The Other Way to Run a Reef Tank (no Quarantine)

[4FordFamily]

Thankyou for taking the time to answer, it sounds like you are employing a similar method as Ciclid keepers do, and it’s an interesting way to do things, and I’ll be interested to see how things go long term as your fish grow out and age... it’s funny how both you and Paul B say it’s not for newbies... sadly in my experience it’s exactly them that need the information and structure, that comes with experience and to not replicate others mistakes, and it’s good to see a few still participating in this thread..

I've been doing this for over a decade, so far so good!

 

[Paul B]

This pair of hermit crabs died about 12 years old. I am not sure if that is the lifespan of a hermit crab so I can't be sure if that is a success. The female is the one with the sexy above the knee shell and blue eyeliner.
They died the same week and I did see them spawn many times.

 

[saltyhog]

Doctors now give far fewer antibiotics than when I was a kid. They learned that it is better for our body to make it's own antibiotics and cure itself. Of course if your eye is falling out and your arm already fell off, you may need some type of intervention. But if you are sneezing, coughing and have a slight fever, you are probably just letting your immune system do what it's paid for.
Antibiotics short circuit our own healing processes.


​

Paul that is simply not true. Antibiotics are not prescribed as often because the incidence of antibiotic resistance has risen because of previous misuse. It has zero to do with antibiotics interfering with infections improving or resolving. The example of sneezing, coughing and slight fever not being prescribed antibiotics is because we now know that the VAST majority of those illnesses are viral, don't respond to antibiotics and are self limited. Antibiotics have no immediate effect on the immune system (at least the most commonly used ones). If you have evidence to the contrary I would really love to see it.

 

[brandon429]

Post #200 about to get lost in the pages, but it shouldn’t

do check post #200 readers of this page. This thread carries 100 live readers or better at once

What if vs hashing on past tense reefs, all that energy was focused on bringing in, and documenting the claims made using brand new tanks, like fifty new examples we could watch

That would change the current destiny of only convincing people who already use Paul’s method, into something WORK based and LIVE time coaching examples which is article and book gold. Though I cannot sail, I’ve wrested the wheel away somehow and am rolling it leeward into rational waters.

Make this a new tank example work thread, 20% commentary about current running reefs we didn’t get to track from the start, and 80% new tanks where that’s happening live time. These are the ideal ratios, there’s science that can be extracted from Paul’s thread here but not if y’all continue on current path

 

[BestMomEver]

I agree with everything you said. Last year, I lost all but four fish to a velvet outbreak. The only fish that survived was a six line Wrasse, a Watchman Goby, a Firefish and a neon Goby (which later jumped). Once all that was done, I tried to quarantine but lost lots of the fish I bought before I put them in the tank and a few died after the were transferred. Yet, the four survivors of the velvet outbreak lived on through it all. Out of frustration I took down the QT tank. When I added fish, occasionally they develop white spots but they go away within a few days. My most recent addition was a yellow tang. After four days he was spot free and has been fine ever since. My tank is fully stocked now but I have two other tanks that I’ve added fish to and all is well. I’ve always thought that nature is a powerful force. We are less able to handle stuff than our wild brethren.

 

[BestMomEver]

This thread needs to be new builds. It cannot be distinguished from literally every other thread on the matter, the upcoming page fifty, all with snippets of tanks already set up as the total fare and pics from prior threads in it.

We’ve got one new contributor in this many pages so far

You guys don’t need to waste time convincing yourselves, source out willing new setups to document, all this energy should be in your outbound marketing. Paul, you have the sole impetus here to provide that work to back your claim. It is not about your current tank. Just once, make it about your method running ten tanks.

There is no room for personal attacks when two people have linked two NEW builds they’re consulting, you can’t fight over that type of thing. Results do the fighting, you don’t even have to provide the eval, the new reefer will update with every detail under the sun, especially non compliant details

When two reefers compare already running systems and paradigms, arguments occur, make this thread a results comparison thread where we get to see the builds here- so many new tanks in the beginners forum are ready for experimentation and they want it


I set up work threads in my deep stage rem sleep and have six cyano cures collected as participant feedback before waking, with only a goldfish bowl for a reef - why is this like pulling teeth here. Y’all have corvette reefs and tons of readers who will let you guide their tank on file, live time, in one outbound pm. You could have ten ready by today Paul.

I posted a moment ago about my dismal experience with quarantine. My tank is less than two years old, but I have been “reefing “ for years. I no longer quarantine. Fish are great. I’m meticulous about their care.

 

[Paul B]

I probably have malicious motives behind spending hours each day here helping people, and if I had to guess, @HotRocks probably does too.

