Protective immunity against Cryptocaryon irritans

[Paul B]

That's great, whatever you are doing as long as the fish stay healthy, keep doing it. I use algae and always have. I never try to eliminate it but I want it growing where I want it. I also add mud and other things from the sea mostly for the bacteria.

 

[BoneXriffic]

That's great, whatever you are doing as long as the fish stay healthy, keep doing it. I use algae and always have. I never try to eliminate it but I want it growing where I want it. I also add mud and other things from the sea mostly for the bacteria.

Do you have a build of how your scrubber works? Your diy seems very solid as well. As well, how you use the mud?

This may actually not be the place for this questions, and my apologies to @Humblefish fo slight hijacking. But both sides of the equation seem to have the same end result. Happy healthy fish. And where treatment seems to be more modern and effective. It is interesting to see and older equally effective approach.

I would be curious to see if LRS frozen foods, administered often in small amounts to constantly keep fish fed is on par. As this is a more simple option than maintaing a black worm pop. Is it a potential replacment?

I do have some sick fish, ones I cant catch but have so far survived and appear to be healing. The shocking death in my tank was a clown who was bullied by the other clown as a struggle over ower ship of a BTA. The increased stress of the bullied clown i feel may have weakened his immune system. It seems the hosting fish is very happy, and becoming more healthy and fighting the disease.
Tl

 

[Cabinetman]

That's great, whatever you are doing as long as the fish stay healthy, keep doing it. I use algae and always have. I never try to eliminate it but I want it growing where I want it. I also add mud and other things from the sea mostly for the bacteria.

I use natural sea water too and by times add stuff I get at the beach.

 

[Paul B]

BoneXriffic, I don't think I have a build of that algae scrubber on here. I just wrote a book but I am not sure if it is in there either. (here is a long thread on scrubbers https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/algae-scrubber-basics.63113/)The thing is a simple design and you can find similar designs on here I am sure. It's basically a screen stuck in a slot in a PVC pipe and water flows down it near a light. I use red leds for that. Mine also feeds my reverse undergravel filter but very few people, if anyone uses one of those.
You can use LRS food and I sometimes use it but I have never tried to keep up my fishes immune system with it although it should work.
Some of my spawning fish are 25 years old and have eaten live blackworms and clams almost every day of their lives.

 

[Humblefish]

I want this disease gone. But that said, would qting these immune fish shed the dosease or are they forever carriers?

Immune fish are still afflicted by free swimming parasites, its just that their immune system excels at fighting them off. Most likely enzymes (or something similar) force the trophonts off the fish shortly after they begin feeding.

When you QT a fish and treat with copper (or CP), the chemical zaps the theronts (free swimming stage) before they ever have a chance to latch onto the fish and become trophonts. So in essence, you are eradicating ich from the tank itself - not treating the fish directly. Post treatment, the fish may still have immunity but it will no longer have ich. So nothing to pass on to other fish. :)

 

[BoneXriffic]

Immune fish are still afflicted by free swimming parasites, its just that their immune system excels at fighting them off. Most likely enzymes (or something similar) force the trophonts off the fish shortly after they begin feeding.

When you QT a fish and treat with copper (or CP), the chemical zaps the theronts (free swimming stage) before they ever have a chance to latch onto the fish and become trophonts. So in essence, you are eradicating ich from the tank itself - not treating the fish directly. Post treatment, the fish may still have immunity but it will no longer have ich. So nothing to pass on to other fish. :)

Thank you this is good info, my attempts to trap or catch thses fish have since been futile. I will continue to try as my ultimate goal here would be a balance of the two worlds. I want strong healthy apropriatley fed fish, but also a tank free of disease.

@Paul B thank you from some direction here. I donot run carbon or gfo. And bioload is no issue now but one day a full heavily fed tank will need some assistance

 

[Paul B]

I also don't run carbon, GFO, abc, doh ray me, or any other abbreviations. You don't need it, it is un natural, may remove more good things than bad and it just makes me sad. :(

 

[Humblefish]

I also don't run carbon, GFO, abc, doh ray me, or any other abbreviations. You don't need it, it is un natural, may remove more good things than bad and it just makes me sad. :(

Yeah, but using Sodium hydroxide (lye and caustic soda) to regenerate GFO is a manly thing to do. ;)

 

[Paul B]

I would assume it is. :eek:

 

[BoneXriffic]

This may have been beat to death. However, especially in @Paul B case. He has never qt but surley has had a carrier fish in all his years introduced. Atleast it seems logical. So lets say he hasn't added a fish in years... is it possible the the imunity his fish have developed eradicated the disease, if the desease is deflected from the fish can it die off?. I know the imediate answer is no. And the fish still feed it to some level, but at what point can we say it is possible for the disease to die off. A fallow with fish if you will.

I have controled what apeared to be velvet, as @Humblefish saw. Only think i changed was going to lrs food and feeding less amounts but doing it 4 times a day as oposed to one. The fish shed their spots and are as brightly colored and as happy as all get out. I have refused to add other fish as to not be the cause of their possible demise of velvet, and am stuck with 2 fish for possibly the rest of my tanks life lol.

