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

[MnFish1]

Parasites would cease to exist if fish in the sea were immune. Quite the opposite is true, parasitic infections are extremely common and by some proxies on the rise (google disease related to sushi eating in Japan). Out of the sea of studies on this here's one if interested: https://www.int-res.com/articles/feature/q002p001.pdf

Parasites do kill fish in the ocean. While most fish in the ocean likely succumb to predation before parasites, parasitic infections do cause small and large scale dieoffs.

Some examples:

https://hmr.biomedcentral.com/track/pdf/10.1007/BF01989323?site=hmr.biomedcentral.com
https://news.nationalgeographic.com...ills-sharks-rays-san-francisco-bay-protozoan/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14710756
https://hmr.biomedcentral.com/track/pdf/10.1007/BF01989316

As for fish ran through QT being sterile and not being able to spawn etc:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jwas.12426

"Prior to introduction into established recirculating systems, all fish were subjected to a 30‐d quarantine period. A prophylactic treatment regime consisting of a chloroquine phosphate bath (10 mg/L for 30 d), levamisole hydrochloride feed (4 g/kg feed, three doses), and praziquantel bath (6 mg/L for 24 h, two doses) was administered to reduce the potential for transmission of parasites from the wild broodstock into the culture environment."

Thanks for this. Like I said in another post - its debatable whether one should put a tang in a 20 gallon long tang - its not debatable to say that feeding fish CI makes them more immune to CI or that non-exposure to CI or velvet destroys their immune system.... How immunity works etc is not a 'debate' - its not based on 'opinion' or what someone thinks. Again - Im not debating that Paul's method is not successful (OR Atoll) - but its like saying me saying 'When its not cloudy the sky is blue because of the way light is filtered in the atmosphere' and Paul saying 'I disagree'.

 

[atoll]

Frankly I don't think tangs are 'ich' magnets. Firstly - they are bigger fish - they tend to be darker - and thus CI is easier to see. Many fish get Ci - and you dont ever even see the spots (if they are healthy). I dont think (and this is my anecdote lol) - that tangs that are well fed and healthy have any more or less immunity to CI than other fish (except those that have extremely heavy slime coats)

Not sure how true this is but smooth skined fish like powder blues and Achile tangs being scaleless? are more prone to itch where scaled fish are less likely to secumb to itch. Is the slime? On a scaleless fish less effective or so thin to make them more open to itch attack?
I go with environment as being a big issue and stress brought on by not providing the right environment for many of the larger fish or even the smaller ones I favour bought but not exclusively.

 

[MnFish1]

Parasites would cease to exist if fish in the sea were immune.

The reason this is extremely important - is that words have definitions. By definition - immune means that fish can fight off an infection (i.e. there is no way for the parasite to get into the host to do whatever it needs to do to survive). If every fish were 'immune' there is no way for any fish to become infected - and the parasite would not survive. Now one could suggest that a parasite is not really 'an infection' - but in that case - no fish could be immune. In fact - healthy animals 'tolerate' parasites in general - they come and go. Some become immune and they are not re-infected. Some become resistant because they have 'some 'immunity - and a couple parasites survive but most cant get through. Its all about what he word 'immune' means. Its not the same as 'resistant' or 'tolerant' to

 

[MnFish1]

Not sure how true this is but smooth skined fish like powder blues and Achile tangs being scaleless? are more prone to itch where scaled fish are less likely to secumb to itch. Is the slime? On a scaleless fish less effective or so thin to make them more open to itch attack?
I go with environment as being a big issue and stress brought on by not providing the right environment for many of the larger fish or even the smaller ones I favour bought but not exclusively.

Tangs have scales - they are small scales.

 

[MnFish1]

Not sure how true this is but smooth skined fish like powder blues and Achile tangs being scaleless? are more prone to itch where scaled fish are less likely to secumb to itch. Is the slime? On a scaleless fish less effective or so thin to make them more open to itch attack?
I go with environment as being a big issue and stress brought on by not providing the right environment for many of the larger fish or even the smaller ones I favour bought but not exclusively.

FYI - here is an interesting article. Whether its correct or not - well - IDK

https://www.bluezooaquatics.com/resources.asp?show=378

 

[atoll]

Tangs have scales - they are small scales.

Thanks. Maybe the scales are less effective at resisting attack by itch or perhaps a lack of mucous from weakened fish following capture. The only tang with small scales I have kept was a regal tang and I sold it on when it became too big for my 130 gallon many years ago.

 

[Scott Campbell]

Do people who live in a bubble because they have no immune system die of old age? I don't think so because those fish are not healthy and neither is a fish IMO whose immunity is compromised.
Immunity is a big part of a fish and a fish with no immunity is not a complete fish. So I will ask again. How many quarantined fish on here died of old age? I am not sure what they will die of, but I personally have not seen any. Have you?



