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

[atoll]

Wilson Disease - NIDDK

Learn about Wilson disease, a genetic disorder that prevents the body from removing extra copper. Copper builds up in the liver, brain, eyes, and other organs.

www.niddk.nih.gov

 

[Snoopdog]

I just read in this month "Discover" magazine an article about to much copper in a person's blood. It causes a rare disease called "Wilsons disease". I never heard of it until today and have absolutely no idea if copper has the same effect on fish. But in Humans, it adversely affects our brain and causes us to have weird symptoms akin to a drug user.

The one person in the article stopped shaving or washing and his girlfriend broke up with him because of his nasty attitude.
Besides his attitude and appearance, it affects your muscles.

One symptom in "Humans" is a ring around the iris in your eyes. As I said. I have no idea how it affects fish but it's interesting.

There is a great Dr House episode on Wilson's disease.

 

[Paul B]

I remember it.

Definition & Facts​

Wilson disease is a genetic disorder that prevents the body from removing extra copper, causing copper to build up in the liver, brain, eyes, and other organs. Without treatment, high copper levels can cause life-threatening organ damage.

Thanks Atoll.

 

[Sophie"s mom]

The other way to run a reef tank (No Quarantine)


I was asked by my friend Humblefish to start a thread on my practices of running a tank with no quarantine, hospital tanks, medications, dipping or almost anything else.

It is "not" just to take a fish from a store and drop it in your reef because that fish will probably die. You may not see many spots on fish in a store because just about all stores use medications in their tanks to suppress the parasites. They have to because they get new fish all the time from all over the world and they can't change all the water and sterilize their tanks in between shipments. But all fish are infected in a store and even in the sea. They swim in a soup of parasites, viruses and bacteria, some good, some not so good.

In the sea those pathogens are kept in check by each other as viruses prey on parasites and bacteria and other forces such as things exuded from corals and tend to keep everything in check. Of course they all prey on fish.

But fish have been around almost as long as those things and they evolved long ago to live in harmony with all of them. Fish eat parasites with every meal and those parasites are processed in the fishes kidney among other places and that causes the fish to exude antiparisitic and antibacterial properties in their slime. They constantly do this and it keeps parasites and bacteria from killing the fish even though some parasites will get through to sample some fish flesh.


Anyway, that is the basis for my method that I slowly learned starting in about 1973 when I had to keep fish in copper continuously as we all did. (20 pennies to the gallon) Our tanks were not reefs, we fed flakes, changed the water to much and took out the rocks and dead corals to bleach them whenever they turned green which was almost weekly. The fish were always stressed and it was hard to keep even damsels.

Then I started feeding things other than flakes, things like frozen clams, pieces of fish and live blackworms. In 7 weeks my blue devils spawned and kept spawning for 7 years. Spawning damsels is no great Whop but in those days few people could keep them alive for a few weeks.

I gradually learned that bacteria and parasites would not kill my fish as long as I didn't medicate them. It was backward thinking but remember there was no internet and I didn't even know anyone with a salt tank so I was on my own.

When I added a fish it normally would get spots and sometimes die, but most of the time the spots receded and the fish was fine and didn't get sick when I added a new fish.

That was how I learned my method which is not really a method but a lack of a method.

With my method you can not quarantine because that short circuits the process. I actually want parasites and bacteria as that is what the fish was swimming with in the sea a week before.

I just put the fish in my tank and normally the fish starts eating right away and is fine. About half the time the fish will show a few spots but they are very few and disappear in a day or two. Yes they finished their life cycle on that fish and dropped off to infect something else, but they can't because those fish are constantly exposed to parasites so they are immune.

The things I do “not” do is quarantine.

I do not ever feed dry foods such as flakes or pellets as those foods are sterile.

I do not suck every bit of detritus out of my tank


I do however always feed something with live bacteria in it such as frozen foods.

I feed whole foods with guts such as clams, mysis, mussels and I use LRS foods which is a commercial food which I consider the best. But I still want to give the fish something that I know has living bacteria in it. I try to feed a few times a week some live worms but sometimes I can’t. Where I live now I can’t get them but I do raise live whiteworms which live in dirt. I bought a few of them years ago and that batch is still living and reproducing. I like the worms because of the living bacteria in their guts and the dirt they are living in. Some people that have immune tanks never use live worms so they may not be necessary, but I use them when I can. These things need not be fed every day, but at least occasionally. But all foods should have bacteria in it and if you feed nothing but commercial food, I am not sure how much living bacteria is in that because you don’t know how old it is or what temperature it was stored at.



