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

Lasse

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First sweet water foods often contain less fat than food made for saltwater.
It is one thing if an experienced aquarist with 10 or more years of going in and out of LFS dont quarantine.
He will like see more signs of parasites in the shop and not buy fishes in bad condition.
I love you Swenglish Stig. Its better than mine :) For all of you that do not speak Swedish - Swedish for freshwater is sötvatten. Directly translated - söt (sweet) vatten (water) what it spell - - - freshwater :) This remarks are from a guy (me) that talk English with a slight Swedish accident :)

Sincerely Lasse
 

mta_morrow

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Sorry, I don't have the time to read this whole thread at the moment, but did any new reefers take the bait? It's something I would consider. First and foremost because I will not have a qt tank and would like to give myself the best chance i can at being successful without one.
I started Reefing in 2014. To tanks and 30+ fish later I have NEVER lost a fish to a disease. I feed a homemade blend of ground up live oysters, mussels, and clams, then freeze into blocks. I also get fresh live clams and freeze. I have however lost fish that were sick when I purchased it received them. I have put ich covered fish in my tank as well as velvet. Most of Those fish died within a day and a few survived and are fine now. I have never seen any sign of disease or ich on my other fish. I also run UV 24/7.
 
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Paul B

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This remarks are from a guy (me) that talk English with a slight Swedish accident :)

Lasse, I never noticed any accent from you. :cool: I on the other hand speak perfect Brooklenese. :p

mta_morrow, I find the same thing. I can put any fish in my tank with any disease and it may die in a day or so. But if it lives, it will die of old age as all the rest of my fish do. :)

I am sure it has something to do with how long the fish has been off it's food and in transit. There comes a point where nothing will save it, not even mouth to mouth from an Angelfish. :oops:
 

S.Pepper

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Makes complete sense to me, but, then again, I don't have a QT and won't have one for the foreseeable future. I guess if u took a newborn and placed it in a sterile environment (a bubble) until it was a teenager and released the child into the greater world, it would probably die or get really sick of some disease because its immune system hadn't been allowed to develop. I'm going to put Paul's system to the test. Again, because I have no choice at this point... but it may be a blessing in disguise. We'll see.
 

Terri Caton

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FWIW - no foods are 'sterile'. For exampleI wouldn't tell you to mix your pellet food with sterile water - and then inject into yourself. This 'sterile food' is a myth....

No QT or Hospital tanks are literally "sterile" either. Can someone please explain to me why this term is used?
 
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Paul B

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Yes I can. Sterile in this context doesn't mean sterile like in an operating room.
Of course everything has bacteria but the bacteria in dry foods will just be benign bacteria from people's hands and on the dust in the air. That bacteria, like what covers every inch of our skin will do nothing to provide immunity to the animal because for that we need disease causing bacteria.

The bacteria that causes fin rot, pop eye, swim bladder disease, bubonic Plague, Measles, Whopping cough, Small Pox, Chicken Pox, sore throat, acne etc. Is the bacteria we and our fish need to become immune from such things.

Most dry foods are baked or dehydrated to eliminate moisture. Then preservatives are added to kill bacteria because bacteria, like fish will also eat that food causing it to rot.
Look at a bag of almost any food for fish or us. It will either be cooked, dehydrated, salted or have preservatives added to kill bacteria. If it doesn't, it needs refrigeration to slow the multiplication of bacteria.

Take a food like white flour that is in almost all baked foods. Bacteria doesn't eat white flour because it is not food, it is paste. All the nutrition was removed from white flour leaving paste which is why they have to add vitamins so they can call it food. So we can't live on it. They do that so it doesn't need expensive refrigeration.

If you want immune fish, they need an occasional meal loaded with disease causing bacteria and parasites. If you can't provide that, you need to quarantine the fish and everything it eats. It is simple. :cool:
 
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Terri Caton

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Yes I can. Sterile in this context doesn't mean sterile like in an operating room.
Of course everything has bacteria but the bacteria in dry foods will just be benign bacteria from people's hands and on the dust in the air. That bacteria, like what covers every inch of our skin will do nothing to provide immunity to the animal because for that we need disease causing bacteria.

The bacteria that causes fin rot, pop eye, swim bladder disease, bubonic Plague, Measles, Whopping cough, Small Pox, Chicken Pox, sore throat, acne etc. Is the bacteria we and our fish need to become immune from such things.

Most dry foods are baked or dehydrated to eliminate moisture. Then preservatives are added to kill bacteria because bacteria, like fish will also eat that food causing it to rot.
Look at a bag of almost any food for fish or us. It will either be cooked, dehydrated, salted or have preservatives added to kill bacteria. If it doesn't, it needs refrigeration to slow the multiplication of bacteria.

If you want immune fish, they need an occasional meal loaded with disease causing bacteria and parasites. If you can't provide that, you need to quarantine the fish and everything it eats. It is simple. :cool:

Thanks for your explanation. I am a nurse practitioner so I understand and do not disagree. It’s more the term sterile that confuses me. Why not just say a disinfected QT?

