Paul B
Premium Member
How I keep fish healthy.
Now these are things "I" do to keep fish healthy, not what I think "you" should do, or what my GrandMother did so these are "My" opinions, "my" practices and methods.
I also submitted a similar thread as this but I had some time and felt like ranting, I am old, give me a break. :sad2:
I read so many posts about diseases, fish disappearing, dying, turning colors etc. and I scratch my head and can't figure out why.
I know many people quarantine, and think they feed well, have fantastic parameters, hand pick their fish, read to them and most of them report that the fish died in a few weeks from one of many malady's.
This should not be. Most of the fish that we normally keep should live at least ten years, and that is a minimum. Even a simple goldfish can live over fifty years, and thats a goldfish. I have no idea how long fish live but I have had a few fish live over 19 years, two as a matter of fact but many of my older fish I gave away or donated to public aquariums.
So I feel there is a problem in the way many people keep fish. If you are interested I will tell you what "I" do to keep fish healthy and spawning.
If you are not interested, you wasted your time and mine by reading this first paragraph.
Keeping fish in perfect health has always been a goal of mine and after killing many fish, I have it down to a science. It does take some work so if you are real lazy, call up the people that wasted their time by reading this so far and do lunch.
I wrote about this many times but we are not fish, we are not like fish, we don't have the same digestive system as a fish and we certainly don't have a fishes immune system which is in some respects, actually better than ours. Why is that?
Well first of all a fish "breathes: water and extracts oxygen through it's gills, (yes we all know that) but the water is actually an extension of the fishes circulatory system. Bet you didn't know that. Whatever is in the water, is in the fish. We breathe air and unless we live in a sewer, the air is cleaner than the water because microbes can't fly and eventually hit the ground. But microbes do swim as do paracites, bacteria, viruses, and probably Paris Hilton's dog.
A fish has evolved to repel most of these microbes. The slime on a fish is one means of protection as are scales. But the main defense of a fish is it's immune system which works great, in the sea. Not so much in a tank. Why is that?
Well this is where the problem comes in and why there are so many posts about diseases. Probably 85% of posts are about sick fish.
Many people feel that if they offer a fish a varied diet, that is the best thing for a fish, right? Wrong.
Fish don't need a varied diet, they need what they were designed to eat and each type of fish needs a different diet. But there is one thing almost all fish need and that is fresh, unprocessed food. Flakes, pellets and many frozen foods don't fit the bill although a fish can live for many years on that food.
But do you want your fish to live, or do you want it to thrive?
There is a big difference. If your fish get, or have ever gotten ich, they are not thriving. If they get fungus, they are not thriving, if they die before ten or twenty years, they are not thriving (that is fish that will live that long, not seahorses, pipefish or many small gobies)
Fish in the sea rarely get sick. In my 40 or so years of diving I can't remember seeing a sick fish. But in tanks a large percentage of them just look lousy and if you ever saw fish in the see you will notice a big difference between them and a fish in a tank.
OK anyway, this is what I do. Every day my fish get some live food. They get live blackworms and new born brine shrimp. The baby brine shrimp is only because I have a lot of smaller fish and gorgonians. New born brine shrimp are very nutritious due to their yock sack, but they only have it for a short while so you need to feed them as soon as they hatch.
I have been using live blackworms for over fifty years and that is how I get my mandarins, bangai cardinals and fireclowns to spawn.
Also every day they get clams and mysis. That is almost the extent of their diet. Clams are much better than shrimp, octopus, scallop or squid because you are feeding the entire animal and the nutrition is in the guts, not the muscle which is all you are feeding with those other foods.
When a fish eats another fish you will notice that they eat the belly and guts first. They know where the nutrition is.
Frozen mysis are good (as a suppliment) but they are mostly shell which has no nutrition because their shell is not calcium like a fish skeleton is.
Clams contain calcium in their guts.
I discovered blackworms for salt water fish in 1972 when I was keeping blue devils which were the only fish available except for domino's.
The fish would live but were always getting ich. After feeding live worms for 3 weeks, one of the 7 blue devils changed to a darker blue and he became a male. The 6 females started to get fat and he started to breed with them. The eggs always hatched, and that was 40 years ago.
I have been using live worms ever since.
If it were not for blackworms I don't think I would stay in this hobby.