If you have access to a salt water beach, collect a little mud and sprinkle it around the tank. That is for bacterial diversity. If you can’t get that, you can use garden soil with no pesticides or fertilizer.

(I did not invent that, it was “Robert Straughn” The Father of salt water fish keeping.)

The idea is that I want parasites living in the tank along with the fish. They will keep reproducing and trying to infect fish but they will fail.

I know the argument that there is much more water in the sea than in a tank and the parasites are more numerous. But that is of no consequence because the fishes immune system will get as strong as it needs to be to repel parasites and the more parasites there are, the stronger the immune system.


If you quarantine fish, there will be nothing for the fish to become immune to and any slight infection will crash the tank. Fish are not delicate creatures that need coddling and they almost never get sick. They have a fantastic immune system as long as we don’t try to short circuit it.

I can’t remember the last time I lost a fish to disease but it was probably in the 80s. Virtually all of my fish only die of old age or jumping out. I do lose fish due to my stupidity like if I buy something that I can’t properly feed like shrimpfish, twin spot gobies, orange spotted filefish etc. My tank is not set up for those fish and I should not buy them. But everything else, with no exception live long enough for me to get tired of them and I give them away or they die of old age.

I do not like clownfish but one day about 27 years ago I bought a baby of what I thought was a red hawkfish. It turned out to be a Fireclown and I still have it. She also spawns a few times a week as all my paired fish do as all healthy fish carry eggs all the time.


If you have a tank full of quarantined fish, I am not sure how you could get those fish immune because that quarantining may have destroyed the immune system of those fish. It would be a long process because the fish would have to be infected, and then cured for them to become immune and you may lose some fish.


It would be much easier to start an immune tank from the start. Remember, if you see some parasites, think of that as a good thing and not something that you need to dip or treat. Yes, you may lost some fish in the beginning but your fish will become immune to just about everything and you will never need medications or disease forums. Many fish die in quarantine or right after so that is also not a panacea.
I did not mention parameters because IMO they are not that important for fish health. Corals, yes, but not fish. My nitrates were 160 for years and I never had a fish die and they continued to spawn.
This is my method which has worked well for decades and I never lose fish to disease which is something I think we all str

The other way to run a reef tank (No Quarantine)


I was asked by my friend Humblefish to start a thread on my practices of running a tank with no quarantine, hospital tanks, medications, dipping or almost anything else.

It is "not" just to take a fish from a store and drop it in your reef because that fish will probably die. You may not see many spots on fish in a store because just about all stores use medications in their tanks to suppress the parasites. They have to because they get new fish all the time from all over the world and they can't change all the water and sterilize their tanks in between shipments. But all fish are infected in a store and even in the sea. They swim in a soup of parasites, viruses and bacteria, some good, some not so good.

In the sea those pathogens are kept in check by each other as viruses prey on parasites and bacteria and other forces such as things exuded from corals and tend to keep everything in check. Of course they all prey on fish.

But fish have been around almost as long as those things and they evolved long ago to live in harmony with all of them. Fish eat parasites with every meal and those parasites are processed in the fishes kidney among other places and that causes the fish to exude antiparisitic and antibacterial properties in their slime. They constantly do this and it keeps parasites and bacteria from killing the fish even though some parasites will get through to sample some fish flesh.


Anyway, that is the basis for my method that I slowly learned starting in about 1973 when I had to keep fish in copper continuously as we all did. (20 pennies to the gallon) Our tanks were not reefs, we fed flakes, changed the water to much and took out the rocks and dead corals to bleach them whenever they turned green which was almost weekly. The fish were always stressed and it was hard to keep even damsels.

Then I started feeding things other than flakes, things like frozen clams, pieces of fish and live blackworms. In 7 weeks my blue devils spawned and kept spawning for 7 years. Spawning damsels is no great Whop but in those days few people could keep them alive for a few weeks.

I gradually learned that bacteria and parasites would not kill my fish as long as I didn't medicate them. It was backward thinking but remember there was no internet and I didn't even know anyone with a salt tank so I was on my own.

When I added a fish it normally would get spots and sometimes die, but most of the time the spots receded and the fish was fine and didn't get sick when I added a new fish.

