Myths and Misinformation - fish edition

[HankstankXXXL750]

Just to clarify - overall nutrition is important…..long term. For a short term acute issues, it is more about the fish getting sufficient calories - adding vitamins or HUFAs won’t stop diseases.
The trouble is, people think they can control disease through diet, and that isn’t true.
Jay

I agree and did not make any statement about nutrition playing a role in healing a sick or damaged fish. Just that providing appropriate nutrition can play a role in helping to avoid illness.
If we don’t have one, maybe an article on what actually constitutes good nutrition for our fish. As you stated in my post about my angler, you told me that krill isn’t good because it has been blanched. This is something I didn’t know and have used it (in conjunction with other uncooked frozen marine items) forever. I know or assume that fresh is better than frozen, but I am only occasionally able to buy that as we don’t have an oriental market near us.

 

[MnFish1]

I agree and did not make any statement about nutrition playing a role in healing a sick or damaged fish. Just that providing appropriate nutrition can play a role in helping to avoid illness.
If we don’t have one, maybe an article on what actually constitutes good nutrition for our fish. As you stated in my post about my angler, you told me that krill isn’t good because it has been blanched. This is something I didn’t know and have used it (in conjunction with other uncooked frozen marine items) forever. I know or assume that fresh is better than frozen, but I am only occasionally able to buy that as we don’t have an oriental market near us.

I think what you're saying is clear - and obvious. There are many posts here suggesting for example that 'pellets' are bad - one needs to use 'xxxx ground up yyyy'. There are also multiple articles about this fallacy - and the problems with individual hobbyists trying to make up live food menus from their grocery store - not providing enough essential vitamins, etc. Of course I would expect an anglerfish would not eat pellets - I'm talking in general. I would ask @Jay Hemdal - what is fed in the majority of large aquariums in the US - which hopefully are attempting to keep their fish as long as possible - is it live - a mix - or a combination - or a special mixture individual to each institution. My guess is the last. But - I asked - because I would like to know

 

[HankstankXXXL750]

I think what you're saying is clear - and obvious. There are many posts here suggesting for example that 'pellets' are bad - one needs to use 'xxxx ground up yyyy'. There are also multiple articles about this fallacy - and the problems with individual hobbyists trying to make up live food menus from their grocery store - not providing enough essential vitamins, etc. Of course I would expect an anglerfish would not eat pellets - I'm talking in general. I would ask @Jay Hemdal - what is fed in the majority of large aquariums in the US - which hopefully are attempting to keep their fish as long as possible - is it live - a mix - or a combination - or a special mixture individual to each institution. My guess is the last. But - I asked - because I would like to know

I got a tour and fed the sharks at the Denver Aquarium and it was led by the head biologist. Was very informative as she was willing and eager to discuss their process and give guidance for my home use. There they fed a lot of fresh seafood while, chopped, shredded etc. They also fed live foods that they either got or cultured in their other facility.
As to my angler I fed live glass shrimp for a long time, but eventually weaned to frozen. Krill seemed to work the best, but I found out when I had a problem that krill alone was probably not meeting all of his requirements.

 

[lion king]

Your response seem to take the quote as “Nutrition is THE only foundation to health” I read it as “nutrition is only THE foundation to health”. Read the second way, I take to mean that if you do t provide adequate nutrition survival is limited.

If as a human you eat only pop tarts and coke, you will most likely not be very healthy and have a much harder time fighting disease, infection and injury. So a balanced nutritious diet would be the foundation (building blocks to start from).

That is exactly as I meant it.

Fish, just as people can live a while on a poor diet. Fish come in with nutritional stores from the wild, some will last longer than others, some species require a more concentrated effort to provide valuable food, and not just calories. Many predators, like anglers for instance, once they use up their nutritional stores and are not provided an adequate diet to give them what they need, will decline rather quickly. Sometimes when a fish like an angler refuses to eat, they are just turning down food that have no value to them, animals are much more deliberate than humans about what they put their bodies. I and very deliberate how I feed myself, as well as my pets. You mentioned pellet food, just read the ingredients, and ask yourself why aquatic life would need soy and wheat by-products, among so many other nasty things.

