Do fish have immunity?

[WVNed]

Hudu, I agree and there is also a long thread about that. parasites are affected by bacteria and viruses so if we kill one of those things, we screw up the natural system.


I have been doing this to long and am getting to old to argue about all this stuff and I feel I have some good ideas. Of course many people have good Ideas and we should hear about them. So about 6 years ago, instead of arguing every time someone disagrees with me I decided to put up some money and time and publish a book, which I did. It is available on Amazon and all the reviews are 5 stars.
It's under all my posts and they allow me to put it there because it all goes to charity.

Fortunately, no one has to read the book especially if they think I am nuts, senile or just a big liar.

They can ignore my book and thousands or millions of people have. Of course thousands have read it and seem to like it as I have never had one bad review.

I am sure some people hate it but don't want to hurt my feelings.

But I didn't feel I should make any money on the ideas in the book so I give more than 100% of the profits to Multiple Sclorosis research in my wife's name and I published all of the receipts on this very forum.

I think more people should publish their ideas here and in written literature just for fun.

Have a great day.

Good luck with the Koran. Mine is huge and they grow fast.

 

[WVNed]

There are ticks and fleas in the world and I don't have them on my dogs so I don't give them anything every month for them. There is ich and I never see any on my fish so I don't worry about it. The trick to me is how you keep your yard and your tank.

I got 3 fish and several corals today. I acclimated them all by adding water to the bags over time and when done all the water went back in the tank with the animals. This is how I have always done it.

 

[Paul B]

Good luck with the Koran. Mine is huge and they grow fast.

Do you want this one? I will pay you to take it.

 

[WVNed]

Do you want this one? I will pay you to take it.

I dont have anywhere now to keep a baby one or another big one so no, sorry.

 

[Paul B]

I dont have anywhere now to keep a baby one or another big one so no, sorry.

I don't either and these two huge fish may crash my tank. It was overstocked beforer and I prefet much smaller fish. I can never catch these two so I am stuck.

 

[atoll]

I don't either and these two huge fish may crash my tank. It was overstocked beforer and I prefet much smaller fish. I can never catch these two so I am stuck.

Aqua medic fish trap should do the trick if you can get one Paul

 

[ReefGeezer]

Oh, I think you mean "this" hammer

Yes, I used it today.

That's the one! Thanks Paul.

 

[Paul B]

Aqua medic fish trap should do the trick if you can get one Paul

Thanks Atol. I have a trap that I made years ago but it won't fit this fish. I will see what happens. I found out that scopas tang is 7 years old. The thing was in his sump and wasn't fed in 3 weeks because he ran out of food.

 

[atoll]

Thanks Atol. I have a trap that I made years ago but it won't fit this fish. I will see what happens. I found out that scopas tang is 7 years old. The thing was in his sump and wasn't fed in 3 weeks because he ran out of food.

Oh dear not good no or little food for 3 weeks for tang given they are constant feeders on algae mostly.

 

[Paul B]

He was also probably in the dark.

 

[Tired]

If all wild fish are immune to the diseases around them, why don't those diseases die out? A disease surrounded by organisms that are immune to it, if it has to live in those organisms to survive, will die. That's why polio doesn't exist in the US any more. Nobody got sick with polio for long enough that it died out.

Stress is bad for living organisms, and an overly sterile environment is bad for living organisms. No arguments there. Which poses the issue of, if something badly stresses a fish that has a manageable pathogen load, that fish can be weakened by the stress and get sick. Many stresses can be avoided, but many can't. Maybe something startles the fish and it jumps and injures itself on the lid or on the floor. Maybe a power outage happens for long enough that the equipment's backup battery runs out. Maybe a heater malfunctions and overheats the tank.

An environment doesn't have to have actual pathogens in it to strengthen the immune system. Immune systems don't discriminate between harmful and harmless- they attack anything foreign. The reason vaccines are made from diseases isn't because the disease is innately good for you to have in a small amount, it's because it gives the immune system an example of something to target. That gives a significant advantage against whatever the vaccine is for, but against other diseases, it gives no more of an advantage than a harmless bacteria that was briefly present before being eliminated. Heck, exposing kids to pollen and dog dander helps their immune systems, and neither of those things is a disease.

If living around a disease automatically makes you immune, then, again, why do people who live in the primary habitat of malaria still get malaria? Why does any living creature get any disease that's native to the same habitat? It's not just about stress. Perfectly healthy living things get sick and die of common diseases in their environment.

 

[Paul B]

Tired, good questions and I think I can explain what is "my opinion" which I came upon many years ago from doing this and SCUBA diving.

Fish in the sea are for the most part immune. If they were not, there would be no fish, just like sharks eat fish, but they don't eat all the fish.

Remember, fish in the sea eat other fish, parasites and all.

As you mentioned fish in the sea get stressed. They get old, get bitten, get hot, cold or can't find enough food. Those fish are then preyed upon by parasites because their immunity is weakened.

In my tank, if a fish is dying from something besides disease such as jumping out or old age, before they die, they will probably exhibit parasites. This is normal because that fish has a compromised immunity just like someone on cancer drugs.

"Most" people in Mexico or Viet Nam don't get sick if they live in civilized conditions. If they did, there would be no people there as their immunity keeps them well for the most part.

In the middle ages a third of Europe died from the Plague. But not everyone died as they became immune. As a matter of fact, many people today who are immune from Aids is because their ancestors survived the Plague and their family lived on. Now we know that many of the deaths from the Plague was actually viral and not bacterial.