Just semantics I know. But I wonder where/why the term sterile came to be used for tanks.

If the food was truly sterile it would have very little nutritional value so why use it at all?

Everyone knows fresh food is much healthier for humans. Why in the world would anyone think they were less so for other animals? Organic, yes. Processed, no.
 
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Paul B

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Why not just say a disinfected QT?

Sterile is shorter than "disinfected QT" just like we say "Pods". There is no such thing as a pod. There are copepods, amphipods and cephilopods.

We also say DSB, SSB, BB and RUGF. :cool:
This hobby seems to be more about abreviations than fish and why is the word abriviation so long?
Copepod.



Amphipods


And they are all shipped in a "pod" truck.

 

Terri Caton

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Sterile is shorter than "disinfected QT" just like we say "Pods". There is no such thing as a pod. There are copepods, amphipods and cephilopods.

We also say DSB, SSB, BB and RUGF. :cool:
This hobby seems to be more about abreviations than fish and why is the word abriviation so long?
Copepod.



Amphipods


And they are all shipped in a "pod" truck.


Lol. Cute. I think all professions/hobbies love their abbreviations and acronyms.
 
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Paul B

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Terri, why are you up so early and why don't they abbreviate the word abbreviation?

Oh wait, your a nurse and are probably going to work. Sorry, I forgot some people still work.
Thank God. I finished with that :cool:

Speaking of God, did you know that Moses was the first one to download a tablet from the cloud?

Have a good day at work. ;)
 

jasonrusso

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Sterile is shorter than "disinfected QT" just like we say "Pods". There is no such thing as a pod. There are copepods, amphipods and cephilopods.

We also say DSB, SSB, BB and RUGF. :cool:
This hobby seems to be more about abreviations than fish and why is the word abriviation so long?
Copepod.



Amphipods

I know you said prior that you get a cup of mud from the beach. You are closer to the beach than me, but I'm only about 20 minutes away from the beach so I can go whenever.

Where do you actually get the mud? From the marshes or from the beach, because that is just sand. Are you getting it now or is it too cold?
 
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Paul B

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Jason I take mud from the bays. I don't get it now just because I don't want to and can't get to a bay without my boat which is in dry dock now but I still use NSW that I collect from a beach so I am getting bacteria either way.
 

Jase4224

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Jason I take mud from the bays. I don't get it now just because I don't want to and can't get to a bay without my boat which is in dry dock now but I still use NSW that I collect from a beach so I am getting bacteria either way.
Paul, I also use NSW but it sits in buckets for a few weeks before I use it. Do you think it’s better to use sooner so that the bacteria is still alive?
 
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Paul B

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I could guess that in time the bacteria will starve and die so if you are collecting water to get bacteria, I would use it sooner. But the water itself will last forever in buckets.

I also think that if you add it at least a few times a year you will still get the benefits from the bacteria if in fact they do give some benefit.

But remember there is very little bacteria in seawater itself. Most of it is on the sand or mud as bacteria do not swim. Or text. :rolleyes:
 

Katrina71

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My bacteria texts. Probably my son's influence. I usually get a text that reads "we're here" after the first bout with diarrhea.
 

MnFish1

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I could guess that in time the bacteria will starve and die so if you are collecting water to get bacteria, I would use it sooner. But the water itself will last forever in buckets.

I also think that if you add it at least a few times a year you will still get the benefits from the bacteria if in fact they do give some benefit.

But remember there is very little bacteria in seawater itself. Most of it is on the sand or mud as bacteria do not swim. Or text. :rolleyes:

most bacteria is indeed in the mud or sand - but bacteria - in fact swim. Including nitrifying bacteria. As to texting - I agree as well
 

jasonrusso

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I could guess that in time the bacteria will starve and die so if you are collecting water to get bacteria, I would use it sooner. But the water itself will last forever in buckets.

I also think that if you add it at least a few times a year you will still get the benefits from the bacteria if in fact they do give some benefit.

But remember there is very little bacteria in seawater itself. Most of it is on the sand or mud as bacteria do not swim. Or text. :rolleyes:
Isn't the benefit of nsw the "life" (plankton, pods) in the water, not the bacteria.
 
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Paul B

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Not from New York. The water here that I collect is loaded with life but it shortly dies when you confine it. I am not sure if that is from temperature, oxygen or what it is. But it dies quickly. If I collect water from my boat where it is clean and not full of gunk and cloudy, I dump it right in because even the short time it lives, my fish and corals will eat it. And if there are any amphipods in there, they live and reproduce in my tank as they are not to picky.
 

Zan's Aquatica

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this makes sense because you are weakening the immune system of fish. i often compare the health of a reef to that of our own immune system and microbial balance in our gut, skin, and overall system. we have more foreign DNA than human DNA that makes up our bodies. Great post, it's difficult to have this perspective shared in a way that makes sense and you did a good job.
 

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