That was how I learned my method which is not really a method but a lack of a method.

With my method you can not quarantine because that short circuits the process. I actually want parasites and bacteria as that is what the fish was swimming with in the sea a week before.

I just put the fish in my tank and normally the fish starts eating right away and is fine. About half the time the fish will show a few spots but they are very few and disappear in a day or two. Yes they finished their life cycle on that fish and dropped off to infect something else, but they can't because those fish are constantly exposed to parasites so they are immune.

The things I do “not” do is quarantine.

I do not ever feed dry foods such as flakes or pellets as those foods are sterile.

I do not suck every bit of detritus out of my tank


I do however always feed something with live bacteria in it such as frozen foods.

I feed whole foods with guts such as clams, mysis, mussels and I use LRS foods which is a commercial food which I consider the best. But I still want to give the fish something that I know has living bacteria in it. I try to feed a few times a week some live worms but sometimes I can’t. Where I live now I can’t get them but I do raise live whiteworms which live in dirt. I bought a few of them years ago and that batch is still living and reproducing. I like the worms because of the living bacteria in their guts and the dirt they are living in. Some people that have immune tanks never use live worms so they may not be necessary, but I use them when I can. These things need not be fed every day, but at least occasionally. But all foods should have bacteria in it and if you feed nothing but commercial food, I am not sure how much living bacteria is in that because you don’t know how old it is or what temperature it was stored at.



If you have access to a salt water beach, collect a little mud and sprinkle it around the tank. That is for bacterial diversity. If you can’t get that, you can use garden soil with no pesticides or fertilizer.

(I did not invent that, it was “Robert Straughn” The Father of salt water fish keeping.)

The idea is that I want parasites living in the tank along with the fish. They will keep reproducing and trying to infect fish but they will fail.

I know the argument that there is much more water in the sea than in a tank and the parasites are more numerous. But that is of no consequence because the fishes immune system will get as strong as it needs to be to repel parasites and the more parasites there are, the stronger the immune system.


If you quarantine fish, there will be nothing for the fish to become immune to and any slight infection will crash the tank. Fish are not delicate creatures that need coddling and they almost never get sick. They have a fantastic immune system as long as we don’t try to short circuit it.

I can’t remember the last time I lost a fish to disease but it was probably in the 80s. Virtually all of my fish only die of old age or jumping out. I do lose fish due to my stupidity like if I buy something that I can’t properly feed like shrimpfish, twin spot gobies, orange spotted filefish etc. My tank is not set up for those fish and I should not buy them. But everything else, with no exception live long enough for me to get tired of them and I give them away or they die of old age.

I do not like clownfish but one day about 27 years ago I bought a baby of what I thought was a red hawkfish. It turned out to be a Fireclown and I still have it. She also spawns a few times a week as all my paired fish do as all healthy fish carry eggs all the time.


If you have a tank full of quarantined fish, I am not sure how you could get those fish immune because that quarantining may have destroyed the immune system of those fish. It would be a long process because the fish would have to be infected, and then cured for them to become immune and you may lose some fish.


It would be much easier to start an immune tank from the start. Remember, if you see some parasites, think of that as a good thing and not something that you need to dip or treat. Yes, you may lost some fish in the beginning but your fish will become immune to just about everything and you will never need medications or disease forums. Many fish die in quarantine or right after so that is also not a panacea.
I did not mention parameters because IMO they are not that important for fish health. Corals, yes, but not fish. My nitrates were 160 for years and I never had a fish die and they continued to spawn.
This is my method which has worked well for decades and I never lose fish to disease which is something I think we all strive for.

Great post! I had a 110 g several years ago, and I never QT'd. or medicated and all my fish stayed very healthy. I never knew to do anything different. So I have set up a new tank, 90 g 15 years later, and my plan is to do it the same way. The one thing I will do different is leave my lights off for the first couple months trying to avoid the "ugly" phase. But I still have some of my old equipment, and my old mindset, so we will see.

 

[MnFish1]

The copper in Wilsons disease accumulates over years. The levels are far more than anything that would accumulate in our fish FYI

 

[Paul B]

A fishes life span is also about 10 times less than us and we are not dosed in copper like many fish are. We only get trace amounts in some food.

A fish is also thousands of times smaller than most of us are.

 

[MnFish1]

A fishes life span is also about 10 times less than us and we are not dosed in copper like many fish are. We only get trace amounts in some food.