 

[Paul B]

This may have been beat to death. However, especially in @Paul B case. He has never qt but surley has had a carrier fish in all his years introduced. Atleast it seems logical. So lets say he hasn't added a fish in years... is it possible the the imunity his fish have developed eradicated the disease, if the desease is deflected from the fish can it die off?. I know the imediate answer is no. And the fish still feed it to some level, but at what point can we say it is possible for the disease to die off. A fallow with fish if you will.

QUOTE]

I added 3 or 4 fish this year and 18,000 amphipods (I estimated :rolleyes:)

Here is the first page of my log book that I started writing in 1974. Well before salt water medications or even disease names.

 

[Bunnee911]

I wonder if you got new fish "up to speed" or in breeding condition before adding to the DT, would it work?

 

[Paul B]

I am not sure if that would work as I never tried it. I just buy a fish and after a few minutes of acclimation, dump it in. I have been reading through my log book which spans about 25 years and I have not found any case where I ever quarantined. But I did kill a lot of fish. That was way before I fed live foods or knew anything about bacteria. But I see in about 1976 I added some sort of commercial bacteria and I wrote "I believe the excellent health of the fish is due to the bacteria I added" .

 

[BoneXriffic]

I am not sure if that would work as I never tried it. I just buy a fish and after a few minutes of acclimation, dump it in. I have been reading through my log book which spans about 25 years and I have not found any case where I ever quarantined. But I did kill a lot of fish. That was way before I fed live foods or knew anything about bacteria. But I see in about 1976 I added some sort of commercial bacteria and I wrote "I believe the excellent health of the fish is due to the bacteria I added" .

My question would be lets say you hypothetically gave me a fish, and its been years since you bought one....and i transfered to my tank. Would the disease be tranfered to my tank that may have existed 5 years ago? I know there is no definitive answer here, but your theory is what im after. If a disease can die off in time from well kept immune fish such as yours.

 

[Paul B]

If I put one of my fish in your tank it would be fine, but the rest of your fish may die. The immunity would only be on my fish. I don't know if your fish are immune. I also don't think the disease dies off. I think those parasites have always been in my tank and I want them there. They probably attach to my fish in very small numbers, the fishes slime doesn't allow the parasite to grab hold, the parasite gets a little slime for dinner and falls off.
I can't see those parasites so I am only guessing.

 

[Humblefish]

This is going to be purely anecdotal but here goes ;):

I have been watching this one Kole Tang over at my local Petco for weeks now. He looks flawless, has a very good appetite, swims normally, doesn't rub on rocks, etc. What makes this unusual is all his (fish) tankmates keep dying left & right. No physical evidence of velvet, but most of the dying fish have all the telltale behavioral symptoms: labored breathing, scratching/flashing, swimming into the flow of a powerhead, etc. What makes this a little tricky is I have gotten fish from this Petco with both velvet & brook, so without visible physical symptoms to go on its impossible to say which disease is in this tank. But I believe velvet because it's taking down even parasite resistant & hardy species such as wrasses, gobies... even all the damsels are dying. :eek:

Just wanted to share an interesting observation. :)

^^ Little followup on this post. Petco employee ended up buying this Kole Tang and put it directly in his DT (no QT). A week later all of his fish were dead (covered in tiny white dots) and the Kole Tang is now also dead (last one to die). More anecdotal evidence that this fish was (somewhat) immune but still served as a carrier of the parasite.

 

[BoneXriffic]

I have, and done shoot me... been given a standard occelaris clown by my lfs. Now that no disease os visibly present. It was captive bred and came from a tank without medications.

He is fed 4x per day with the herd eerr rather 2 other survivors.LRS foods It has been 7 days now and no odd behavior or signs of sickness.

Since the likley culprit was velvet. But a small possibility of ich. Judging by the initial die off 2 months ago.

I assume a week is more than enough time to contract velvet? He is under close watch and i am prepared to break down what is neccessary to catch him and the other two depending on the outcome.

 

[Humblefish]

I assume a week is more than enough time to contract velvet? He is under close watch and i am prepared to break down what is neccessary to catch him and the other two depending on the outcome.

Oftentimes clownfish are the last fish left standing following a velvet outbreak, probably due to their incredibly thick mucous coat. But I would suspect them to still be carriers, capable of infecting other fish, even if they themselves seem fine.

 

[BoneXriffic]

Oftentimes clownfish are the last fish left standing following a velvet outbreak, probably due to their incredibly thick mucous coat. But I would suspect them to still be carriers, capable of infecting other fish, even if they themselves seem fine.

Agreed, the third fish is a blue damsel, also having a more thick slimecoat as well. I hear some damsel species other than clowns are capable of hostin nems due to this.

Even with this info however one of my original clowns did fall to the oginal outbreak. And both clowns were covered in spots originally and faced death. The one that survived hosted a nem. I hear it is usuallyopposite as the nem thins the slime coats. This wasnt the case.

I believe the hosting clown was more comfortable and less stressed having a happy home and this led to the over all success in survival.

The only change made during the outbreak was switching to lrs foods

 

[edosan]

Hi, interested about all this.

I once read feed marine fish with live freshwater food to avoid parasite problems. (I think the Author of that was Andrew Soh, a Discus breeder)

Paul B, tubifex as the same than black worms or not?