I am on here a lot but I rarely give advice about disease as my advice would be taken the wrong way as I don't believe fish should ever get sick. I can cure them if they are sick but then again my methods are not modern but learned through experience and not mainstream so it would be laughed at like much of this thread is. I also don't give advice about hair algae. I feel it is normal and there are easy ways to deal with it, but again, those methods would be shunned. I don't believe in changing too much water as I feel water gets better with age (to an extent) Look at a brand new tank, does it look healthy?

I do get PMs every day and I respond to all those for advice because I feel that person agrees with my philosophy of less is sometimes better and nature doesn't need much help.
The Name of my book is "The Avant Garde Aquarist" for a reason. The definition of Avant Garde is:



The avant-garde (/ˌævɒ̃ˈɡɑːrd/;[2] French: [avɑ̃ɡaʁd];[3] from French, "advance guard" or "vanguard", literally "fore-guard")[4] are people or works that are experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.[4][5][6] It may be characterized by nontraditional, aesthetic innovation and initial unacceptability,[7] and it may offer a critique of the relationship between producer and consumer.[5]

The avant-garde pushes the boundaries of what is accepted as the norm or the status quo, primarily in the cultural realm.

Most new ideas came from out of the box thinking. Not that this was ever in the box because this is the way the hobby started.

 

[4FordFamily]

I am on here a lot but I rarely give advice about disease as my advice would be taken the wrong way as I don't believe fish should ever get sick. I can cure them if they are sick but then again my methods are not modern but learned through experience and not mainstream so it would be laughed at like much of this thread is. I also don't give advice about hair algae. I feel it is normal and there are easy ways to deal with it, but again, those methods would be shunned. I don't believe in changing too much water as I feel water gets better with age (to an extent) Look at a brand new tank, does it look healthy?

I do get PMs every day and I respond to all those for advice because I feel that person agrees with my philosophy of less is sometimes better and nature doesn't need much help.
The Name of my book is "The Avant Garde Aquarist" for a reason. The definition of Avant Garde is:



The avant-garde (/ˌævɒ̃ˈɡɑːrd/;[2] French: [avɑ̃ɡaʁd];[3] from French, "advance guard" or "vanguard", literally "fore-guard")[4] are people or works that are experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.[4][5][6] It may be characterized by nontraditional, aesthetic innovation and initial unacceptability,[7] and it may offer a critique of the relationship between producer and consumer.[5]

The avant-garde pushes the boundaries of what is accepted as the norm or the status quo, primarily in the cultural realm.

Most new ideas came from out of the box thinking. Not that this was ever in the box because this is the way the hobby started.

Paul,

That reply wasn’t directed toward you at all, you didn’t imply that my participation here included any malicious intent. I don’t think you have malicious intent. It’s great to have different viewpoints here. Diversity of thought is healthy, regardless the subject matter

I agree with you that the status quo should always be challenged. In my viewpoint, not quarantining was the status quo, and probably still is overall.

 

[ech0o]

Here is the trouble I am seeing here. Without attacking or calling anyone write or wrong, we can all agree that to get a tank to the point that Paul has, is extremely hard to recreate. We are talking about years and years of throwing more things from the beach into the tank, fish and corals from various stores & regions of the world, to diversify micolife, in attempt to culture a symbiotic group of organisms that would effectively help control negative pathogens in the tank. I am not saying it is not possible, heck for my own body, I culture and consume probiotics and other fermented foods, and 100% believe my body is filled with organisms that most definitely help eliminate negative pathogens, so having this happen in a water column is totally possible. But the symbiosis within Kefir milk cultures is VERY HARD to achieve, it is nearly impossible to start a new culture from just raw milk.

I believe this carries over into this subject. You will likely lose a very very lot of animals in the years it takes to finally achieve what is being talked about here. To anyone just starting a tank and no resources to people or places with established biologics, this is just a recipe to kill a ton of stuff, imo.

Also you note that the OP sticks corals and rocks and whatever you want right from the ocean, no problem. Many of us in the hobby keep hard to find, highly sought pieces of corals in our aquariums, a little different than the run of the mill softies and standard LPS that I am seeing in the pictures. Sure, one of those stray gorilla crabs eats a few polyps of cheap coral it is no harm no foul. But it is surely happening if they are in there, while it is natural, my reef is very unnatural as it has some of the brightest and most sought pieces from oceans across the world, so it def. does NOT look like a natural reef, and I def. WOULD be upset to even 1 polyp of some of my zoas being consumed by another animal in the tank.

I don't deny this could work, I understand the concept and am actually pretty intrigued in setting up a real natural, macroalgae ridden, throw and go style tank. I imagine it takes a long long time to recreate what is being talked about here, but is an interesting idea.

 

[Fishfinder]

@Paul B do you consider live brine a good source of live nutrition?

 

[Huff747]

@Paul B do you consider live brine a good source of live nutrition?