A fish is also thousands of times smaller than most of us are.

Yes correct. However Wilsons disease has no relation to the use of copper in aquariums for 2-4 weeks. If you have some reason or data to compare the two - I'm willing to listen. However - IMHO - you're making a sensationalist claim about copper treatment that is not justified. It's like saying - xx percent of leukemia patients die due to infection from chemotherapy - so we shouldn't give chemotherapy to people.

In other words - your post is not a positive for copper in fish - but it is most certainly not a negative

 

[Paul B]

MnFish, you can read anything you like into that link I posted that someone else provided. Thats why I wrote this:

. I never heard of it until today and have absolutely no idea if copper has the same effect on fish. But in Humans, it adversely affects our brain and causes us to have weird symptoms akin to a drug user.

And thats all I will say about it. But have a great day.

 

[MnFish1]

MnFish, you can read anything you like into that link I posted that someone else provided. Thats why I wrote this:


And thats all I will say about it. But have a great day.

Thats all I said as well. "In other words - your post is not a positive for copper in fish - but it is most certainly not a negative".

 

[Nano_Man]

Great post! I had a 110 g several years ago, and I never QT'd. or medicated and all my fish stayed very healthy. I never knew to do anything different. So I have set up a new tank, 90 g 15 years later, and my plan is to do it the same way. The one thing I will do different is leave my lights off for the first couple months trying to avoid the "ugly" phase. But I still have some of my old equipment, and my old mindset, so we will see.

Yep your going in the right direction. Who says the new ways are better than the old ways . Keep it simple don’t overwhelm your fish with medication let them build up there own immune systems. And if you live near the sea get nsw for water changes and you won’t look back . Hate seeing people going down the rabbit hole on fancy equipment if your good with your hands you could make most of it for pennies. Good luck with your new journey

 

[Sophie"s mom]

Yep your going in the right direction. Who says the new ways are better than the old ways . Keep it simple don’t overwhelm your fish with medication let them build up there own immune systems. And if you live never the sea get nsw for water changes and you won’t look back . Hate seeing people going down the rabbit hole on fancy equipment if your good with your hands you could make most of it for pennies. Good luck with your new journey

Thank you for the vote of confidence! There is a lot to be said for tried and true. I do think lights have really come a LONG WAY! So I did dive into some nice LED lights.

 

[Nano_Man]

Thank you for the vote of confidence! There is a lot to be said for tried and true. I do think lights have really come a LONG WAY! So I did dive into some nice LED lights.

Yep led lights are new too me . It was the old tube lights then if you were fancy you had t5s which weren’t a bad light imo . Great to see you following the natural way . Good luck

 

[Nemo&Friends]

I just read in this month "Discover" magazine an article about to much copper in a person's blood. It causes a rare disease called "Wilsons disease". I never heard of it until today and have absolutely no idea if copper has the same effect on fish. But in Humans, it adversely affects our brain and causes us to have weird symptoms akin to a drug user.

The one person in the article stopped shaving or washing and his girlfriend broke up with him because of his nasty attitude.
Besides his attitude and appearance, it affects your muscles.

One symptom in "Humans" is a ring around the iris in your eyes. As I said. I have no idea how it affects fish but it's interesting.

I read this same article as I subscribe to that magazine. But, I also knew about that disease as my former neighbor's son died from it. He must have been in his late 40s or early 50s then. Though I understand that in minute quantity copper is necessary, I do not use it for my fish either and avoid all unnecessary med.
After all, copper kills invertebrate so it definitely is harmful for many living creatures, and possibly to a certain degree to all.

 

[EliMelly]

How are the worms doing? Where are you keeping them, feeding them?

Hey they did their job and got ick out of the tank. They’re hanging on by a thread rn I’m trying to raise them but it’s difficult as I’ve been so busy.

 

[salty joe]

I've heard to not try no QT unless your tank is established. I agree with this.
I've also heard that filter feeders like corals could prey upon fish parasites, IDK, could be.
I don't have corals yet but lots of bugs and worms of different types. I wonder if they prey upon parasites. I have seen a white spot once in a while and sometimes my fish scratch themselves against the sand. It seems to me that if something was not checking parasites they would explode in a closed system. My fish are doing great.

 

[Paul B]

I've heard to not try no QT unless your tank is established. I agree with this.

I also agree with that.