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yay! *goes to grab test kits to ensure premium water quality*


Gary - What is your opinion on dosing CO2?

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Critical Fertilator: The Micromanager of Macronutrients

What about the salt, Gary? My understanding is that the ecosystems the fish i keep come from *generally* have a higher salinity than the tap water in my area. So, i dose with small amounts of rock salt, maybe 2 rocks per 30 gallons. Could you suggest some more information on this for me please. I will have a browse around the library and web to see what i can turn up as well, but would be interested in your opinion.

Yep... after reading your water quality articles, and doing a little more research, i put away the melafix etc and reach from my glasses first! Can you really beat regular observation and monitoring of your fish to keep them healthy? Add that healthy water Gary speaks of and WOW.. look how great my fish are now!

I still use my can, Gary, but it gets cleaned every 2 weeks and is suplemented by a power head that pushes a VERY large current through the tank. My fish love to stop and 'idle' against the current.

[span class="edited"][Edited by jester_fu 2004-08-05 18:56][/span]

Just between you and me, Jester, I had to reapply my Fluval 404 "can"ister to the 125 gallon...

I wasn't certain that my 35 Clown Loaches were happy with three 330 Penquin bio filters and I suspected a deficit of properly oxygenated water.

I did a little rearranging in the "can" and went with ceramic rings in all four containers.

Salt, you ask...

Salt is in minute quantities in all fresh water and fish are experts in extracting this salt according to their needs.

No need to dose any more. It's just overkill, that could, if you think about it, mess up the ion pump in their gills that is responsible, in part, for doing the extraction.

--garyroland.

Excellent points, gary.

For most of my tanks the only additives I'll use are peat and dechlorinator. I do use aquarium salt on my bettas and they seem to appreciate it. Parasites like ich are sensitive to the extra NaCl and I haven't seen any sice I started using it on them, even when the betta tanks have dropped to lower temperatures than I'd like. I am a huge fan of melafix for injuries. It does the trick to prevent any infection before it happens and I've even been successful treating fin rot for it on a few occasions.

Water quality is the biggest cause of illness that I ever see. Thanks for putting that into an entertaining yet still informative thread.

Great posts... very informative. Even though I am new to fishkeeping, I tend to feel the same way about pets as I do about my own daughter. I do not give her medicine unless I am absolutely sure she needs it, because you hear so much about these drug resistant bacteria, etc. Anyhow, when you have kids and you read all those parenting books the advice is to feed your kids healthy food and make sure they get plenty of rest/exercise and they will be less e to illness. Wouldn't the same philosophy apply to pets, or in this case, fish? Give them a nice, clean environment and learn to care for them properly and they should be healthy. Luckily we've only had a couple floaters, all but one were ones we had just purchased. Boy, it's a little late for me so I hope this ramble makes sense!

Again, thanks for the interesting posts.
-Beth

Thanks Gary.

Gary,

Great article. I'm in 110% total agreement. I don't know where I picked it up from but I have a pathological aversion to putting any kind of med or chemical into the water. Proper acclimatation, good CONSTANT water parameters,decent filtration and and a healthy varied diet are all that are necessary for a successful tank. These basics are taken care of and the resultant strong healthy fish are more then capable of fighting off most ailments without any intervention from us. Those they can't fight off by themselves , well our pouring in chemicals is probably not going to save them anyway.

I've only being fishkeeping for a year, but in that time I have dosed meds exactly once. I hardly ever have sick fish (maybe I'm lucky, maybe something to do with above). I've seen Ich pop up 3 or 4 times (usually after a new fish introduced)and never lifted a finger to do anything about it. A healthy fish with Ich is like a human with a summer sniffle, if you are in any kind of half decent shape, it will pass by itself. Never lost a fish to Ich, not even close, usually gone in a couple of days. Will never see the need to dump dye into my tank ! If I ever did have a serious outbreak that I felt needed treatment the first question I'd ask myself is "why are the fish so weak their immune system couldn't handle it".

I find it very puzzling that hear so many times people requesting help to identify an illness also go on to say they threw in some Med X or Med Y without really knowing why. If you had a headache would you run to the medicine cabinet and start swilling from the first bottle of medication you found, regardless of what is was ?

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Some days you're the pigeon and some days you're the statue.