It really bothers me when hobbyist pat themselves on the back when they've kept a certain species alive for a few years, thinking they've done some great accomplishment. Most of these species literally live 10-20 or even more years in the wild. Along with water conditions, if you provide a diet as close to their natural diet, using fresh when you can, live when necessary; many times you'll keep your fish close to their wild lifespan. I have actually had long term success with the diet recommendations I make, I have seen other hobbyists just make a couple dietary changes and been amazed at not only the difference in longevity, but also vibrancy in color and activity. A good diet will help prevent disease and help in recovery from disease and injury. It is not to replace medication when needed, it is not either/or, it's both.

When I have made suggestions of dietary support in lieu of medication, it's not as a cure. It's because I thought in that situation, medication wasn't needed. Just like humans running to the doctor for antibiotics for every hangnail, hobbyist do the same thing for every scrape and nip. Sometimes just some immune system support and optimum water conditions is all that is needed. Same in a situation where you have lions or eels in a tank that has a protazoan outbreak, if you are able to remove them quick enough, all they need is immune support and clean water. I've seen this work enough times, to know that it works.

 

[HankstankXXXL750]

That is exactly as I meant it.

Fish, just as people can live a while on a poor diet. Fish come in with nutritional stores from the wild, some will last longer than others, some species require a more concentrated effort to provide valuable food, and not just calories. Many predators, like anglers for instance, once they use up their nutritional stores and are not provided an adequate diet to give them what they need, will decline rather quickly. Sometimes when a fish like an angler refuses to eat, they are just turning down food that have no value to them, animals are much more deliberate than humans about what they put their bodies. I and very deliberate how I feed myself, as well as my pets. You mentioned pellet food, just read the ingredients, and ask yourself why aquatic life would need soy and wheat by-products, among so many other nasty things.

It really bothers me when hobbyist pat themselves on the back when they've kept a certain species alive for a few years, thinking they've done some great accomplishment. Most of these species literally live 10-20 or even more years in the wild. Along with water conditions, if you provide a diet as close to their natural diet, using fresh when you can, live when necessary; many times you'll keep your fish close to their wild lifespan. I have actually had long term success with the diet recommendations I make, I have seen other hobbyists just make a couple dietary changes and been amazed at not only the difference in longevity, but also vibrancy in color and activity. A good diet will help prevent disease and help in recovery from disease and injury. It is not to replace medication when needed, it is not either/or, it's both.

When I have made suggestions of dietary support in lieu of medication, it's not as a cure. It's because I thought in that situation, medication wasn't needed. Just like humans running to the doctor for antibiotics for every hangnail, hobbyist do the same thing for every scrape and nip. Sometimes just some immune system support and optimum water conditions is all that is needed. Same in a situation where you have lions or eels in a tank that has a protazoan outbreak, if you are able to remove them quick enough, all they need is immune support and clean water. I've seen this work enough times, to know that it works.

Actually someone else mentioned pellets I believe. I bought a bunch of pellets early on, actually herbivore pellets. The main reason was the nori we buy today is nothing like what I bought in the 80’s. You could hang it on a clip and the fish had to take bites. Now first fish that hits it tears it loose to float away. I later got some little pouches that hold the nori and it is much better. I still feed it in my 75 just because several of the fish regularly take it.
However other than my larger predators I feed a blend of frozen brine, spirulina enriched frozen brine, and frozen mysis.
Just had clownfish babies and started culturing rotifer, then hatch some brine shrimp eggs, and decided to raise some as well plus three strands of copepods. Thinking about either mysis or amphipods, just trying to figure them out. If I can successfully raise these then I am sure I will be providing a better diet for my fish.

 

[wickedtuna]

Regarding drip acclimation on incoming fish:
i receive dozens of bags of fish in at a time. To test every single bag's water parameters would be a big feat. I just add all the bags into a tank and acclimate by drip and oxygen to my holding tank. What steps would you recommend i change? Overall this method works for the vast majority of my fish, but there are some puffer fish that I have had die in acclimation. How should I change their acclimation to accommodate your recommendation?