Anyway, a spawning fish is a healthy fish as it takes an enormous amount of energy and extra nutrition to develop eggs that could be almost half the fishes weight.
Spawning fish are in the healthiest condition a fish could be in and that is the condition fish in the sea are always in. Spawning fish do not get ich. In my experience anyway. I personally do not have to quarantine and I have no use of a hospital tank because I know my fishes immune system will protect them.
Yes I hear all the time my tank is a time bomb and soon it will get ich and I will lose all my fish. That may be, but I can determine the health of my fish from across the room and I can (but do not) put a fish in my tank with obvious ich and nothing will happen.
DON'T do that, and if you don't have my tank, keep quarantining. It takes years to get to that point and I don't advocate that you change your practices, but wouldn't it be nice if your fish were protected from these things and could live ten or twenty years?
I also have an automatic feeder on the tank which dispenses soft pellets that I add fish oil to. I am big on fish oil (I even take it myself) and feel it is woefully missing in all commercially sold foods as it doesn't store well and goes bad in the presence of oxygen. To me fish oil is one of the most important things and live worms contain oil. I doubt there would be any decent oil in freeze dried foods. When a fish develops eggs, most of those eggs are almost all oil. A fiahes liver could be a quarter of it's weight and it is almost all oil.
Of course the best food for fish is whole fish because they get the oil, calcium and nutrients in the exact proportions that they need, but tiny fresh fish are not sold for fish food which is a shame. I have spoken to "Ocean Nutrition" about this but they don't seem interested.
Again, these are the things "I" do. I didn't say "you" should do them so if you feel differently, don't argue with me. Start your own thread and call it "Paul B doesn't know a worm from Paris Hilton's Dog" or something to that effect because this is only what"I" do. I also run a UG filter but lets not talk about that right now.
I have also put this picture on here numerous times, so If you saw it already, go read a book. I didn't take this picture, my closest friend a ddive partner took it in the Caymans (I think)
To the left of the nurse shark are fish fry. That is the main food of reef fish and they eat them every day. Whole fish, or whole worms are the best thing you could feed fish.
These fry are all over the place in the sea as healthy fish spawn continousely, all year.
Now these are things "I" do to keep fish healthy, not what I think "you" should do, or what my GrandMother did so these are "My" opinions, "my" practices and methods.
I also submitted a similar thread as this but I had some time and felt like ranting, I am old, give me a break. :sad2:
I read so many posts about diseases, fish disappearing, dying, turning colors etc. and I scratch my head and can't figure out why.
I know many people quarantine, and think they feed well, have fantastic parameters, hand pick their fish, read to them and most of them report that the fish died in a few weeks from one of many malady's.
This should not be. Most of the fish that we normally keep should live at least ten years, and that is a minimum. Even a simple goldfish can live over fifty years, and thats a goldfish. I have no idea how long fish live but I have had a few fish live over 19 years, two as a matter of fact but many of my older fish I gave away or donated to public aquariums.
So I feel there is a problem in the way many people keep fish. If you are interested I will tell you what "I" do to keep fish healthy and spawning.
If you are not interested, you wasted your time and mine by reading this first paragraph.
Keeping fish in perfect health has always been a goal of mine and after killing many fish, I have it down to a science. It does take some work so if you are real lazy, call up the people that wasted their time by reading this so far and do lunch.
I wrote about this many times but we are not fish, we are not like fish, we don't have the same digestive system as a fish and we certainly don't have a fishes immune system which is in some respects, actually better than ours. Why is that?
Well first of all a fish "breathes: water and extracts oxygen through it's gills, (yes we all know that) but the water is actually an extension of the fishes circulatory system. Bet you didn't know that. Whatever is in the water, is in the fish. We breathe air and unless we live in a sewer, the air is cleaner than the water because microbes can't fly and eventually hit the ground. But microbes do swim as do paracites, bacteria, viruses, and probably Paris Hilton's dog.
A fish has evolved to repel most of these microbes. The slime on a fish is one means of protection as are scales. But the main defense of a fish is it's immune system which works great, in the sea. Not so much in a tank. Why is that?
Well this is where the problem comes in and why there are so many posts about diseases. Probably 85% of posts are about sick fish.
Many people feel that if they offer a fish a varied diet, that is the best thing for a fish, right? Wrong.