Not to beat Paul to the punch but he mentioned those a couple pages back:

I want to add that my method or no quarantining depends on keeping the fish healthy as it won't work on semi healthy fish. I mentioned the need to feed whole foods with the guts. Brine shrimp or dry foods do not count and this needs to be done at almost every meal.

 

[Kmsutows]

Here is the trouble I am seeing here. Without attacking or calling anyone write or wrong, we can all agree that to get a tank to the point that Paul has, is extremely hard to recreate. We are talking about years and years of throwing more things from the beach into the tank, fish and corals from various stores & regions of the world, to diversify micolife, in attempt to culture a symbiotic group of organisms that would effectively help control negative pathogens in the tank. I am not saying it is not possible, heck for my own body, I culture and consume probiotics and other fermented foods, and 100% believe my body is filled with organisms that most definitely help eliminate negative pathogens, so having this happen in a water column is totally possible. But the symbiosis within Kefir milk cultures is VERY HARD to achieve, it is nearly impossible to start a new culture from just raw milk.

I believe this carries over into this subject. You will likely lose a very very lot of animals in the years it takes to finally achieve what is being talked about here. To anyone just starting a tank and no resources to people or places with established biologics, this is just a recipe to kill a ton of stuff, imo.

Also you note that the OP sticks corals and rocks and whatever you want right from the ocean, no problem. Many of us in the hobby keep hard to find, highly sought pieces of corals in our aquariums, a little different than the run of the mill softies and standard LPS that I am seeing in the pictures. Sure, one of those stray gorilla crabs eats a few polyps of cheap coral it is no harm no foul. But it is surely happening if they are in there, while it is natural, my reef is very unnatural as it has some of the brightest and most sought pieces from oceans across the world, so it def. does NOT look like a natural reef, and I def. WOULD be upset to even 1 polyp of some of my zoas being consumed by another animal in the tank.

I don't deny this could work, I understand the concept and am actually pretty intrigued in setting up a real natural, macroalgae ridden, throw and go style tank. I imagine it takes a long long time to recreate what is being talked about here, but is an interesting idea.

I would have to disagree with you about it being hard to recreate. The way I see it, and experience it, all it takes is pushing onward after a few losses and feeding fish a very good diet and large amounts of food and helps to have a means of reducing parasite numbers like UV or ozone etc.

Curious... have many people experienced massive ich/velvet/parasite outbreaks multiple times? I could be completely off in this assumption but it seems a tank with survivors from an outbreak won't likely have another or as bad of an outbreak as the first time with incoming fish. Obviously the ones who made it the first time will do better but seems new fish also far better.

 

[chicago]

Paul..Thank you for taking on this thread. Nice information. Much appreciated..

 

[sp1187]

Thanks Paul.

 

[Huff747]

What if vs hashing on past tense reefs, all that energy was focused on bringing in, and documenting the claims made using brand new tanks, like fifty new examples we could watch

That would change the current destiny of only convincing people who already use Paul’s method, into something WORK based and LIVE time coaching examples which is article and book gold. Though I cannot sail, I’ve wrested the wheel away somehow and am rolling it leeward into rational waters.

Make this a new tank example work thread, 20% commentary about current running reefs we didn’t get to track from the start, and 80% new tanks where that’s happening live time. These are the ideal ratios, there’s science that can be extracted from Paul’s thread here but not if y’all continue on current path

Not sure if my tanks count or fit your desires but for the most part I have one example of each style and they're both too young to say whether or not they are a success but so far both appear to be doing well.

My first tank I started (a 40 breeder) isn't exactly like @Paul B (not sure anything can be). I live in the midwest so I have to make water from a mix, I can't collect my own stuff from the ocean. When I started this tank I was pretty terrified of copper. I think Humblefish's explanation of why copper works even starts with something along the lines of "it works because it's a poison and the fish can survive in it longer than the parasites". Being new that was a scary thought of me trying to poison the fish just the right amount and while I didn't drop fish directly into the tank I put them in a temporary QT for observation (most of them I did treat with Prazipro because it was deemed "safe"). Also I was concerned with how low the salinity is when they arrived so it was easier to lower the salinity of the QT tank and raise it over time. Then they went into the display.

My second tank (a 6ft 125) is for the most part following the @HotRocks / @4FordFamily / @Humblefish method (including that it's probably overstocked, but I also hopefully am following their aggressive nutrient export philosophy as well). The first fish for it came from @Humblefish and subsequent fish did go through copper checked with a Hannah Checker by me.

