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

[MnFish1]

Not what you said before hence my replies or I wouldn't have but whatever you think fine. Those of us who have success not QTing over many years will continue to practice our methods and those that believe QTing is the only way to ensure disease free aquariums will continue or if thats their preferred method. However? the fact remains some of us have kept marines for many years not QTing and we have done so with some of the most delicate fish including tangs and angels.

What you’re not understanding or remembering is that I don’t QT. I have never argued against your method. I have only disagreed with some of Paul’s rationale in the article that is factually incorrect. I have no feelings positive or negative about what you or anyone else does except the statements about not checking parameters in Paul’s article - because it’s not important. That I have a bit of disagreement. Btw are your nitrates 160?

 

[atoll]

What you’re not understanding or remembering is that I don’t QT. I have never argued against your method. I have only disagreed with some of Paul’s rationale in the article that is factually incorrect. I have no feelings positive or negative about what you or anyone else does except the statements about not checking parameters in Paul’s article - because it’s not important. That I have a bit of disagreement. Btw are your nitrates 160?

I do understand what you posting and have responded to those posts before.

I have posted my parameters before which are NO3 5ppm or less PO4 0.02/3 but they have not always been so low. I have an efficent waterfall ATS growing Ulva for the last 2 years prior my readings whould be much higher.

 

[MnFish1]

I do understand what you posting and have responded to those posts before.

I have posted my parameters before which are NO3 5ppm or less PO4 0.02/3 but they have not always been so low. I have an efficent waterfall ATS growing Ulva for the last 2 years prior my readings whould be much higher.

Let me know in which post I said I favored qt over your method. You’ve responded to a lot of posts saying that you and Paul do things a certain way and suggest that people don’t believe you. Everyone believes you not everyone myself included believes the rationale.

 

[atoll]

Let me know in which post I said I favored qt over your method. You’ve responded to a lot of posts saying that you and Paul do things a certain way and suggest that people don’t believe you. Everyone believes you not everyone myself included believes the rationale.

I don't believe I suggested you did also not everyone agrees as can be seen reading back. I am not really concerned if people agree with me Paul etc and the whole point of Paul's thread here is to present his methods and a different way he and a few more keep our tanks healthy not QTing now that IMO is the whole point of this thread and to debate, ask questions and to present Paul's method. Just so happens some of us do similar things and support Paul. Now as to the theory of it all Paul has his thoughts and beliefs and puts them forward you and others may disagree with them and offer an alternative view, that's fine.

 

[Paul B]

Disagree. You have no way to know what your fish died from. And no one really knows what old age is for a fish let alone many different species.

But that said. Let’s say a person sets up a tank. With 10 fish. That are tank raised. They are never exposed to CI or velvet but they are exposed to bacteria etc. ie their water and food is not sterile. What prevents that tank owner from being successful and raising fish to an old age? I mean were and smallpox and measles. trying to eliminate malaria. There is no reason that a fish raised in a tank without velvet won’t live as long as one exposed to it.

I disagree with your disagreement. The maximum age can be determined approximately by how long the longest anyone has had that fish. It is not a perfect system but it is all we have. We know some clownfish live into their 30s so if you have one that dies at 15, that is a failure. Sorry but it is the same as a human. The oldest human lived to about 118 or so. If a person dies at 50, I wouldn't consider that a long life. Would you?
We don't really know how long tangs live but I know I have kept them to about 12 years old. They probably live longer but I know they at least live to 12 so if one died at 6. That is a failure. My mandarin is over 10 years old and I have kept them longer. Carp live about 40 years and some lungfish live for 80 years. Most people keep fish 3 or 4 years and think that is success but it is dismal failure.

I wrote an article about how to tell if a fish dies of old age if you are interested. I am qualified to write such an article because I probably have a tank longer than any researcher, but I am not an expert although being my fish only die of old age, I have seen a lot of fish die that way. If someone only has a tank 5 or 10 years most likely none of their fish died of old age unless they bought Geezer fish.
http://www.saltwatersmarts.com/how-to-tell-marine-fish-dying-old-age-5782/

How many people on here out of the thousands on this site have fish that were quarantined and died of old age?