I am 70, that makes me a Geezer.



In my opinion, that is fantastic.



Yes, I would. If your fish died of a parasite, that is because you let him die from that parasite. Fish should never die from a parasite and I am pretty sure they don't in the sea. Fish should be immune from parasites, but if they were quarantined, they will not be. Healthy fish in a natural non quarantined tank are immune to parasites just as they are in the sea. That is the entire basis of this thread. How to keep fish in a non quarantined tank without them "ever" dying from a parasite or anything else except old age.

"But" if a fish such as a tang dies of a parasite after 30 years, I would call that a success because that fish probably died of old age. As a fish gets near the end of it's life span, it's immune system doesn't work very well just like any organism when it is near death. It will succumb to a parasite, bacteria or virus. They after all have to die from something and we can call it anything we want but it is old age. My Mother died a few years ago. The death certificate said Heart Failure. She was 99 so she really died of old age no matter what they call it.



Not exactly .. He was not successful with "That" fish. He may be successful with the rest of his fish.
If you think you are successful if your fish die after 4 or 5 years you have a very low bar.



Many people forget, I have had my tank for 47 years which is much longer than most of our fish normally live so I have lost hundreds of fish. The ones that jumped out, starved, or were eaten by something else were not a success and I failed with those fish. I fail with corals all the time because corals live forever. Yes,I said forever. But if a fish dies from a disease or parasite, it was not the fishes fault,it was your fault. Even in a power failure, if you did not make provisions for a power failure it was your fault, up t a point. I have a generator but if the power is out for a long time, I will not be able to get gas so maybe the fish will freeze. But at least I tried. So far, my fish lived through many blackouts, storms, hurricanes etc. I have lost fish and corals many times and it was my fault. I went to Germany and left a fish sitter in charge that had no idea how to take care of fish. The water level dropped about 7" and I lost most of my corals. I posted that in my tank thread about 7 years ago. I also killed many fish with Clorox by accident, but it was still my fault so I failed. We fail all the time and it is part of life.
But my fish all die of old age or jumping out or starving because I stupidly got a fish I couldn't properly feed. They never die of parasites or anything else. Never.

I lost a dragon faced pipefish last week. He couldn't find enough to eat and I knew he wouldn't. My friend gave me two of them and I didn't realize they were so large. I still have the other one but I doubt he will die of old age, so I will fail with those fish. My fireclown is 27 years old so if he dies now, I will consider that a success as that is close to what I feel a clownfish should live.

Your missing the basis of this thread which is keeping fish healthy and letting them die of old age.

Paul

I agree with basically everything you do and have run my 30+ year old tank in the same fashion as your 47 year old tank. (Minus the undergravel filter and minus the ozone.) Have also been at this since the 1970's. But I think you are mistaken in directly linking fish health with an absence of quarantine. Simply because there is no one way to quarantine. If I were to set up a quarantine tank I would simply mimic my main tank with rock, bacteria, worms, parasites, etc taken from my main tank. So it would seem silly to argue than such a quarantine procedure would diminish disease resistance. I would simply be isolating a fish under the exact same parameters before adding the fish to the main tank. Which I believe is a very sensible approach - especially if you have a tank filled with expensive fish. And yes - having faced the prospect of life in a bubble after a bone marrow transplant many years ago I can myself confirm that is not ideal. But dying from exposure to something like the ebola virus is also not ideal. Exposure to some viruses is clearly not helpful. Disease avoidance is often just as important as disease resistance. To argue that disease tolerance and resistance is all that matters is far too simplistic an argument.

What I see as the core debate is a philosophical difference between reefkeepers who want to keep a "clean" tank with "clean" fish in contrast to reefkeepers who embrace all the mess that nature offers. Both approaches can work and I believe there is merit to both approaches. The forum is awash in posts talking about sand rinses, large water changes, detritus removal, "infestations" and such on one side and no water changes, refugiums, carbon dosing to promote bacterial growth, algae filters, ignoring water parameters and such on the other side. I personally feel the clean tank approach is likely to eventually fail for two reasons: 1) An overly clean tank often creates an environmental void. And that void is likely to someday be filled with something harmful. And 2) The burden of maintaining a balanced clean system falls very heavily on the reefkeeper. And that reefkeeper is likely to someday lose focus or not have the time to maintain the tank properly. (Bacteria and algae don't seem to get distracted....) But to be honest there are downsides to the "messy" approach. I have to be more conscious of oxygen levels, stocking levels, power outages and all that accompanies keeping a tank full of microfauna.

