Are there disease resistant fish?

[Reefkeeper12]

Ich magnets is the wrong word, they are velvet magnets. If you ever get velvet like one of my tanks got, I had 10 fish die in 24 hours all because of a powder blue tang. Funny thing is the tang seemed fine until he got stressed out one day and the velvet came out of nowhere and gobbled up almost every other fish in my tank including those stupid little damsels that are supposed to be indestructible lol.

In my tank the only fish that lived were the wrasses, so to answer your post then yes I believe wrasses are highly disease resistant.

 

[atoll]

Ich magnets is the wrong word, they are velvet magnets. If you ever get velvet like one of my tanks got, I had 10 fish die in 24 hours all because of a powder blue tang. Funny thing is the tang seemed fine until he got stressed out one day and the velvet came out of nowhere and gobbled up almost every other fish in my tank including those stupid little damsels that are supposed to be indestructible lol.

You have helped prove the point, diseases are there in out tanks. The difference is how immune are your fish to them. I have never had a disease just appear out of the blue from nowhere. Diseases simply can't just happen theyhave to have been present all along or introduced. If your dishes immune system is weak then they won't fend it off.

 

[atoll]

You have helped prove the point, diseases are there in out tanks. The difference is how immune are your fish to them. I have never had a disease just appear out of the blue from nowhere. Diseases simply can't just happen theyhave to have been present all along or introduced. If your dishes immune system is weak then they won't fend it off.

Oops the hazards of posting on your phone sorry.

 

[Reefkeeper12]

You have helped prove the point, diseases are there in out tanks. The difference is how immune are your fish to them. I have never had a disease just appear out of the blue from nowhere. Diseases simply can't just happen theyhave to have been present all along or introduced. If your dishes immune system is weak then they won't fend it off.

I’m not trying to prove a point just letting you know if velvet ever gets into your tank, it goes dormant probably from copper or other meds that were used on the fish at LFS so you can’t see it. But once one fish gets stressed and it comes out it will kill everything, I believe in healthy immune systems too but when it comes to velvet it’s not the same as ich. And you can’t always see it at first that’s why they recommend QT for at least 30 days, my tang decided to bust out the velvet around the 45 day mark and instantly killed all my fish except for the wrasses.

My recommendation for myself and others is to just avoid certain types of fish that have thin slime coats, I made a huge mistake that I just want to help other people avoid.

I honestly don’t care about ich, the only two things that have caused me problems in the hobby so far at velvet and flukes.
But I’d pick the flukes over velvet any day.

 

[Reefkeeper12]

I’m not trying to prove a point just letting you know if velvet ever gets into your tank, it goes dormant probably from copper or other meds that were used on the fish at LFS so you can’t see it. But once one fish gets stressed and it comes out it will kill everything, I believe in healthy immune systems too but when it comes to velvet it’s not the same as ich. And you can’t always see it at first that’s why they recommend QT for at least 30 days, my tang decided to bust out the velvet around the 45 day mark and instantly killed all my fish except for the wrasses.

My recommendation for myself and others is to just avoid certain types of fish that have thin slime coats, I made a huge mistake that I just want to help other people avoid.

I honestly don’t care about ich, the only two things that have caused me problems in the hobby so far at velvet and flukes.
But I’d pick the flukes over velvet any day.

Certain things fish can build immunity to, I don’t believe velvet is one of those things when It’s in a fish tank.

 

[Paul B]

Certain things fish can build immunity to, I don’t believe velvet is one of those things when It’s in a fish tank.

I realize many people will agree with you, but you do realize my tank is running like this for almost fifty years which would mean that in all those years I have never introduced velvet. Do you think that is possible?

I just added another Rainsford gobi 10 minutes ago. I hope he doesn't have velvet.

 

[Humblefish]

I realize many people will agree with you, but you do realize my tank is running like this for almost fifty years which would mean that in all those years I have never introduced velvet. Do you think that is possible?

I just added another Rainsford gobi 10 minutes ago. I hope he doesn't have velvet.

It's the bacteria, Paul. You should start selling a handful of sand/crushed coral out of your tank. It would be the fish equivalent of getting a fecal transplant. ;Vomit

 

[atoll]

I’m not trying to prove a point just letting you know if velvet ever gets into your tank, it goes dormant probably from copper or other meds that were used on the fish at LFS so you can’t see it. But once one fish gets stressed and it comes out it will kill everything, I believe in healthy immune systems too but when it comes to velvet it’s not the same as ich. And you can’t always see it at first that’s why they recommend QT for at least 30 days, my tang decided to bust out the velvet around the 45 day mark and instantly killed all my fish except for the wrasses.

