Diatom filter for treating external parasites?

[Humblefish]

Yes - but aren't you the one who always tells those who practice management - that ich can still be present - undetected in the gills? Why shouldn't that be true after quarantine as well?

You see there are thousands of isolates of ich - velvet and many other cillates which have not been described. To pretend that any quarantine protocol is effective for all is delusional. Those who practice ich management through dilution assumme that ich or some other pathogen is present in their system everyday. This approach is works regardless of the variance in isolate life-cycle. It doesn't matter if its 72 days or 72 years. Dilution holds the pathogen below lethal concentrations continuously - and eventually the combination of filtration and the fishes own immune response yeilds a pathogen free environment.

What's delusional is thinking you have a "magic filter" on your tank that takes care of any & all fish disease problems. Is this were true, why aren't you or some company making millions on this idea since it is the holy grail all reef keepers seek? You can't tell me with today's technology that someone with enough engineering skills can't design & make a SW safe DE filter that's not a PITA to clean/use. If it works as well as you describe, it would quickly become an essential piece of equipment for any SW tank.

There are pros & cons to what we both advocate. No "silver bullet" exists, but I can appreciate what a DE filter offers in the way of ich management. Why can't you do the same for QT? Again, no 100% perfect solution exists to any problem in this world.

Before I finally decided QT was the way to go, I employed ich management for almost 30 years. And during that time I could go years without ever actually seeing ich on any of my fish. But my fish's behavior told me it was still there - scratching on the rocks, some head twitching, etc. At the time I told myself it was something else - maybe the fish just had an itch that needed to be scratched? But eventually the tank got hit with a "stressor event" (I lived in a hurricane prone area so we would experience prolonged power failures), and that was all the evidence I needed that ich was still very much in my tank. Fortunately nowadays power generators are a lot more widely available and affordable.

 

[robert]

No - not all fish diseases - I never said ALL fish diseases - just those with a free-swimming life cycle phase - once again you resort to strawman arguments when you facts don't hold.

Of course @omykiss001 - don't take my word for it - but how about the advice of a scientist who has 80+ peer reviewed studies on parasites focusing specificallly on velvet and who also ran a large public aquarium - would you take his word for it? What about the recommendations of Ag extension offices for the support of aquaculture? Do these mean nothing - because you never took the time to look them up - but pretend to know something of methods that you've never tried?

Yes diatom filters work well - but they alone cannot make up for poor flow design and tanks which are improperly set up for the inhabitants you intend to keep. With that said however they are can be effective for not only ich and velvet - but for many varieties of parsites ranging from flukes and worms to cillate infections of corals.

See Dr. Adirian Lawler: http://aquarticles.com/articles/management/Lawler_Diatomfilters.html
is he published? See: http://adrianrlawler.blogspot.com/2012/05/some-publications.html

He pioneered most of the techniques utilized by Burgess, Noga and the rest...if you read their works - you would have come across the acknowledgement of Lawlers work and citations to his prior papers.

 

[Humblefish]

@omykiss001 Welcome to the squabble, brother!

 

[omykiss001]

No - not all fish diseases - I never said ALL fish diseases - just those with a free-swimming life cycle phase - once again you resort to strawman arguments when you facts don't hold.

Of course @omykiss001 - don't take my word for it - but how about the advice of a scientist who has 80+ peer reviewed studies on parasites focusing specificallly on velvet and who also ran a large public aquarium - would you take his word for it? What about the recommendations of Ag extension offices for the support of aquaculture? Do these mean nothing - because you never took the time to look them up - but pretend to know something of methods that you've never tried?

Yes diatom filters work well - but they alone cannot make up for poor flow design and tanks which are improperly set up for the inhabitants you intend to keep. With that said however they are can be effective for not only ich and velvet - but for many varieties of parsites ranging from flukes and worms to cillate infections of corals.

See Dr. Adirian Lawler: http://aquarticles.com/articles/management/Lawler_Diatomfilters.html
is he published? See: http://adrianrlawler.blogspot.com/2012/05/some-publications.html

He pioneered most of the techniques utilized by Burgess, Noga and the rest...if you read their works - you would have come across the acknowledgement of Lawlers work and citations to his prior papers.

