This one is now showing what you see in the photos. I looked into some of the more common fish diseases posted here but I wasn't able to make any of them fit perfectly.....any thoughts?
plans are to start prazipro treatment today with a second next week followed by copper a week later, just wanted to know if I should hit the QT with something else first.

All QT parameters look pretty good Ammonia may be slightly elevated (between .0 and .2 on a Red Sea test kit) everything else tests normal

 

[Gweeds1980]

I actually didn't realized he cared.

I also don't preach. I don't care one way or the other how people treat their fish. I eat fish almost every day, just finished a nice Cod that my wife whipped up. They are your fish, quarantine, don't quarantine or eat them.

Ssssh... don't tell my wife lol.

 

[Mark Gray]

I agree sort of with you good post. I know my tank has Ick but fish are fine. Velvet and other parasites are a different story. I have messed around a bit with very sick fish just to see if I can get them to survive. If it's just a bad case of Ick and I can get them eating I can usually win. I am trying poylop labs treatment right now it's close to peroxide be careful everyone

 

[Mark Gray]

This is where the misunderstanding of immunity kicks in. That fish you just bought is probably still carrying immunity to velvet / ich / whatever... put him though a 'proper' QT and annhiliate all bugs, then pop him into your disease free display tank... a few months later, something gets in on a coral / rock / whatever and wipes the lot of fish out... why? You got rid of the bugs which gave the immunity!! IMO velvet, brook, ich, whatever is just as important to the long term health of my fish as clean water, food and suitable tank size. You cannot have immunity without disease being ever present. Heck, I introduce diseases on purpose, just to ensure my fish remain immune.

I would add, not a single loss since running this system, that includes multiple tangs... yes, even a powder blue.

I agree

A tank that size will be very easy to break down. Would take about an hour.

 

[IronChefItaly]

Consider this, of everyone I know who quarantines their fish or coral - they do so only after encountering a disease or parasite themselves, myself included. You don’t have to look far into research studies and other people’s experiences to justify the effort and expense. Once you experience something like velvet wipe out your precious fish in less than a week it is extremely unlikely that you’d continue in the hobby without some sort of quarantine procedure. That said, quarantine isn’t for everyone and some people such as beginniners are better off sticking to fish stores that routinely follow good practices.

 

[Gweeds1980]

Consider this, of everyone I know who quarantines their fish or coral - they do so only after encountering a disease or parasite themselves, myself included. You don’t have to look far into research studies and other people’s experiences to justify the effort and expense. Once you experience something like velvet wipe out your precious fish in less than a week it is extremely unlikely that you’d continue in the hobby without some sort of quarantine procedure. That said, quarantine isn’t for everyone and some people such as beginniners are better off sticking to fish stores that routinely follow good practices.

Velvet on my heniochus...

Zero treatment. Penultimate pic is him after 12 days... no other fish were affected. Last pic was taken yesterday.

ANY disease can be beaten by allowing the fish to use it's immune system... also, in ANY fish... I had a powder blue in my system as well as multiple other tangs, including Acanthurus and a regal tang.

I've introduced brook into my system also. Zero symptoms.

 

[dede]

As a new hobbyist I find the contradicting advice so frustrating in this hobby when trying to learn about complex issues. I really believe it comes down to trial and error in learning about what works and doesn't work for you and some good amount of luck thrown in to boot.

I have already lost a number of fish, some to parasites and some to equipment and transport errors. There is only one LFS in my area with the next closest being 3 hours away and I have lost 5 fish from them I believe due to parasites. I asked about their quarantine practice and was told they don't treat with copper but use an UV sterilizer and super low salinity. Given one of the fish I got definitely had at least ich and died, the probability that the store has ich and velvet in their system is high.

So far I have gotten fish that ended up with ich(possibly velvet), black ich, bacterial infection, popeye, possibly uronema(lost 4 chromis), Lymphocyctis and hlle. And I am not talking about that many fish.

So trying to do the whole quarantine thing given the amount of issues I have encountered already, but what a huge pain in the .... Currently have 5 quarantine tanks at various time stages for coral, fish and inverts. But I am so ready to just throw everything in the DT.