So I believe your argument against quarantine is flawed. One can very simply set up a quarantine tank that exposes fish to "normal" parasites and bacterial / viral diseases while also protecting the health of the main tank from exposure to lethal diseases. A quarantine tank is just a tool. It can be helpful or harmful dependent on implementation. I believe your fish live long lives because you avoid purchasing seriously diseased fish, you provide an environment with lots of rock and natural hiding places, you provide excellent quality food, you allow for microfauna that the fish can graze on throughout the day, and you have set up as natural an environment as possible. I don't believe the absence of a quarantine period is really a significant factor. I do feel many clean tank proponents attempt to somehow "disinfect" new fish through an overly harsh quarantine procedure. As perhaps a misguided attempt to limit "infestations" in the tank. Which I believe is indeed overly harmful and stressful and perhaps even lethal. If this is what you are arguing against - then yes, I agree with you. But I cannot agree that the absence of any and all quarantine procedures will guarantee healthier fish.

Scott

 

[atoll]

FYI - here is an interesting article. Whether its correct or not - well - IDK

https://www.bluezooaquatics.com/resources.asp?show=378

Intresting and agree with most of it well the parts about food environment even that they are not itch magnets as such unless weakend as I have suggested above.

 

[DrewBrees713]

In the years I have been at this I have probably had every kind of tang there is. I hate tangs but I don't remember them dying of parasites unless it was 40 years ago when my fish all were dying of something because I was stupid and didn't realize anything about immunity. All I knew was copper.

Cool,i can certainly understand and appreciate your POV and others’. I do agree with both sides ,to some extent, so i really have no dog in this fight. Just dont want a newbie to read this thread and come away with the assumption that it’s Ok to not QT. Thanks!

 

[MnFish1]

Cool,i can certainly understand and appreciate your POV and others’. I do agree with both sides ,to some extent, so i really have no dog in this fight. Just dont want a newbie to read this thread and come away with the assumption that it’s Ok to not QT. Thanks!

Curious - what do you think the 'fight is' after reading?

 

[DrewBrees713]

Curious - what do you think the 'fight is' after reading?

I see what youre doing

 

[Paul B]

EmdeReef. Thank you for those links. Some of them are to small for me to read but they seem to be a fresh water leech and most of it is about aquacultured fish. I know the first link is anyway. For the purpose of this thread we are talking about Ich and velvet. We normally don't get fresh water leeches and worms infecting our reefs. In my 50 years of diving I have never seen a fish with a case of ich or velvet. I do see occasionally a large parasite on a fish, that is rather common.

The second link is about something killing sharks and Rays in San Francisco bay by infecting their brains.

The third one is about a freshwater leech that infects salmon when they enter freshwater to spawn. It also says the fish that recover become immune.

The fourth link is about leeches on flounders.

As for fish ran through QT being sterile and not being able to spawn etc:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jwas.12426

The link states
Quote:
These fish were sourced from wild stocks through commercial ornamental wholesalers. Prior to introduction into established recirculating systems, all fish were subjected to a 30‐d quarantine period. End Quote.

If you read this thread (I wouldn't have) you would have seen that I mentioned that a 30 day quarantine period is fine and will not effect a fishes immunity.

This is like what MnFish1 does all the time. He miss quotes me. He mentioned that I said "Parameters are not important".
But if he quoted the entire sentence he would have seen where I said " Parameters are not "That" important when it comes to fish but very important with corals and I stand by that. Fish don't care that much about calcium, magnesium, iodine, Po4 etc. But it is tiring to go back to re read all this stuff as I really don't have anything to prove.

Not sure what that is from, who said it, whatever. Being 50 something and not knowing anything about my family history I measure success by my children shaking hands, looking at peoples eyes when they speak, and understanding nothing is free in life. So for me - I consider that a long success. It is all I got.

With regards to fish and corals - as long as they are not treated as commodities and the hobbyist cared for it to the best of his/her ability then I would call that success.

Saf1, of course I think the same way with my children and grand Children. I think I am successful with them. They are happy which makes me happy and that is the most important thing. But we have to have some standard when we are talking about pets, turtles or fish. They don't look anyone in the eye or shake hands. We are taking these creatures out of the sea by the millions just to satisfy our selfish wants so we should try to keep them at least as long as they will live in the sea. Lifespan is one test. Spawning is another. If we keep a tang for a few years we may consider our self successful. But if he dies 10 years before his natural lifespan, that fish may disagree with you.

The purpose of this thread which is way off course was to suggest a different way to keep a tank, by not quarantining. I never said, "Do not quarantine"
If you want to go that route, do it. It's fine. This Is just another way. I am sorry there is so many pages of nonsense that has nothing to do with the original thread.

 

[MnFish1]

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.

Curious - what do you base this on. I mean how would you determine if a fish died months later because it was caught with cyanide vs another cause in the tank. What is the rationale that his happens (except in rare cases)?

 

[MnFish1]

This is like what MnFish1 does all the time. He miss quotes me. He mentioned that I said "Parameters are not important".

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.