Given you know nothing about me, my profession, or what I have or have not tried that's a pretty bold statement, lol.

I have used diatom filters is both my professional career and my hobby. They are good filters not questioning that, can you ever turn over the volume of water per hour needed to be 100% effective that I question.

The author you site has an a impressive CV, but the only Article you linked was a here is what I think and what I have observed and you should do it do. No controlled data or analysis presented and this was not published in anything that would remotely be considered peer reviewed. Looking over his CV none of the listed publications deal with the method you describe. I will see if my journal access at work gives me any access to those journals. These days if it does not deal with immunology and cancer research we don't tend to pay for access and most of these would be funded via NSF grants and I'd have to look them up next time I'm on campus and can get access to these particular journals if the university keeps a subscription. Maybe some of the specific papers on velvet his describes some of these methods and as I said I do have an open mind, but I want to see it in a controlled study not the opinion of an expert unless he is referencing such a study in his opinion.

One argument you make is quarantine is pointless. I would be interested to know during his tenure at the aquarium did he use quarantine methods for incoming or obviously sick specimens? My guess with the amount of money and difficulty acquiring such animals they did not just toss them into their displays.

The strawman argument I keep hearing when individuals say quarantine is pointless use this method it's works 100% and when a question is posed or someone says I still got the disease or my fish died the reply back is well I've been doing it for X years and disease never strikes so you just are not doing things correctly, or you just don't understand how to do it. Please don't misunderstand I'm not saying you are wrong or your method does not work in your tank with the species you keep.

As one of my favorite committee members in graduate school used to say in God we trust all other must present data.

 

[Humblefish]

 

[robert]

Oh but I do know something of what you do - your profession - and your past experiences with diatom filters as you've posted about them before. But honestly, alot of what you say is not always well considered. I can provide examples if you wish...

Actually the use of diatom filters in aquaculture has been known and practiced for a long time...largely through the advocacy of Lawler. For example:

The mathmatics of filtration is very simple and I've covered it before. From my prior posts:

"The theoretical amount of water that gets filtered after a number of turnovers can be calculated.

Assuming continuous and instantaneous mixing. The formula is 1-EXP(-Turnovers).
So 1 turnover filters 63.2% of the water,
2 turnovers filters 86.5% of the water.
3 turnovers filters 95.0% of the water.
4 turnovers filters 98.2% of the water.
5 turnovers filters 99.3% of the water.
(Obviously, water not in circulation patterns will not get circulated as quickly while water in circulation patterns gets circulated more than indicated.)

Lets be real paranoid and assume 9 turnovers is required. (we are approaching 100% filteration here)

assume a 100 gallon tank - to turn over the volume once in an hour you need a 100gph filter.
To get everything, all the freeswimming trophants in 2 hours would require a filter flow of 450 gph"

Lawler goes over his steps for introduction of new fish where parasites are concerned here:
http://www.aquarticles.com/articles/management/Lawler_Parasites.html

and Lawler descibes his methods of determining wheter a tank is free from infection here:
http://www.aquarticles.com/articles/management/Lawler_Livebearing_Use.html

The physics behind filtration is 100% provable...The parasite population dynamics is 100% mathmatically provable...

I'm simply pointing out that - copper (which kills many fish in quarantine) relies on the same population dynamics to eradicate ich as does filtration. I've presented the data, experience and opinion of those who have managed large facilities and are recognized for their scientific accomplishments in the field of marine parasitology...what do you offer? Where are your studies and data? Even Burgess speculated that many fish kept in copper would have recovered due to their own developed immunity regardless of the copper treatment. How many fish treated in copper succumb to the stressors of treatment - isn't this sad as there are better ways...

Here I've only pointed out the contradictions in the protocols proposed for fallow periods and copper treatments, and the utter nonsence spouted by some...tanks harboring ich for 20 years if not allowed to go fallow comes to mind...or that ich is akin to typhus and HIV with respect to asymptomatic carriers...