 

[MnFish1]

I disagree with your disagreement. The maximum age can be determined approximately by how long the longest anyone has had that fish. It is not a perfect system but it is all we have. We know some clownfish live into their 30s so if you have one that dies at 15, that is a failure. Sorry but it is the same as a human. The oldest human lived to about 118 or so. If a person dies at 50, I wouldn't consider that a long life. Would you?
We don't really know how long tangs live but I know I have kept them to about 12 years old. They probably live longer but I know they at least live to 12 so if one died at 6. That is a failure. My mandarin is over 10 years old and I have kept them longer. Carp live about 40 years and some lungfish live for 80 years. Most people keep fish 3 or 4 years and think that is success but it is dismal failure.

I wrote an article about how to tell if a fish dies of old age if you are interested. I am qualified to write such an article because I probably have a tank longer than any researcher, but I am not an expert although being my fish only die of old age, I have seen a lot of fish die that way. If someone only has a tank 5 or 10 years most likely none of their fish died of old age unless they bought Geezer fish.
http://www.saltwatersmarts.com/how-to-tell-marine-fish-dying-old-age-5782/

How many people on here out of the thousands on this site have fish that were quarantined and died of old age?

I will read the article. But I still diagree. The reason is that you are the only one person using your method for as long as you have so there is no way to know. Unless you know of a person or several people who quarantine and routinely lose fish below their life expectancies. And I mean by death as compared to stopping the hobby. Those people are successful. No? Ie there aren’t many people using your method that have fish die of old age either. Does that make them unsuccessful as well?

Ps you didn’t answer my question if you used tank raised fish and never exposed them to let’s say velvet and ci but fed and housed them well what would cause them not to die of old age? Same analogy why is the WHO trying to eliminate many parasites and diseases completely. It won’t harm people. No one recommends feeding malaria to people to make them immune.

 

[hotashes]

I wrote an article about how to tell if a fish dies of old age if you are interested. I am qualified to write such an article because I probably have a tank longer than any researcher, but I am not an expert although being my fish only die of old age, I have seen a lot of fish die that way. If someone only has a tank 5 or 10 years most likely none of their fish died of old age unless they bought Geezer fish.
http://www.saltwatersmarts.com/how-to-tell-marine-fish-dying-old-age-5782/

How many people on here out of the thousands on this site have fish that were quarantined and died of old age?

The “I have seen many fish die they way” comment, is that as in old age? You’re not that old yet @Paul B ha ha.

A.

 

[Mortie31]

Just to add to the age discussion I had 14 yr old Naso and purple tang, and I’m pretty certain I had had 2 yellow tail damsels for over 10 years and they were still going strong until I had the wipeout..

 

[MnFish1]

Just to add to the age discussion I had 14 yr old Naso and purple tang, and I’m pretty certain I had had 2 yellow tail damsels for over 10 years and they were still going strong until I had the wipeout..

I would call this successful. Unless the wipeout was caused by a parasite

 

[LovesDogs_CatsRokay]

I would call this successful. Unless the wipeout was caused by a parasite

Why is a fish dying from a parasite automatically declared a failure? Surely fish die in the wild from parasites at least some of the time. Would you call mother nature a failure? If a fish lives for 30 years, then gets a parasite and dies for some unknown reason, would you call that a failure? I wouldn't.

 

[mta_morrow]

Why is a fish dying from a parasite automatically declared a failure? Surely fish die in the wild from parasites at least some of the time. Would you call mother nature a failure? If a fish lives for 30 years, then gets a parasite and dies for some unknown reason, would you call that a failure? I wouldn't.

Me neither??? That’s a big win in my book.

 

[Mortie31]

I would call this successful. Unless the wipeout was caused by a parasite

Check my post #638...

 

[MnFish1]

Why is a fish dying from a parasite automatically declared a failure? Surely fish die in the wild from parasites at least some of the time. Would you call mother nature a failure? If a fish lives for 30 years, then gets a parasite and dies for some unknown reason, would you call that a failure? I wouldn't.