My recommendation for myself and others is to just avoid certain types of fish that have thin slime coats, I made a huge mistake that I just want to help other people avoid.

I honestly don’t care about ich, the only two things that have caused me problems in the hobby so far at velvet and flukes.
But I’d pick the flukes over velvet any day.

I guess if that's true I and a few others have just been extremely lucky the last 25 years or so. Well that's what some tell me me, well I'm far from sure. People will believe what they wish I guess but after having about 13/14 tanks in my 38 years keeping reef tanks and since doing what I do for the last 25 years with no issues of disease I will just carry on as I have done. Why would I contemplate changing?

I realize many people will agree with you, but you do realize my tank is running like this for almost fifty years which would mean that in all those years I have never introduced velvet. Do you think that is possible?

I just added another Rainsford gobi 10 minutes ago. I hope he doesn't have velvet.

Or even corduroy.

 

[Paul B]

Crushed Velvet.

Some people will just not get it. If I kept my tank ich and velvet free for 150 years, that still wouldn't be good enough.

I don't know what it takes. For some reason many people just can't keep disease at bay and feel no one else can.
I know there is more than me and Atoll doing this simple thing as we would never allow our fish to get sick. There is no need for it either with a Naso tang, purple tang, lipstick tang or any other kind of tang. It's not the type of fish you keep, it's how you keep them.

I give up.

 

[atoll]

Crushed Velvet.

Some people will just not get it. If I kept my tank ich and velvet free for 150 years, that still wouldn't be good enough.

I don't know what it takes. For some reason many people just can't keep disease at bay and feel no one else can.
I know there is more than me and Atoll doing this simple thing as we would never allow our fish to get sick. There is no need for it either with a Naso tang, purple tang, lipstick tang or any other kind of tang. It's not the type of fish you keep, it's how you keep them.

I give up.

I like you Paul have been taking horses to water. You know am not really bothered if people believe us or our methods (it does hurt however to be called more or less a liar) what is of concern is the amount of fish that die needlessly in this great hobby especially through over medication and poor fishkeepin in general. My damsels have eggs and my clowns spawned again yesterday. My Anthias aren't as yet mature enough to do so but they appear to have sorted themselves out a dominant male so its probably just a matter if time. I suspect my Royal grammas are spawning behind my reefscape but I can't confirm that. I am.also waiting for my torpedo gobbies to mature and be 100% sure I have a pair. My copperband if fit and healthy and growing well, same fir my foxface. Apart from one of my yellow wrasse deciding to find the small gap in my net cover and carpet surfing all.my fish are in great condition, colourful and eating like pigs. Why in earth would I even consider changing my proven ways over the last 25 years or so? I would have to be mad to do so.

 

[Paul B]

I took some "White Out" and painted spots on my hippo tang just so I could go on the disease forum.

 

[atoll]

I took some "White Out" and painted spots on my hippo tang just so I could go on the disease forum.

Apparently it's much more realistic if you shake salt over the fish. The grains look like white spot I am told.

 

[Reefkeeper12]

I realize many people will agree with you, but you do realize my tank is running like this for almost fifty years which would mean that in all those years I have never introduced velvet. Do you think that is possible?

I just added another Rainsford gobi 10 minutes ago. I hope he doesn't have velvet.

From my understanding if you pick fish that are resistant to it like wrasses, and gobies too, you should be fine and I know what you mean because I think I had a velvet fish in one of my other tanks for like a day, and I ended up taking him out but my tank never got infected. I think you have to have a suitable host for the velvet to multiply in the tank to get dangerous but that’s just my opinion. I think it’s great you probably picked some fish that like you said have good immunities and do well in captivity. Some gosh just aren’t meant for fish tanks I guess.

 

[atoll]

From my understanding if you pick fish that are resistant to it like wrasses, and gobies too, you should be fine and I know what you mean because I think I had a velvet fish in one of my other tanks for like a day, and I ended up taking him out but my tank never got infected. I think you have to have a suitable host for the velvet to multiply in the tank to get dangerous but that’s just my opinion. I think it’s great you probably picked some fish that like you said have good immunities and do well in captivity. Some gosh just aren’t meant for fish tanks I guess.

