Thanks for your Service Paul glad you are doing ok, I had a friend from the same war he was ok unless you got him drinking. But anyway Great tank and thanks so much for the info
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Hi Nicholas, good to see you here!Paul,
I have been in the hobby appx a week compared to your time in the hobby lol but I agree with your methods. It's easier to read the tank than chase a number IMO. Also a sterile tank will always fail at some point in time! Going as natural as possible is always a good idea! Iv never really "quarenteened a fish" observe and in it goes
hi i feed my 4 fish.. flake once a day.. 1/2 cube of frozen mysis with omega 3 or brine with garlic once a day and switch this a week on and off with live copepods/mysis/brine. i do this every other week because thats the availability of it.. with your experience and knowledge of immunity am i going the right way? i have no quarintine capacity so i have to just buy from a good source and hope for the best so im keen to no if i could be doing anything extra to help my fish : )
Fantastic tank btw, although it does feel weird to know that your tank has been running twice as long as I've been living [emoji23]
Interesting and well put point of view Paul.
Where do you get your worms? Are you buying nightcrawlers for fishing? Obviously frozen worms would negate the live benefits you discuss in your point.
How do you think tank mates would fair if such food started to be introduced to a tank?
Also, you talk about if a fish becomes covered in parasites you remove them. I've always had difficulty catching fish in a tank due to rock scape and coral growth. Even fish traps (of the bottle diy sort) can only catch so big of a fish. I've had stressed fish who had shown signs of sickness. I do not remove them but try to make sure i offer a varied diet and simply monitor them with their tank mates. They seem to fair most the time, in fact i don't think I've lost a fish directly related to sickness. More like abandon ship syndrome or simply bullying.
I would certainly be interested in feeding more live foods if it were more accessible. Solely for the fact that it is alive and would contribute to having a higher value of nutrients ~eat fresh!
Where/how do you aquire your live food and do you feed it daily? Would love to hear more on your regime in this regard, thanks!
Absolutely fascinating! After 4 years, I think I'm in the "fusion zone" so sign me up. I've run UG filters but I'm a little fuzzy on your comment about reversing it. Could you please explain? I've just switched to 100% local ocean water. I'm on Van. Island so our salinity is low at 0.020 but by adding a bit of salt, everything comes into line and so far my 140 gallon established tank is just fine. Wish I had seen this a couple of months ago, before I put sand in the new tank. I would have installed a UG filter. Oh well, onwards and upwards.
Paul B,You may find some of my log book interesting. Look at the dates and the medications I used. Remember in 1972 there were no medications for salt water fish and we used pennies for copper. I only posted when something bad happened even though it looks like my fish were always sick. Most of the time, they probably were as no one, including me knew what we were doing. All these fish were also in a 30 gallon tank.
I find it interesting here that I was keeping French Angels, Moorish Idol, tangs and copperbands in the 70s.
Here it seems I cured a French Angel of HLLE using vitamin A or fish oil. I have been giving it to my fish ever since.
Here I wrote that I removed a tumor from the belly of a tetradon puffer five years before he died. That tumor was inside his belly and I had to cut him open to do that, Then I force fed him for a while and he was cured.
Shaun, Thank You.Absolutely fascinating! After 4 years, I think I'm in the "fusion zone" so sign me up. I've run UG filters but I'm a little fuzzy on your comment about reversing it. Could you please explain? I've just switched to 100% local ocean water. I'm on Van. Island so our salinity is low at 0.020 but by adding a bit of salt, everything comes into line and so far my 140 gallon established tank is just fine. Wish I had seen this a couple of months ago, before I put sand in the new tank. I would have installed a UG filter. Oh well, onwards and upwards.
I find the undergravel filter facinating. Especially the comment about keeping it oxygen saturated. What kind of gravel? Oyster shells?
Your not going to mention your algae turf scrubber Paul? How long has it been used? What other filters besides the diatom filter?
Question. If you reduced the alkalinity to 3 dkh, would your fish get sick?
I feed my 14 green chromis 2-6 times a day micro pellets. Never lost a single chromis. Ive had 4 of them 2 years, the other 10 were added 2-3 months ago. I believe you can feed them less with blackworms, but can compensate with more feedings of dry foods. My fish never get sick. I also don't quarantine. I believe if they are fed enough, they will overcome sickness providing water quality isn't an issue or bullying/territorial issues.
Marine World, thank you for commenting. Here In New York the only store that has salt water fish in 1971 was "Aquarium Stock Company" in Manhattan a couple of blocks from the World Trade Center. Here we had no salt water medications or fish. I guess where you come from, you did so I should have said, I didn't have any salt water medications and we used pennies. I did not invent that, it was Robert Straughn "The Father of Salt Water Fish Keeping" who wrote the "Salt Water Aquarium in the Home" which was my bible. But as I am not the God of fish you are probably correct.Paul B,
Interesting your comments regarding how you ran your system over many years. Obviously there are many ways to have a successful aquarium. I have been in the business importing and selling marine fish since 1965, and I am more than familiar with the progression the hobby has taken. I am a bit perplexed by your statement saying there was no medication available for saltwater fish in 1972, and you had to use copper pennies. Not true. We had many medications prior to 1972 including copper remedies. In fact there were more antibiotics in those days, than there are today, that worked quite well to treat problems. Most of these antibiotics can no longer be purchased except through a prescription these days.
Suggest you see if you can find a copy of the book: Diseases of Fish by C. Van Dujin. This book was published originally in 1956, and is loaded with remedies for treating fish. We sold 100's of copies of this book over the years, and many treatments are still relevant today.
Don
MARINE WORLD