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Regarding drip acclimation on incoming fish:
i receive dozens of bags of fish in at a time. To test every single bag's water parameters would be a big feat. I just add all the bags into a tank and acclimate by drip and oxygen to my holding tank. What steps would you recommend i change? Overall this method works for the vast majority of my fish, but there are some puffer fish that I have had die in acclimation. How should I change their acclimation to accommodate your recommendation?

If the fish are coming from the same source, I'll often do a spot check on a few bags, and if the salinity and pH is pretty close, I'll acclimate them as a group...mix up one batch of low pH water the same salinity as the bag averages and just acclimate from that point. You just don't want the fish to be in high ammonia as the pH rises, that can kill the fish.

Here is an article I posted on general acclimation:

Acclimation Methods

Acclimating Animals to Aquariums Jay F. Hemdal c.2020 Introduction to acclimation techniques Most beginning aquarists hear that they must “acclimate” any new animals they add to their aquarium. Acclimation (sometimes termed...

www.reef2reef.com

Jay

 

[wickedtuna]

I receive lots of fish in shipments each week and I have used the acclimation drip method with little deaths. There are some pufferfish species that have shown stress - slow breathing, lethargy. Some haven't made it. I open all the bags into a common basin and drip acclimate them to a holding tank. How would you recommend I change this to match your protocol? Am I supposed to adjust their ph in their individual bag before moving them?

 

[Jay Hemdal]

I receive lots of fish in shipments each week and I have used the acclimation drip method with little deaths. There are some pufferfish species that have shown stress - slow breathing, lethargy. Some haven't made it. I open all the bags into a common basin and drip acclimate them to a holding tank. How would you recommend I change this to match your protocol? Am I supposed to adjust their ph in their individual bag before moving them?

From the article I posted the link to:

Long duration shipments
Animals that have been in shipping bags longer than 36 hours build up huge amounts of metabolic waste in the form of ammonia. At the same time, the animal has been releasing carbon dioxide into the shipping water. The combined result is that the carbon dioxide lowers the pH of the water, which in turn neutralizes the relative toxicity of the ammonia. Levels of ammonia at 2 or 3 parts per million and a pH of 6.0 are not unheard of. If you acclimate these animals in the normal manner, the process will drive off the carbon dioxide faster than the ammonia is being diluted. As the pH of the water rises, the ammonia becomes toxic, often killing the animals right in the acclimation container. The key is to measure the shipping water’s pH, temperature and specific gravity (If marine). Then, using water from the tank (not freshly mixed water) create water that closely matches all of these parameters and carefully move the animals directly into it. This is done by adjusting the specific gravity and lowering the pH with the addition of a proper amount of acid (Sodium phosphate monobasic, carbon dioxide or other acids have been used). From this point, the animals can be drip acclimated.

Drip Acclimation​

Setting up a line siphoning water from the main tank to an acclimation container is a common practice at many aquarium wholesale companies. These “acclimation tables” can assimilate huge numbers of fish into quarantine systems, dealing with high ammonia levels and other issues in assembly line fashion. Some home aquarists have attempted to emulate this in their home, but there are issues that must be addressed. First of all, the name “drip acclimation” is a misnomer. It should be termed “flow acclimation”, as the rate must be faster than a drip. If one were to set up a drip line at one drop of water per second (as many home aquarists have assumed would be an appropriate rate) it would take FIFTY hours to equilibrate the difference in water parameters between one liter of shipping water and the receiving tank to within 90% of each other! Obviously, the flow rate must be faster than that. A flow of one milliliter per second would result in one liter of shipping water reaching 90% equilibration in 2 1/2 hours

Aquarists must monitor the changing water chemistry values in the acclimation container throughout the process, and adjust the flow rate accordingly. One trick is to place a few drops of methylene blue liquid per gallon of water in the acclimation container. Not only does this have some antibiotic affect, and can help with oxygen transfer, as new water flows into the acclimation container, the aquarist can judge the amount of mixing by the dilution of the blue color over time.