 

[omykiss001]

Awesome! Cracked me up, lol

 

[Justiful]

Oh but I do know something of what you do - your profession - and your past experiences with diatom filters as you've posted about them before. But honestly, alot of what you say is not always well considered. I can provide examples if you wish...

I am not an expert. But wouldn't these filters over time leach alumina into the tank. This wouldn't be a major issue in aquaculture as the water is replaced regularly in fresh water applications, and they are dealing with fish. But in saltwater aquaria with inverts wouldn't this pose a problem? I mean it would require testing to determine how much alumina leached out or at least a study of the leaching of alumina using one of these systems. @Randy Holmes-Farley for an opinion of if this could leach, and if he would be willing to test it like he did with other alumina products in the past.

If the alumina and Iron oxide are not problems, I wouldn't mind trying a system like this. But I really think those two could cause problems in a DT. Maybe in a QT with just fish it wouldn't be dangerous with water changes as it is a short term solution.

 

[robert]

No...while it is true that there is some alumnina associtated with the clays found in some DE powders, silica, the principle component of DE would tend to bind and remove aluminum from the system.

 

[robert]

@omykiss001

So it can't be done....because you've never heard of it and know all about DE filters....geesh...
Please note the last paragraph - starting with "the best method"

http://pubs.ext.vt.edu/600/600-200/600-200_pdf.pdf

 

[omykiss001]

Oh but I do know something of what you do - your profession - and your past experiences with diatom filters as you've posted about them before. But honestly, alot of what you say is not always well considered. I can provide examples if you wish...

Actually the use of diatom filters in aquaculture has been known and practiced for a long time...largely through the advocacy of Lawler. For example:

The mathmatics of filtration is very simple and I've covered it before. From my prior posts:

"The theoretical amount of water that gets filtered after a number of turnovers can be calculated.

Assuming continuous and instantaneous mixing. The formula is 1-EXP(-Turnovers).
So 1 turnover filters 63.2% of the water,
2 turnovers filters 86.5% of the water.
3 turnovers filters 95.0% of the water.
4 turnovers filters 98.2% of the water.
5 turnovers filters 99.3% of the water.
(Obviously, water not in circulation patterns will not get circulated as quickly while water in circulation patterns gets circulated more than indicated.)

Lets be real paranoid and assume 9 turnovers is required. (we are approaching 100% filteration here)

assume a 100 gallon tank - to turn over the volume once in an hour you need a 100gph filter.
To get everything, all the freeswimming trophants in 2 hours would require a filter flow of 450 gph"

Lawler goes over his steps for introduction of new fish where parasites are concerned here:
http://www.aquarticles.com/articles/management/Lawler_Parasites.html

and Lawler descibes his methods of determining wheter a tank is free from infection here:
http://www.aquarticles.com/articles/management/Lawler_Livebearing_Use.html

The physics behind filtration is 100% provable...The parasite population dynamics is 100% mathmatically provable...

I'm simply pointing out that - copper (which kills many fish in quarantine) relies on the same population dynamics to eradicate ich as does filtration. I've presented the data, experience and opinion of those who have managed large facilities and are recognized for their scientific accomplishments in the field of marine parasitology...what do you offer? Where are your studies and data? Even Burgess speculated that many fish kept in copper would have recovered due to their own developed immunity regardless of the copper treatment. How many fish treated in copper succumb to the stressors of treatment - isn't this sad as there are better ways...

Here I've only pointed out the contradictions in the protocols proposed for fallow periods and copper treatments, and the utter nonsence spouted by some...tanks harboring ich for 20 years if not allowed to go fallow comes to mind...or that ich is akin to typhus and HIV with respect to asymptomatic carriers...

So just to be clear you've stated 9 turnovers of the water would get 99.3% of the water so minimally in a 100 gallon tank that diatom filter would have to turn over 900 gallons in that hour to filter the entire column assuming all water is in circulation and everything is instantaneously mixed. With your example of 100 gph it would take 9 hours to fully filter the water. Also pretty clear the diseases we are talking about do not follow the your assumption of instant mixing. They are point releases so when a cyst ruptures there is going to be areas that have high concentration of parasite. But you know lets point a powerhead where all our fish sleep so we can mix it faster not that our fish need any relief from the flow or anything, just keep swimming, just keep swimming.