Remember that age and treachery will always triumph over youth and ability.

you know, very few fish pathogens are going yo be airbourne (inless the humidity is pretty incredible i guess) cause it doesnt make much sense to float around in the air when you want to infect a fishy.

I read somewhere that the nitrosomonas/nitrobacter (one of which has been renamed, and i can't recall which) can be airbourne, but i dont know if its true.

Funny isnt it, how people accept that tanks will cycle, and they try to attract bacteria, just flip out if anything else gets in.




For animals, the entire universe has been neatly divided into things to (a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) run away from, and (d) rocks. - Terry Pratchett

fish require a bacterially balanced tank, supreme filtration, well aerated water and a variety of excellent food.

Amen.

Yeah, those don't-need-to-change-water-for-six-months additives are ridiculous. Everyone knows you need a tresure chest laser light in order to do that. http://www.fishprofiles.com/interactive/forums/thread.asp?id=44645

So many chemicals, so little natural environment...

"I dose Melafix just in case..." is a statement often seen in this Forum.

"I like to add stress coat when I do water changes."

"I always add salt. It's good for the fish."

No wonder our tropicals are getting sick.

The one I love the most is: "I dose this additive that eliminates water changes for six months."

Good grief. No water changes for six months. Those poor fish.

I haven't gone into any treatments for sick fish. The theme here could be considered "prevention", a sure fire way to stop sickness before it can get a foothold in your tank.

Can airborne bacteria enter a tank?? Sure. Would a full hood prevent bacteria from entering a tank?? Probably not unless you could tape off every open crack and hole, but that would create another problem.

Let the bacteria come in. Who cares.

There's one huge piece of ammunition that tropicals have to fight disease...immunity.

If you're going to dose every concoction you can find in the fish store just because the store clerk suggested you do so, you're compromising the very ammunition your fish were born with.

Immunity is not fail safe. To maintain it fish require a bacterially balanced tank, supreme filtration, well aerated water and a variety of excellent food.

If your fish do get sick there's a real good chance something about the tank water is wrong. And when the water isn't right, neither are the fish.

Perhaps you should start there.

END.

--garyroland.

[span class="edited"][Edited by garyroland 2004-08-05 10:15][/span]

I have to say... these posts don't really have any purpose. It sounds like you're ranting about anything that pops into your mind.

In your first segment, you just tell a story about a beginning fishkeeper who can't keep fish. Boo hoo.

In the second segment, all you manage to say is don't use Stress Coat or Amquel or anything else that messes with the ammonia. Wow.

In your third segment, you seem to just ramble about people who throw a hundred different chemicals into their tanks to "prevent" disease. Now, I don't know too many people who will just throw in extra melafix, ich medicine, stress coat, aquarium salt, EasyBalance (instead of doing water changes), pH up, pH down, maracyn, stress zyme, and other things all at the same time to make a poisonous "soup."

The fact is, if a fish is already sick, you have to add medications to cure them. Improving water quality will not cure a fish once the damage has already been done.

Congratulations on regurgitating "excellent points" that everyone already knew.

I both agree and disagree with your points... I think melafix is a great thing to have around, I can't count the number of time that my bettas have torn fins or the like and have healed in a number of days. I view it as putting... oh, like, peroxide on a cut. It just keeps out infection.

I do try to keep medicating to a minimum, but sometimes I feel it IS needed. Recently I tried adding a new betta girl to my community tank... she ripped through my six other betta girls like there was no tomorrow. Besides ruffled tempers and torn fins, two of my girls threw themselves against the gravel in their hurry to get away from her, causing swelling and pop eye.

As my doctor's office told me when I was sick... you never want to mess with something that has to do with your eyes or your ears, it can too often turn out to be much worse than you thought and can have serious side effects. I felt it prudent to medicate, and a week later, the swelling is down and they look so much better. Whether they would have healed on their own, only God knows, but I wasn't going to risk their eyes.

Of course, the same that goes for humans goes for fish... did you know that if you use anti-bacterial soap, you actually have MORE of a likelihood of getting sick? You're not allowing your body to build up an immunity to the little germs, so when the big nasties hit, your immune system can't handle it as well as if it had been fighting off the nasties all along. I imagine the same would happen with fish if you constantly add random preventatives. *shrugs*

~Meow. Thus spoke the cat.~

xxmrbui3blesxx,

I’m sure that Gary is more then capable of defending himself but I’ll stick my $0.2 in anyway.