I spend probably too much time staring at both tanks trying to see if I see any "spots" rather than just enjoying them and to the best of my limited ability I have not seen any, at least any that fit the bill. I have seen Lympho and had a Hippo Tang that had random spots even during 60 days of copper (long story on why it was 60 days) that I don't believe could have been ich and he was traded in anyway so I wouldn't be even more overstocked. I have or have had fish from at least 3 different online vendors, craigslist, LFS, forum members, and Petco spread between the tanks. Recently I got the last fish out of QT for the 125 and moved the black mollies I had converted for the QT tank into the 40 Breeder. I have never seen a spot on them either through all of this. Not sure it means much yet but I haven't lost a fish that made it to the display other than 1 that jumped and now the lids are always on. I have lost fish in QT. I lost 2 dwarf angels probably to ammonia poisoning so I started using more media in my QT tanks and that seemed to allow me to get other angels through. I lost 3 tangs but I think all 3 arrived in too bad of shape for me to save them. 2 from the same order came in with Lympho and extremely thin, was honestly the only fish I've received where I was disappointed in what I received, and a third never ate a bite and looked like it's mouth was injured, maybe during shipping because it was a phenomenal looking fish otherwise.

I also have a coral/invert QT tank to run corals and inverts through before they go in and not going to lie I can't wait to take it down and have one fewer tank to manage.

Not sure if any of this helps or fits the bill but the TL,DR version is I have one tank along the lines of Paul's and one tank along the lines of QT everything and other than the bryopsis (a topic for another day, in the 40 Breeder that makes me want to shut it down) all the fish seem happy. The black mollies in the 40 are still spot free, my mandarin eats white worms and has a BBS feeder both thanks to @Paul B threads and she (I think it's a she) also eats frozen. And in the 125 I have a PBT (don't yell at me tang police) that has been in the display now for at least 2 months with no signs of issue.

 

[Halal Hotdog]

Paul I appreciate you sharing the experience you have had over the last few decades. I also appreciate you stressing this method is a bit unorthodox and not for everyone. The biggest take home I pull from your post is the need for biodiversity. I feel this is a topic that will be researched more as time goes on. Unfortunately right now there is no ICP to test all the microfuana living in our systems. Every living creature does have a predator to an extent, the only time it becomes complicated is when those predators are obligate for a specific species. Meaning that some parasites and diseases may have a predator that only eats that organism and nothing else, which would make inoculating a tank impossible unless that food source was already present.

 

[Fishfinder]

Not to beat Paul to the punch but he mentioned those a couple pages back:

Thanks I missed that

 

[najer]

Neglect etc. will crash any tank and no method will prevent that. But if the fish are very healthy, they can take a lot more than semi healthy fish. We can tell very healthy fish because they will fill with eggs or spawn if they have the conditions or a partner. All healthy female fish fill with eggs and fish that are not in perfect health do not. If you have a pair of almost anything and they never spawn, they are not healthy as most of what fish do is poop and spawn.

Najer, I would consider that a healthy tank despite the cyano and algae. Those things would be to a fishes liking although not usually ours.
That growth will not effect the health of the tank and will increase biodiversity.
That has happened to my reef a number of times. The corals and fish flourished and I didn't do anything to alleviate it but it straightened out on it's own.

Here is my reef many years ago with a hair algae infestation. I didn't panic or add manatees. I let it run it's course and it straightened out by itself leaving the water healthier. I didn't lose any corals or fish and as a matter of fact, the creature health was better than it ever was. Fish don't care about algae and are used to it.


This 10 year old mandarin thrived in my tank because of the growth on the rocks. Clean rocks equal dead mandarins.

Najer

Id like to have that tank in my sand rinse thread for ocd types but if not, I must admit that's what most reefs look like in person (the only ones I saw were caymans in the 90s, it looks like Paul's pics as well from his dives) and that diversity is likely to suppress disease. It looks neat agreed. Now that is live rock.

Page 7 Simon, catch up tomorrow!
I have 2 mandarins, a sump fuge and a display refugium, because they told me I couldn't do this sort of thing with no waterchanges, no fish qt and manual dosing and ro top ups, I would also recommend people do waterchanges and observe fish.
Observe fish, if you wan't to qt fish then set up a qt that is a mini reef ( I have the display fuge, mostly macros and softies), less stress, let them just go about their business!

 

[Lowell Lemon]

The best tanks I ever had started with fresh live rock. I often stocked the inverts first including many filter feeders. If you have the patience hold off on the fish until the six month mark and see how your fish fair in a more mature natural system. This is completely apposed to the nuked dry rock for fear of introduction of some unknown bad actor that many ascribe too today. If you must use dead rock at least consider adding some real live rock to mature the system before trying to add fish and sps corals. We had so much more success in the 80's and 90's this way. I believe biodiversity is essential to long term success. We often set up complete reef tanks in one day with no losses for the many trade shows we attended in the aquarium industry. The secret was transfer from an active long term holding system set up months in advance to mature the rock and filter systems.

This is just another reason for long term success.

 

[roberthu526]

I can’t agree. I really doubt your tank can withstand velvet. I was like you when I first started and I was doing fine until last year I ran into velvet. Now I QT and run UV on all my tanks.