Why do infections/parasites seem to show up AFTER buying at the LFS?

zalick

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I've often wondered why we see so many posts that say:

"I bought fish XYZ at my local fish store and it looked healthy and was eating. I brought it home and within X days it started showing ich/velvet/brook/uronema/sores. Its the only fish in my tank".


Presumably this fish would not have shown these symptoms had it stayed at the LFS for the same X days.

Some of the LFS run low levels of copper. One conclusion is that the low level of copper is enough to suppress all symptoms and keep the fish "healthy" for an extended time, for an illness that would otherwise kill the fish in days.

But not all LFS run copper and this happens to fish from those stores too. Presumably these fish would not have died in X days at those stores too. It would be far too coincidental that everyone buys their fish "right before" the fish is going to start showing symptoms. So another conclusion is that the stress of bringing home and adding to a new environment caused the symptoms. If that's the case, then low stress allowed the fish to successfully fight these otherwise rapidly deadly diseases.

Are there other explanations for this apparent phenomenon?

@Jay Hemdal - What do you think? I know its a very complicated topic but I find it hard to believe that all of the fish getting sick and dying on these threads would have suffered the same fate if left at the LFS. Maybe all LFS are really running low levels of copper or something else? I've only had two cases of infection in 23 years. One you helped with where the QT vendor said the clown was fine and then less than 24hrs later it was covered in brook. The other were a couple anthias I got at the LFS. Within a few days in observation they showed uronema and died soon after.
 

Jay Hemdal

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I've often wondered why we see so many posts that say:

"I bought fish XYZ at my local fish store and it looked healthy and was eating. I brought it home and within X days it started showing ich/velvet/brook/uronema/sores. Its the only fish in my tank".


Presumably this fish would not have shown these symptoms had it stayed at the LFS for the same X days.

Some of the LFS run low levels of copper. One conclusion is that the low level of copper is enough to suppress all symptoms and keep the fish "healthy" for an extended time, for an illness that would otherwise kill the fish in days.

But not all LFS run copper and this happens to fish from those stores too. Presumably these fish would not have died in X days at those stores too. It would be far too coincidental that everyone buys their fish "right before" the fish is going to start showing symptoms. So another conclusion is that the stress of bringing home and adding to a new environment caused the symptoms. If that's the case, then low stress allowed the fish to successfully fight these otherwise rapidly deadly diseases.

Are there other explanations for this apparent phenomenon?

@Jay Hemdal - What do you think? I know its a very complicated topic but I find it hard to believe that all of the fish getting sick and dying on these threads would have suffered the same fate if left at the LFS. Maybe all LFS are really running low levels of copper or something else? I've only had two cases of infection in 23 years. One you helped with where the QT vendor said the clown was fine and then less than 24hrs later it was covered in brook. The other were a couple anthias I got at the LFS. Within a few days in observation they showed uronema and died soon after.
You also don’t see the buckets of dead fish that some stores remove every morning. When I worked retail, our fish were in full copper all the time.
Jay
 

Mr. Mojo Rising

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those posts usually also say they added 3 or more fish (one post I saw added 12 fish) to new tank (anywhere from 1-3 weeks old) that had no fish before. The biofilter isnt strong enough to handle the sudden large bioload and the fish choke, the stress weakens the immune system and they get diseased. Happy fish will have strong immune systems.
 
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zalick

zalick

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You also don’t see the buckets of dead fish that some stores remove every morning. When I worked retail, our fish were n full copper all the time.
Jay
Thanks as always Jay. As @Calm Blue Ocean mentioned above, does running at hypo also suppress these issues? So it really is a combo of their suppression techniques and many of these fish are just ticking time bombs when those suppression techniques are removed and the fish become stressed?
 

Jay Hemdal

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I've heard that some run at much lower salinity levels and that this can suppress some diseases/symptoms. Is this true?
That is also pretty common. The huge issue there is that folks buy a fish in, say a specific gravity of 1.019 and take it home and try to acclimate it to 1.025. That needs to be done very gradually, over days, not in one day. The result is the fish dehydrate and stress out, and some die from it.

Jay
 

Jay Hemdal

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Thanks as always Jay. As @Calm Blue Ocean mentioned above, does running at hypo also suppress these issues? So it really is a combo of their suppression techniques and many of these fish are just ticking time bombs when those suppression techniques are removed and the fish become stressed?
Yes - one of the big issues that comes to mind is that the fluke Neobenedenia is suppressed at a specific gravity of around 1.018, but the sticky eggs are not. Exactly what you said - you move fish/eggs to your tank and the infection can start up from just a single egg, four to five weeks later you have sick fish.

Jay
 

BiggestE222

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You also don’t see the buckets of dead fish that some stores remove every morning. When I worked retail, our fish were in full copper all the time.
Jay
I see sick or dying fish at even the biggest fish stores. I just think fish are something that I don’t want to buy anymore anytime soon after stressing and treating my blue tang for black ich that also slightly affected my cinnamon clown. Luckily after two treatments of PraziPro the flatworms cycle was broke and 4 weeks later no mire issues. It was so stressful. I can’t go through that again.
 

Jay Hemdal

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Thanks to this thread I’ve learned that I need to ask the LFS to test my water AND their water when I decide to pick up fish.
And ask to see the fish eat!
Jay
 

Jay Hemdal

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You also don’t see the buckets of dead fish that some stores remove every morning. When I worked retail, our fish were in full copper all the time.
Jay
Ah, perhaps I should have tempered my post a bit - all stores will lose fish, just like you will (and myself as well). Good stores keep that at a minimum, and remove sick or dead fish promptly.
Jay
 

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