Perhaps you cited the wrong internet articles both of those are more about quarantine in the first one and using sentinel fish to check before you throw your expensive specimens in the display in the 2nd one. Nothing about filtration, so your guy is a strong believer in quarantine from your citations. Big surprise there.

I will look to see if I can find the original material from the ag school and evaluate it. Other than a couple of posts having nothing to with filtration and a simple exponential decay function that has erroneous assumptions from the start you really didn't provide any data. The ag school clip is the closest and I need to look at their experimental design so I might be better considered. The data I was referring to earlier some of which is posted above, tables from peer reviewed papers showing the average times for excystment.

When burgess published those studies fish immune function still had large holes in our understanding of mechanism and function (still does as not a lot of grant money in the fish immunology game) and as you stated he "speculated" some fish even in copper would beat the disease on their own, he did not provide evidence it was true. Big difference by the way at least in the scientific community. The studies on immunity from ich also clearly demonstrate the adaptive immune response in fish is poorly developed and they really do not get long term immunity so even if you can remove it if reintroduced the fish will be at square one in about 6 months time.

I don't claim to have anything to offer in marine parasitology, do you? That is not my area of study. I know it means nothing to you and I'm sure it will be thrown in my face at a later time, but I do have 20 years experience as an actual scientist in molecular genetics studying immune system function and development at a biotechnology company that generates revenue in excess of $16 billion/year. Please continue to tell me how I spout utter nonsense though as I'm sure your background makes you the authority at critically evaluating the evidence considering what you posted in return it's a bit like calling the kettle black.

 

[robert]

You don't read well...

99.3% is after 5 turnovers - with a 500gph pump this is accomplised in an hour on a 100 gallon tank, in the first 12 minutes you've eliminated 63%...

You might want to read this....don't just read the quote...do youself a favor - put the popcorn down and read the whole thing...

"I use Marex, chloroquine phosphate + pyrimethamine (=daraprim), from Aquatronics to dislodge/kill the trophonts on fish prior to display. Treatment is done in all-glass tanks with sponge filters. My treatment technique allows me to put healthy fish on display in 1 day…..rather than after a long treatment with copper or quarantine. There have been very few failures using this technique since l984.

One can avoid problems with this parasite by using the treatment of your choice (freshwater, copper, various chemicals) as a treatment to dislodge trophonts prior to putting fish on display, and THEN keeping a diatomaceous earth filter on the tank to suck out infective dinospores coming from trophonts/tomonts swallowed and passed. DE filters will also help fish wounds heal faster, decrease other types of free-swimming infective stages of other parasites, and decrease water-borne bacteria, etc."

http://www.reefs.org/library/talklog/a_lawler_111697.html

 

[omykiss001]

@omykiss001

So it can't be done....because you've never heard of it and know all about DE filters....geesh...
Please note the last paragraph - starting with "the best method"

http://pubs.ext.vt.edu/600/600-200/600-200_pdf.pdf

Again not stating your method is wrong, but the environment of an aquaculture facility is the perfect scenario for this method. No rock work or caves. Generally just open smooth raceways where all of your assumptions can be met. Also in aquaculture there is still dead loss and some of it probably due to infectious agent like velvet, they just don't get an outright crash of the entire population. That is a very different goal than what I seek in my tank.

 

[robert]

So just to be clear you've stated 9 turnovers of the water would get 99.3% of the water so minimally in a 100 gallon tank that diatom filter would have to turn over 900 gallons in that hour to filter the entire column assuming all water is in circulation and everything is instantaneously mixed. With your example of 100 gph it would take 9 hours to fully filter the water. Also pretty clear the diseases we are talking about do not follow the your assumption of instant mixing. They are point releases so when a cyst ruptures there is going to be areas that have high concentration of parasite. But you know lets point a powerhead where all our fish sleep so we can mix it faster not that our fish need any relief from the flow or anything, just keep swimming, just keep swimming.