Paul’s thesis is that people who qt lose fish faster than people that use his method. He claims unless fish die of old age an aquarist is not successful. I was using his logic. With which I disagree

 

[LovesDogs_CatsRokay]

Paul’s thesis is that people who qt lose fish faster than people that use his method. He claims unless fish die of old age an aquarist is not successful. I was using his logic. With which I disagree

Until all of Pauls fish actually DO die of old age then he can't declare himself successful using this logic. There's no way to know what might happen to the fish tomorrow or next week or next year.

 

[MnFish1]

Check my post #638...

By the way dying of a parasite is not dying of old age according to Paul. That wa part of the discussion. Lol

 

[MnFish1]

Check my post #638...

By the way dying of a parasite is not dying of old age according to Paul. That was part of the discussion. Lol

 

[mav1ms]

I shared a story about ich entering my system on my build thread you can find at https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/north-americas-highest-reef-tank.358511/page-2#post-5278312. I had it enter my system last March and I did lose fish, ironically it was the fish that I moved to quarantine. So, granted it's been slightly less than a year since that happened and I have only been running without quarantining for 10 months; however, I would say that it is working. I do still put any new fish I get in an observation tank. My reason for this is because more than likely they were fed sterile food up to this point, feeding them the dirty worms at least gives them something along with what should be some possible exposure of Ich because I do use my tank water in the observation tank. So I start them on the worms immediately and as soon as they eat regularly I put them in my DT. I did that a few times between last April and December of 2018 when I purchased my last fish. I haven't lost a single fish in my DT with the Ich since taking this approach. I have lost fish in the observation tank simply because they were what I consider a "failure-to-thrive", they all died within the first 48 hours which in theory isn't enough time for ich to take its toll.

 

[atoll]

I shared a story about ich entering my system on my build thread you can find at https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/north-americas-highest-reef-tank.358511/page-2#post-5278312. I had it enter my system last March and I did lose fish, ironically it was the fish that I moved to quarantine. So, granted it's been slightly less than a year since that happened and I have only been running without quarantining for 10 months; however, I would say that it is working. I do still put any new fish I get in an observation tank. My reason for this is because more than likely they were fed sterile food up to this point, feeding them the dirty worms at least gives them something along with what should be some possible exposure of Ich because I do use my tank water in the observation tank. So I start them on the worms immediately and as soon as they eat regularly I put them in my DT. I did that a few times between last April and December of 2017 when I purchased my last fish. I haven't lost a single fish in my DT with the Ich since taking this approach. I have lost fish in the observation tank simply because they were what I consider a "failure-to-thrive", they all died within the first 48 hours which in theory isn't enough time for ich to take its toll.

Sounds reasonable to me. What is also often forgotten is unfortunately we are still getting some fish drug caught fish. With cyanide caught fish it can kill them immediately or many months later depending on how much of a dose a fish gets etc. Often they don't feed or they feed and don't put on weight. Many just die all of a sudden for what would seem no reason at all. I did have one fish that never eat and died on me my suspicion is it was cyanide or other poisoning but apart from that my fish have all been fine living long healthy lives.

 

[Mortie31]

By the way dying of a parasite is not dying of old age according to Paul. That was part of the discussion. Lol

I think these fish would of still been alive if I hadn’t made a misjudgement, yes they were oldish but very healthy.. I keep Japanese koi as well and in Japan they have them recorded at over 100 years old, so do we actually know how old can fish live to?

 

[Mortie31]

Just to add to the age discussion I had 14 yr old Naso and purple tang, and I’m pretty certain I had had 2 yellow tail damsels for over 10 years and they were still going strong until I had the wipeout..

I should point out whilst I have never quarantined, I haven’t added mud, fsw, clams, mussels or worms, I have always fed a mixture of frozen mysis, nori and various pellets, so my methods are yet again different to Paul’s and Atolls, but I did provide a “safe” environment for my fish with tons of live rock with safe holes for the fish and rock to graze off...