“these posts don't really have any purpose”
Any semi intelligent post on these forums are always more then welcome, there’s been a depressing shortage of them lately! That in itself, to my mind anyway gives them purpose.

“Now, I don't know too many people who will just throw in extra melafix, ich medicine, stress coat, aquarium salt, EasyBalance (instead of doing water changes), pH up, pH down, maracyn, stress zyme, and other things all at the same time to make a poisonous "soup."”
Come on, have you read some of the posts on these forums? It’s quite common to hear people say they have fish sick and threw in this medicine but now I think the fish might have this illness so I’m going to throw in this medicine also oh and by the way I added some stress coat also, oh yeah and a bit of NIC in case my filter crashes. By the way do you think the fish been sick might have anything to do with the stuff I put in to get my pH down?
Ok that may be an exaggeration, but not much of one.

“The fact is, if a fish is already sick, you have to add medications to cure them. Improving water quality will not cure a fish once the damage has already been done.”
Not necessarily. There are some illnesses that the fish should be able to fight off themselves. Yes there are times when our intervention is necessary but this should be minimal. The problem is people throw in Ich cures when they see one white spot, when if they give the fish time they cure themselves if they are healthy, or again throw in the wrong meds, which only worsen the situation. Unfortunately this is sometimes propagated by well meaning people on these boards saying “ oh, that MIGHT be dropsy why don’t you try using this med?” when in fact the fish may just be constipated.
Improving water quality may not cure a sick fish, but it will sure as heck help in it’s recovery and prevention of further re-occurrence and if the water quality was good to begin in all likelihood the fish wouldn’t be sick anyway, which is Gary’s entire point.

“Congratulations on regurgitating "excellent points" that everyone already knew.”
Do they already know? Again check the boards. We have people asking if laser treasure chests will stop the fish being sick !!! We are all here to seek help when we need it and offer help when we can. There are new members joining everyday who may not be as knowledgeable as you and these points bear regurgitating again, and again and again and serve a far better purpose then the 1000th post say “oh my betta is sooooo cuuuutttee”

Finally a quote from Gary:
“I write these articles to generate interest in the hobby and generate participation in the Forums.”
Well I think he’s achieved that. Any healthy, lively, intelligent debate is to be welcomed.



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Some days you're the pigeon and some days you're the statue.

Remember that age and treachery will always triumph over youth and ability.

I try never to write for hobbyists who know everything...

I do however write for those who would like to know everything and admit they don't.

--garyroland.

Gary,

I freely admit that I don't know everything... and I would like to learn more. Again, thanks for posting information that is helpful, especially to those of us new to the hobby. I look forward to reading more informative posts on this forum.

-Beth

bensaf, the only real problem I see with this article is that it lacks details. Everything is vaguely stated, and the author goes about stating things in roundabout ways. The entire article could be condensed into 4 or 5 sentences.

if the water quality was good to begin in all likelihood the fish wouldnt be sick anyway, which is Garys entire point.

Maybe if these posts were less rambling it would be easier to tell what his points were.

I would like someone to tell me the significance of this first post. http://www.fishprofiles.com/interactive/forums/thread.asp?id=44831

Come on, have you read some of the posts on these forums?

You mean to tell me that there are actually people who toss in all the chemicals they have in their cabinet (without exaggeration...)?

Now, I know almost everyone who reads gary's posts on FP are gary-worshippers. I, for one, cannot recommend these posts to anyone.

I do however write for those who would like to know everything

I guess this means you know everything.

Now, I know almost everyone who reads gary's posts on FP are gary-worshippers

I read his posts because I enjoy a good debate, and am interested in other peoples' views even if I don't agree with those views. I read everyone's posts, including yours.

I definately wouldn't class myself as Gary worshipper

As a matter of fact I think Gary is on the verge of smug sometimes -- sorry GaryBut that's ok he's usually just telling like it is and that's not always what people want to hear.

But as Jake said intelligent well written posts that generate debate - always welcome.

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Some days you're the pigeon and some days you're the statue.

Remember that age and treachery will always triumph over youth and ability.