Perhaps you cited the wrong internet articles both of those are more about quarantine in the first one and using sentinel fish to check before you throw your expensive specimens in the display in the 2nd one. Nothing about filtration, so your guy is a strong believer in quarantine from your citations. Big surprise there.

I will look to see if I can find the original material from the ag school and evaluate it. Other than a couple of posts having nothing to with filtration and a simple exponential decay function that has erroneous assumptions from the start you really didn't provide any data. The ag school clip is the closest and I need to look at their experimental design so I might be better considered. The data I was referring to earlier some of which is posted above, tables from peer reviewed papers showing the average times for excystment.

When burgess published those studies fish immune function still had large holes in our understanding of mechanism and function (still does as not a lot of grant money in the fish immunology game) and as you stated he "speculated" some fish even in copper would beat the disease on their own, he did not provide evidence it was true. Big difference by the way at least in the scientific community. The studies on immunity from ich also clearly demonstrate the adaptive immune response in fish is poorly developed and they really do not get long term immunity so even if you can remove it if reintroduced the fish will be at square one in about 6 months time.

I don't claim to have anything to offer in marine parasitology, do you? That is not my area of study. I know it means nothing to you and I'm sure it will be thrown in my face at a later time, but I do have 20 years experience as an actual scientist in molecular genetics studying immune system function and development at a biotechnology company that generates revenue in excess of $16 billion/year. Please continue to tell me how I spout utter nonsense though as I'm sure your background makes you the authority at critically evaluating the evidence considering what you posted in return it's a bit like calling the kettle black.

"The studies on immunity from ich also clearly demonstrate the adaptive immune response in fish is poorly developed and they really do not get long term immunity so even if you can remove it if reintroduced the fish will be at square one in about 6 months time."

absolutely wrong...you really should look at the data BEFORE you open your mouth...

I think it was you who claimed that fish could be carriers of ich in the same way humans could be carriers of typhus and HIV...
EXCEPT that typus and HIV do not need to leave the host to complete theitr life-cycle - a totally invalid analogy...

"Nothing about filtration, so your guy is a strong believer in quarantine from your citations. Big surprise there."

No, wrong again....read his article...I linked it above...http://www.reefs.org/library/talklog/a_lawler_111697.html

 

[omykiss001]

You don't read well...

99.3% is after 5 turnovers - with a 500gph pump this is accomplised in an hour on a 100 gallon tank, in the first 12 minutes you've eliminated 63%...

You might want to read this....don't just read the quote...do youself a favor - put the popcorn down and read the whole thing...

"I use Marex, chloroquine phosphate + pyrimethamine (=daraprim), from Aquatronics to dislodge/kill the trophonts on fish prior to display. Treatment is done in all-glass tanks with sponge filters. My treatment technique allows me to put healthy fish on display in 1 day…..rather than after a long treatment with copper or quarantine. There have been very few failures using this technique since l984.

One can avoid problems with this parasite by using the treatment of your choice (freshwater, copper, various chemicals) as a treatment to dislodge trophonts prior to putting fish on display, and THEN keeping a diatomaceous earth filter on the tank to suck out infective dinospores coming from trophonts/tomonts swallowed and passed. DE filters will also help fish wounds heal faster, decrease other types of free-swimming infective stages of other parasites, and decrease water-borne bacteria, etc."

http://www.reefs.org/library/talklog/a_lawler_111697.html

Yes good read love to be able to do the first part. Small problem for most of us and the reason we still use more barbaric treatment like copper. All 3 of the drugs listed require a prescription to obtain. So far I have not been able to get a vet to give me one for CP, much less the other 2 and I have tried.

One more time I don't disagree your method can be successful, but as you have stated in other posts you must design the system around the method. The aesthetics are as important as the method of disease management. I want a sand bed with gobies and tangs in the same tank so disease eradication is more preferable.

One other problem I don't just keep fish and they are not the only pests I wish to keep out of my display, coral pest are just as big a worry and many of these do not have a planktonic phase so the DE filter will provide little benefit to this group of animals I also keep.