Just made it through my first TTM with a yellow tang and filefish and observing for signs now for velvet or brook.
My concern is if I don't treat with copper how likely is it they will carry velvet or brook past the 2 week observation without symptoms. In other words, all for naught.

 

[Gweeds1980]

As a new hobbyist I find the contradicting advice so frustrating in this hobby when trying to learn about complex issues. I really believe it comes down to trial and error in learning about what works and doesn't work for you and some good amount of luck thrown in to boot.

I have already lost a number of fish, some to parasites and some to equipment and transport errors. There is only one LFS in my area with the next closest being 3 hours away and I have lost 5 fish from them I believe due to parasites. I asked about their quarantine practice and was told they don't treat with copper but use an UV sterilizer and super low salinity. Given one of the fish I got definitely had at least ich and died, the probability that the store has ich and velvet in their system is high.

So far I have gotten fish that ended up with ich(possibly velvet), black ich, bacterial infection, popeye, possibly uronema(lost 4 chromis), Lymphocyctis and hlle. And I am not talking about that many fish.

So trying to do the whole quarantine thing given the amount of issues I have encountered already, but what a huge pain in the .... Currently have 5 quarantine tanks at various time stages for coral, fish and inverts. But I am so ready to just throw everything in the DT.

Just made it through my first TTM with a yellow tang and filefish and observing for signs now for velvet or brook.
My concern is if I don't treat with copper how likely is it they will carry velvet or brook past the 2 week observation without symptoms. In other words, all for naught.

IMO if you're going to quarantine, treat for everything prophylactically... so copper or CP, prazi, FW dips, formalin dips...

General cure is good to use too, eliminates a lot of parasites, internally and externally.

You will then need to quarantine EVERYTHING that goes into the DT wet... corals, inverts, rocks, sand... everything that isn't a fish needs to spend 76 days in a tank without fish.

Ps none of this will cure/ stop hlle. For that to stop & reverse you need to stop using carbon (or at least nothing with small particles and dust) and feed as much omega 3 enriched food as the fish will eat... it'll still take 6 months to see a significant improvement.

Good luck!

 

[Paul B]

Dede, you are all new hobbyists should quarantine. I have always said that because fish will never become immune and keep that immunity in a new tank with a new hobbyist. Not even me as I killed more fish than StarKist Tuna. Bacteria run our tanks and we are there just to give the bacteria something to laugh at. It takes a long time, sometimes years for the correct bacteria to reproduce and weed out the useless bacteria so they can settle down and do what we pay them to do.
Of course you should feed the correct foods all the time and that does not include any dry foods.
Parasites have their own problems. They are also susceptible to infections from bacteria and viruses. We don't discuss that because we can't see them. Here is one now -------> . <--------
A tank takes time to mature and it won't be healthy until then. It needs time to grow pods, worms, tube worms, bacteria, viruses, parasites, bacteria that infect parasites, algae, cyano, coralline, etc. All those things work together and against each other to eventually produce a mature, healthy tank. It is not just about parasites and diseases. You need all of those things working in sync and in the beginning they all fight each other for dominance because a tank is a small volume of water and in most tanks the only bacteria and parasites added are what is in the canoe of the guy who collected the stuff and remnants of the cheeseburger the guy working in the LFS had for lunch.
In the sea fish have no problems except from bigger fish.
Tanks will settle down and it has nothing to do with cycling and parameters that these forums are filled with. That is the easy stuff. The important stuff happens microscopicly.
New tanks will get bouts of cyano, hair algae, bubble algae, and male pattern baldness. That is because everything in the tank is still in flux and all those things are fighting for dominance.
It takes time and if we start adding all sorts of chemicals to eliminate those things, we screw up the natural cycle and then have to keep tweeking until we crash the system. That is why you see new tanks have to keep adding alk, then calcium, then something else to keep everything stable. Saltwater is very stable as long as we don't mess with it. I have never altered my pH, alk or calcium. I add those things occasionally and they level themselves out. If my tank can stay stable for decades with no test kits, anyone can as I am not that smart. Only good looking.

 

[Daltrey]

Question.....Do any of us ever sleep? Ha. Currently watching fish tanks on Youtube while thinking of buying an achilles tang. Wife asked what I wanted for Christmas and they are such magnificent looking fish.