Parasites & disease failures with marine fish.

To begin with ,this is partly about something recently in another marine aquarium forum , it seems there were a few tank journal additions, more or less, recorded in relation to a major amount of marine aquarium fish deaths in one of that forums members (newish) quite large aquarium.

As a result of this, an argument broke out, (so to speak), than the father of this aquarium keeper, now up in the higher achy of there Queensland branch tor strips off these members (in a very immature manner) about the condemnation of his sons extremely common mistakes, as dads and mums will do, even if there child is in the wrong, not that I am saying he is!

This area of (discussion) is always the first to condemn anything with in our clubs realm of activities and knowledge, yet the most (common) of mistakes that you would think would not exist in such a supposedly highly educated sector of the hobby represented in Aus actually happened, how could this happen?

It certainly did happen and that resulted from an over abundance of modern popular theories promoted on their area for discussion.

What happened was that his son put fish from many parts of the world’s oceans together with out proper preparation for this.

The result was parasitic deaths.

When you intend on mixing fish that have an immune system that has evolved to fight off the parasites common to those areas, than when you place a fish in with them not properly removed of their foreign parasites than you have exposed the others to what they can not defend them selves against.

Maybe you could call this cross contemination, unless there is a more high tech term for this,nah, I call it plain stupid!

Also there is the stress of new water conditions, new PH, varied salinity, different fish species to live with; these are not easy things for a new tank inhabitant to deal with.

So what do you get, stress and what is the thing parasites crave for most to be aroused to attack, stress!!!

As one of our clubbies has learnt the hard way, you make sure all new fish go through a copper solution of treatment for a time to ensure they have no parasites left on them for the day they are introduced to their new home.

There is nothing better over all in a quarantine or curing tank than copper as it kills any and all inverts and that means anything other than a fish.

Leave the copper levels at a low level (always) when no fish are in that tank for when you introduce fish for treatment next time for easy raising of levels and a tank free of any forms of parasites.

The latest copper cure is coprumine and it works well before infestation at 4 to 6 times the recommended levels as was recently used over a two day period.

If you have waited until the fish are already sick the slightly toxic affects of copper that will not bother a reasonably healthy fish will possibly kill an already infested sick fish.

There are more things to do than just that with copper cures but that is another thread subject.

In my experience so far, having had marine tanks for a year and a half or maybe a bit longer now.. I've found that having a tank 95% full of completely local species, seems to work very well. The only non locals are a Blue Tang (which still could be a local one, who knows..), a Pygmy Angel and two blue Chromis.

I've found so far that the only fish that i've got that gets white spot every now and then.. is my Eyestripe Tang. Its the same in both four foot and two foot, and luckily it doesn't spread to any other fish.

Either i'm just lucky, my tank is super awesome or the fact that all the fish are local might just be the reason that they all stay alive. Granted, i've had four deaths from local fish, but you can't expect em all to be super hardy. All the ones that died, were all because they weren't eating either, so no parasites in that case.

This is cool stuff guys,i was hoping to find out a bit more about the white spot parasite and velvet,but i wasn't here for that

I am just starting out and i thought i would have a look here when i saw the trip posts on another forum,i thought that was all i was going to find here,some cool trips,not awsome info as well.

Thanks guys i will keep watching and learning.

I am with you on that fishfinj,i have mainly crawled a few forums until now.

Pretty happy with the information here,i don't really like to get on forums,just crawl around and learn from what is said.

after registering here i now have a look at anything new put on here each day as to what help it is to me,that is where i am at.

I was just doing that same thing kimcrab as a guest just looking at what is new here,i saw what you wrote and got on.

I know the thread that this is about,i go on their forum as well,no way i would say anything there,i would get treated like c--p and that sucks.

Please keep the arguments out of here guys,its not worth it,don't go down the same path as them.