Paul up until this point - I have thought you were an honorable person that was just a bit mistaken. Now I believe you actually have a bit of an issue. If you think the word 'that' means that I'm misquoting you - I'm sorry - I disagree.

99.999999999999% of people polled would answer the question "is a nitrate value above 100 good or bad for a tank?" that it's bad.

The fact that you tried to mess with the wording of your post that way makes me think that you're not as honorable as you pretend to be. The issue is that you suggested in an article that nitrates of 160 are basically no problem. Of course I dont know what was in your brain when you said that - but I will go out on a limb. I would suggest that before R2R publish the next of your articles that they carefully edit it for ludicrous ridiculousness. I hope your 'friend' @Humblefish thinks twice before he asks you to write another article. I apologize for using that word - but I'm sorry I cant think of another word. Mods - ban me if you well for it. Its not meant to be offensive - but For heavens sake where does it end.

 

[MnFish1]

EmdeReef. Thank you for those links. Some of them are to small for me to read but they seem to be a fresh water leech and most of it is about aquacultured fish. I know the first link is anyway. For the purpose of this thread we are talking about Ich and velvet. We normally don't get fresh water leeches and worms infecting our reefs. In my 50 years of diving I have never seen a fish with a case of ich or velvet. I do see occasionally a large parasite on a fish, that is rather common.

The second link is about something killing sharks and Rays in San Francisco bay by infecting their brains.

The third one is about a freshwater leech that infects salmon when they enter freshwater to spawn. It also says the fish that recover become immune.

The fourth link is about leeches on flounders.



The link states
Quote:
These fish were sourced from wild stocks through commercial ornamental wholesalers. Prior to introduction into established recirculating systems, all fish were subjected to a 30‐d quarantine period. End Quote.

If you read this thread (I wouldn't have) you would have seen that I mentioned that a 30 day quarantine period is fine and will not effect a fishes immunity.

This is like what MnFish1 does all the time. He miss quotes me. He mentioned that I said "Parameters are not important".
But if he quoted the entire sentence he would have seen where I said " Parameters are not "That" important when it comes to fish but very important with corals and I stand by that. Fish don't care that much about calcium, magnesium, iodine, Po4 etc. But it is tiring to go back to re read all this stuff as I really don't have anything to prove.





Saf1, of course I think the same way with my children and grand Children. I think I am successful with them. They are happy which makes me happy and that is the most important thing. But we have to have some standard when we are talking about pets, turtles or fish. They don't look anyone in the eye or shake hands. We are taking these creatures out of the sea by the millions just to satisfy our selfish wants so we should try to keep them at least as long as they will live in the sea. Lifespan is one test. Spawning is another. If we keep a tang for a few years we may consider our self successful. But if he dies 10 years before his natural lifespan, that fish may disagree with you.

The purpose of this thread which is way off course was to suggest a different way to keep a tank, by not quarantining. I never said, "Do not quarantine"
If you want to go that route, do it. It's fine. This Is just another way. I am sorry there is so many pages of nonsense that has nothing to do with the original thread.

Paul you are disingenuous - its the arguments the fake false ridiculous arguments you make in the article that have caused pages of nonsense. not anyone here.

 

[MnFish1]

Btw - I apologize if I lost my cool responding to the last couple posts - I'm still waiting for my discus to feed me eggs Benedict..... But frankly I've had it with this thread lol. You cant make up science or facts If your 30 50 or 70. If your a veteran or a draft dodger. - if you've had a tank for 10 years of 50 years. I'm sorry - there is reality and there is fantasy. .... We've entered fantasyland. I no longer feel the need to be here.

 

[Paul B]

Well being we disagree on just about everything, I think that's a good thing. And you should write a book of your own.

 

[MnFish1]

Well being we disagree on just about everything, I think that's a good thing. And you should write a book of your own.

LOL -well lots of people have written books Paul - Hitler, Stalin, Donald Trump, Bill Clinton. And thousands of people hat have had self published books. Certainly you dont think writing a book should mean you have any credibility. And dont try to pretend like we disagree on everything. We agree on lots of things. You're evidence./rational is what we dont agree on.

 

[Paul B]

Scott, thank you for that post, I just saw it. Now that Mn left I can answer that as best I can.

. If I were to set up a quarantine tank I would simply mimic my main tank with rock, bacteria, worms, parasites, etc taken from my main tank.

I agree with this statement and is what I would probably do. But for "this" article what I mean by quarantining is keeping a fish separate from other fish for 76 days. (I know I said 72 before but I was wrong as I don't do it so I am not an expert on it).
During that 76 days that fish is kept in a mostly bare tank so that if it has to be medicated, or removed, it can with out too much difficulty.
The fish also can not be fed live foods for fear that you may introduce a pathogen (and we know what they are so I won't go over it)

What you are proposing is not quarantine. It is just separation. At least that is what I think you mean.

 

[hotashes]

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A.