Paul, has a hippo tang, I don't recall his other. I had but traded a redline tang after a few months and have Royal grammas and Anthias among others. Which of those fish in most peoples tanks wouldn't get velvet do you think if it was introduced into a tank given none are considered hardy?

 

[atoll]

Another one bites the dust. Not mine I may add.
"I did lose the yellowtail wrasse, for the life of me I just can’t seem to get them through QT".
Of course it may have died anyway but did QTing play a part in it's demise? He will never know.

 

[Paul B]

Here is a page from my Log book in 1976. Five years after I started my tank. These fish were all in my "40 gallon" tank.

Some of therm seem to be ich magnets to me, and yet none of them died from ich or velvet.
And that was over 40 years ago.

This was in the early stages of me learning what to feed and way before reef tanks, when we only had dead coral skeletons for decoration that we removed and bleached every two weeks. I am surprised anything lived.

We even used to try to cultivate aiptasia because it was the only invert around, and you had to buy them as "Anemone rocks".

When I talk about healthy fish or keeping them healthy I am not speaking of last year or five years ago.
Five years isn't even half the age of a hermit crab.

I have been doing this since way before last Tuesday and if your fish are immune, I mean they are immune "forever". No matter what fish you keep of what kind of tang.

They did die from things associated with my stupidity. My Hippo tangs then did get HLLE which I assume I would get also if someone put me in a 40 gallon tank for 10 years with moorish Idols, puffers and French Angelfish.
I killed that French Angel after 4 years by accident. So he lived that long in a tank with a copperband that seemed to have ich or velvet.

It looks like this copperband Had some sort of parasites when I bought him as he was scratching.
I don't remember what I did to cure him or if I even did anything.

 

[Paul B]

Here is a page from 1979. The disease I am talking about if HLLE. Now I realize those fish should not live in a 40 gallon "Non-Reef" tank.


Here I had a Hippo tang and a Naso tang, both in a 40 gallon tank.



There were no salt water medications at the time so I used Human meds which didn't work to well. Remember this was well before computers and before anyone knew you could even keep salt water fish. In New York there were only a very few stores that sold salt water fish and that usually meant some blue devils or dominoes.

I kept a log for many years but only logged when something died or an event happened so sometimes I went a year without writing anything.

This was the beginning of the hobby

 

[Reefkeeper12]

Paul, has a hippo tang, I don't recall his other. I had but traded a redline tang after a few months and have Royal grammas and Anthias among others. Which of those fish in most peoples tanks wouldn't get velvet do you think if it was introduced into a tank given none are considered hardy?

None of those fish will do good against velvet if it is introduced into the tank by another fish, stay away from Achilles tangs and powder blue tangs they are the absolute worst velvet magnets.

My experience shows a lot of wrasses will do good especially the ones that bury, have a chalk basslet still kicking, and most gobies are good too.

I lost all the fish you mentioned to velvet royal gramma, squammapinni anthias, even the little azure damsels died.

 

[atoll]

None of those fish will do good against velvet if it is introduced into the tank by another fish, stay away from Achilles tangs and powder blue tangs they are the absolute worst velvet magnets.

My experience shows a lot of wrasses will do good especially the ones that bury, have a chalk basslet still kicking, and most gobies are good too.

I lost all the fish you mentioned to velvet royal gramma, squammapinni anthias, even the little azure damsels died.

I have kept singles, pairs or small shoals of those as well as regal tang, yellow tangs in various tanks over a period of over 25 years without them catching anything and living untill I moved them on due to house moves. Why didn't I have a single outbreak of velvet berhaps it's simply luck but I very much doubt it.

 

[Reefkeeper12]

I have kept singles, pairs or small shoals of those as well as regal tang, yellow tangs in various tanks over a period of over 25 years without them catching anything and living untill I moved them on due to house moves. Why didn't I have a single outbreak of velvet berhaps it's simply luck but I very much doubt it.

You had shoals of Achilles tangs and powder blue tangs??? Because if you read what I wrote I stated that putting a velvet magnet like one of those two fish will make the other fish I listed vulnerable. So unless you’re stating you had shoals of Achilles tangs and powder blue tangs for 25 years which I highly doubt since that’s unheard of then your post is irrelevant.