 

[robert]

Again not stating your method is wrong, but the environment of an aquaculture facility is the perfect scenario for this method. No rock work or caves. Generally just open smooth raceways where all of your assumptions can be met. Also in aquaculture there is still dead loss and some of it probably due to infectious agent like velvet, they just don't get an outright crash of the entire population. That is a very different goal than what I seek in my tank.

Yes with much higher fish densities than anything we can imagine in our tanks...tank design, setup and layout...Lawler kept display tanks....

 

[robert]

"I want a sand bed with gobies and tangs in the same tank so disease eradication is more preferable."

And I want to keep antelopes and lions in a petting zoo in my backyard...some species of fish do not go together in a small system.

In nine coral band diseases studied - water born cillates were found at the point of leasion - either as opportunistic parasites or as causative agents...proper filteration ensures that you tank remains healthy for your stock...quarantine alone cannot...

And yes...I know this can easily be done...I do it and have done it for years....

 

[robert]

"Small problem for most of us and the reason we still use more barbaric treatment like copper. All 3 of the drugs listed require a prescription to obtain. So far I have not been able to get a vet to give me one for CP, much less the other 2 and I have tried."

And again you misread - while Lawler says he uses "Marex, chloroquine phosphate + pyrimethamine" he then goes on to say:

One can avoid problems with this parasite by using the treatment of your choice (freshwater, copper, various chemicals) as a treatment to dislodge trophonts prior to putting fish on display, and THEN keeping a diatomaceous earth filter on the tank to suck out infective dinospores coming from trophonts/tomonts swallowed and passed. DE filters will also help fish wounds heal faster, decrease other types of free-swimming infective stages of other parasites, and decrease water-borne bacteria, etc."

Last time I looked - freshwater and peroxide are over the counter....

 

[omykiss001]

"The studies on immunity from ich also clearly demonstrate the adaptive immune response in fish is poorly developed and they really do not get long term immunity so even if you can remove it if reintroduced the fish will be at square one in about 6 months time."

absolutely wrong...you really should look at the data BEFORE you open your mouth...

I think it was you who claimed that fish could be carriers of ich in the same way humans could be carriers of typhus and HIV...
EXCEPT that typus and HIV do not need to leave the host to complete theitr life-cycle - a totally invalid analogy...

"Nothing about filtration, so your guy is a strong believer in quarantine from your citations. Big surprise there."

No, wrong again....read his article...I linked it above...http://www.reefs.org/library/talklog/a_lawler_111697.html

You posted that after you posted the first, again your guys is still using drugs to remove the parasites not just filtration, maybe he had a change of heart from the first web post you cite, but again he was more stating he doesn't have the time. Does not mean he has never had an animal die due to disease or it's the optimal way.

Perhaps you misunderstood my reference being asymptomatic does not imply immunity simply the fish or human is able to deal with the parasite load. Most humans are not immune to HIV they are contagious and asymptomatic for 10 years in many cases. There are plenty of human parasites that do need to leave the host. Malaria for one and due to diversity of strain the immune system is fooled over and over to the point a single mutation carried in the herozygous form provides an advantage the immune system can not. The mutation is clearly deleterious to the host and if carried in the homozygous allele combination is generally lethal by age 5. So evolution favored a gene that is lethal to 25% of the offspring so the other 50 % who carry the single copy survive better than those who don't carry the gene at all. In case you don't know what I'm referring to it's the sickle cell gene.

Why am I wrong about the adaptive immune response in fish? I'll have to dig the paper up again or maybe @Humblefish has it. The data showed after six month without challenge fish could be reinfected with the same strains that is not long term immunity for an animal that can live for 30 years.

I've grown tired of this conversation as thus far you keep citing the same guy and so far none of his work that was peer reviewed. Keep doing things your way.

 

[robert]

Your right of course - you know better than the guy who was there writing the book on marine parasites before you were probably born - go back and ask humblefish - he'll clue you in on the 20 year lifespan of ich in our systems...you clearly have not read any of the studies you reference...