Fish don't need a varied diet, they need what they were designed to eat and each type of fish needs a different diet. But there is one thing almost all fish need and that is fresh, unprocessed food. Flakes, pellets and many frozen foods don't fit the bill although a fish can live for many years on that food.
But do you want your fish to live, or do you want it to thrive?
There is a big difference. If your fish get, or have ever gotten ich, they are not thriving. If they get fungus, they are not thriving, if they die before ten or twenty years, they are not thriving (that is fish that will live that long, not seahorses, pipefish or many small gobies)
Fish in the sea rarely get sick. In my 40 or so years of diving I can't remember seeing a sick fish. But in tanks a large percentage of them just look lousy and if you ever saw fish in the see you will notice a big difference between them and a fish in a tank.
OK anyway, this is what I do. Every day my fish get some live food. They get live blackworms and new born brine shrimp. The baby brine shrimp is only because I have a lot of smaller fish and gorgonians. New born brine shrimp are very nutritious due to their yock sack, but they only have it for a short while so you need to feed them as soon as they hatch.
I have been using live blackworms for over fifty years and that is how I get my mandarins, bangai cardinals and fireclowns to spawn.
Also every day they get clams and mysis. That is almost the extent of their diet. Clams are much better than shrimp, octopus, scallop or squid because you are feeding the entire animal and the nutrition is in the guts, not the muscle which is all you are feeding with those other foods.
When a fish eats another fish you will notice that they eat the belly and guts first. They know where the nutrition is.
Frozen mysis are good (as a suppliment) but they are mostly shell which has no nutrition because their shell is not calcium like a fish skeleton is.
Clams contain calcium in their guts.
I discovered blackworms for salt water fish in 1972 when I was keeping blue devils which were the only fish available except for domino's.
The fish would live but were always getting ich. After feeding live worms for 3 weeks, one of the 7 blue devils changed to a darker blue and he became a male. The 6 females started to get fat and he started to breed with them. The eggs always hatched, and that was 40 years ago.
I have been using live worms ever since.
If it were not for blackworms I don't think I would stay in this hobby.
Anyway, a spawning fish is a healthy fish as it takes an enormous amount of energy and extra nutrition to develop eggs that could be almost half the fishes weight.
Spawning fish are in the healthiest condition a fish could be in and that is the condition fish in the sea are always in. Spawning fish do not get ich. In my experience anyway. I personally do not have to quarantine and I have no use of a hospital tank because I know my fishes immune system will protect them.
Yes I hear all the time my tank is a time bomb and soon it will get ich and I will lose all my fish. That may be, but I can determine the health of my fish from across the room and I can (but do not) put a fish in my tank with obvious ich and nothing will happen.
DON'T do that, and if you don't have my tank, keep quarantining. It takes years to get to that point and I don't advocate that you change your practices, but wouldn't it be nice if your fish were protected from these things and could live ten or twenty years?
I also have an automatic feeder on the tank which dispenses soft pellets that I add fish oil to. I am big on fish oil (I even take it myself) and feel it is woefully missing in all commercially sold foods as it doesn't store well and goes bad in the presence of oxygen. To me fish oil is one of the most important things and live worms contain oil. I doubt there would be any decent oil in freeze dried foods. When a fish develops eggs, most of those eggs are almost all oil. A fiahes liver could be a quarter of it's weight and it is almost all oil.
Of course the best food for fish is whole fish because they get the oil, calcium and nutrients in the exact proportions that they need, but tiny fresh fish are not sold for fish food which is a shame. I have spoken to "Ocean Nutrition" about this but they don't seem interested.
Again, these are the things "I" do. I didn't say "you" should do them so if you feel differently, don't argue with me. Start your own thread and call it "Paul B doesn't know a worm from Paris Hilton's Dog" or something to that effect because this is only what"I" do. I also run a UG filter but lets not talk about that right now.
I have also put this picture on here numerous times, so If you saw it already, go read a book. I didn't take this picture, my closest friend a ddive partner took it in the Caymans (I think)
To the left of the nurse shark are fish fry. That is the main food of reef fish and they eat them every day. Whole fish, or whole worms are the best thing you could feed fish.
These fry are all over the place in the sea as healthy fish spawn continousely, all year.
. I discovered the black work trick a few years ago with a copper band butterfly that wouldn't eat fake food and got him from thin to tip top shape in just a few weeks. I've got to try the mainly clam diet.