Just as with regular acclimation methods, as the water quality values between the aquarium and the container get closer, the rate of change slows down, unless you increase the water mixing rate.

Flow acclimation systems may require adjunct aeration and heating to maintain better water quality in the acclimation container during the longer acclimation time. It also helps to use rectangular acclimation containers as the volume can be measured using a ruler (length in inches * width * depth of water / 231= gallons).

 

[HankstankXXXL750]

@Jay Hemdal So how much does pH weigh into acclimation? Is this a major or minor stressor. My online fish supplier ships in 1.019 water unless it is an invert. Their recommendation is to have my QT at their salinity and then temp acclimate then transfer. I open the bag transfer to a net over a five gallon bucket then release the fish into the QT. I have had tremendous success with this without ever testing pH.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

@Jay Hemdal So how much does pH weigh into acclimation? Is this a major or minor stressor. My online fish supplier ships in 1.019 water unless it is an invert. Their recommendation is to have my QT at their salinity and then temp acclimate then transfer. I open the bag transfer to a net over a five gallon bucket then release the fish into the QT. I have had tremendous success with this without ever testing pH.

A rise in salinity is MUCH more stressful to marine fish than a change in pH is. The degree of change also has a lot to do with it. A rise in pH if there is ammonia in the water can be very harmful. If I had to choose, a change in pH is less stressfult than the salinity rise, but more stressful than a small temperature change (less than 8 degrees).

Jay

 

[Jay Hemdal]

I appreciate everyone's feedback, support and questions about this post (it has even been spread beyond R2R!).

In reading back through this, I see that the original post appears dogmatic and short, very much like how these myths are often presented. I think this has put some people off. I wrote it that way on purpose, TLDR (Too Long, Didn't Read) is a common complaint with Internet information, and I wanted people to be able to give it a quick read. However, this morning, I did go back to the original post and added some text that hopefully softens the presentation a bit, as well as supports some of the statements.


Thanks,

Jay

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Here is another one, not a myth really, not even misinformation, but rather, it is mis-applied information:

Hydrogen Peroxide - as a low dose, static bath to treat acute disease issues.

The history of peroxide use goes like this: a paper was published showing how 75 ppm peroxide baths would eliminate Amyloodinium on Pacific threadfin fish. These fish were cured if the dips were done twice and the fish moved to clean tanks each time. Somebody read that and thought, "Hmmm, I wonder if low dose peroxide used as a static bath would work on ich?" They then began pushing the idea out there as an "experiment". The problem is that peroxide at levels high enough to kill ich theronts can also harm the beneficial bacteria, and sometimes ornamental shrimp. Additionally, hydrogen peroxide is an oxidizer. Like all of these (chlorine, ozone, permanganate etc.) the level of active chemical in the water is related to the organic levels. The less organics in the water, the higher the active dose. As you add peroxide, it consumes organics, causing a rise in unreacted peroxide. So - you need to use test strips to monitor that change.

Hydrogen peroxide has been shown to cause a reduction in theronts in marine aquariums, but the dose tested for an 80% reduction was 10 ppm, which is pretty high to use as a static bath.

The only time I would suggest it is when a person is attempting what is called "ich management" - as an adjunct treatment to a whole suite of efforts:

1) strong UV sterilizer
2) frequent water changes
3) siphoning the sand early every morning
4) good mechanical filtration to remove theronts
5) low dose peroxide additions

Ich management works if you catch the infection early enough and do it right. Once the number of trophonts on the fish reach a certain point (perhaps 30 or so spots on any one fish) then "propagule pressure" comes into play, where the effects of the trophonts themselves stresses the fish and the ich management techniques start to fail.

Here is an article I wrote that discusses some of that:

Hydrogen Peroxide Bench-testing

Bench testing of the effects of hydrogen peroxide in aquariums.

www.reef2reef.com

Jay