(and, no, I am not going to look that up)

The Europeans were not already immune from the Plague because it came from China on the "Silk Road". It actually started on (I think) gerbils but after most of the gerbils died, it jumped to rats. Who knew?

(I took a long class on that and found it interesting about the Aids)
But anyway, the people gradually became immune.

We get Covid, which I have now because I wasn't brought up with Covid as it was probably made in a lab or came from bats in China, depending on who you believe.

Parasites in the sea stay alive by feasting on the sick, stressed and old fish in the sea. I have been diving 60 years and have never seen ich or velvet on a wild fish, but I know parasites are all over the place.

(buzzards, which can be considered parasites of a "sort" eat dead or dying animals and live fine while they are waiting for that meal)

In my own tank I know there must be parasites living happily with my fish. In the 51 years my tank has been running I have put probably dozens of infected fish in there from every LFS in new York and another dozen or so from the sea.

I collect water from the sea and after warming it up, dump it in my tank.. I have always done this and it is documented on these forums since they started.

If living around a disease automatically makes you immune,

Living around disease doesn't automatically make you do anything. You may die before your body can make an antibody. But your body is making them. Some diseases are so virulent that your body just can't pump out antibodies fast enough.

Fish from the sea have immunity as they are living, eating and breathing parasites constantly. It is true that after we put them in our tanks they are exposed to different diseases from different oceans but the fish will still make antibodies. It just may take a while but they are making them.

If the fish is kept healthy and stress free as much as possible, that fish will have no problem fending off a parasite.

Fish have slime for that main reason. The slime, besides containing antibodies for pathogens is also water soluble so as the fish swims, the slime sloughs off. That is the first line of defense for a fish.

There are a few scientific studies on immunity on fish and you can find some on line such as this one. I researched all of these studies as I was researching for my book and didn't actually make all of this up on my own.

I know people like scientific studies so here is part of one. You can search the entire article if you like as well as many more and not just fish sites where we get opinion.

Ref: Copyright © 2012 María Ángeles Esteban. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

(ISRN ImmunologyVolume 2012 (2012), Article ID 853470, 29 pageshttp://dx.doi.org/10.5402/2012/853470Review ArticleAn Overview of the Immunological Defenses in Fish SkinMaría Ángeles Esteban)
Quote: Immunity associated with the parasites depends on the inhabiting discrete sites in the host. Especially important for this paper are the ectoparasites, those habiting in or on the skin. Until recently there had been little direct evidence of innate immune mechanisms against parasites associated with mucosal epithelium [285].

The active immunological role of skin against parasitic infection has been shown recently [286–288], and now mucosal immunity against them start to be elucidated.

Non-parasitic fishes usually die following infection, but animals surviving sublethal parasite exposure become resistant to subsequent challenge. This resistance correlates with the presence of humoral antibodies in the sera and cutaneous mucus of immune fishes.

According to these authors "probiotic for aquaculture is a live, dead or component of a microbial cell that, when administered via the feed or to the rearing water, benefits the host by improving either disease resistance, health status, growth performance, feed utilisation, stress response or general vigour, which is achieved at least in part via improving the hosts or the environmental microbial balance."The first demonstration that probiotics can protect fishes against surface infections was against Aeromonas bestiarum and Ichthyophthirius multifiliis in rainbow trout [330]. The research on this topic is considered of high priority at present because enriched diets could be used as preventive or curative therapies for farmed fishes. End Quote

Another one.

Coincidently in this months "Popular Science" (August 2015) there is an article about this very topic. The author states that the most germ free envirnment today is on the International Space Station. Everything is sterilized including the air. All the surfaces are coated with bacteria limiting coatings, even the water is treated with iodine and biocidal nano silver so the only bacteria prsent are the ones coming from the astronauts themselves. End Quote

They can't open a window or send out for Pizza so there is no fresh influx of microbes to balance the ecosystem. Sounds like quarantining doesn't it? He also states that a loss of gut bacteria correlates with many diseases and could impede longer space travel. If we lose our gut bacteria, our immune system goes dormant.

 

[Paul B]

Perfectly healthy living things get sick and die of common diseases in their environment.

I have not found this to be true when it comes to the common diseases we find on these forums. Of course fish will die, but they don't have to die of ich, velvet or uronoma. Those things have not infected any of my fish, not one in probably 40 years. My fish occasionally die of other things. I just posted a Bangai Cardinal that had some weird gill disease that looked like rabies. It looked like soap bubbles in his gills.

I recently lost a 10 year old copperband when he couldn't focus on his food so couldn't bite it no matter how long he tried. I posted that video on this thread. Fish die from all sorts of things but they don't have to die from common fish tank things like we see here. If they did, my tank would have crashed in the 70s.

 

[HuduVudu]

There was a study about wolves on the tundra.
Maybe this is it:

https://extension.colostate.edu/topic-areas/people-predators/wolves-and-disease-8-006/

Pretty much the weak and sick are predated. In the bad old days of humans a broken arm could mean a death sentence. Women routinely died in child birth.

All life is programed at some level to deal with stress, but that stress can overwhelm the creature. I have seen and I am positive Paul has seen the effects of old age on fish. They aren't as fast, they aren't as aware, and they aren't as energetic. They are a prime target for predation. They are also going to for the very same reasons have a harder time finding food. This brings a ton of stress and is nature's way of saying "You're done here". A predator is far more likely to predate the sick or old fish leaving the healthy younger creatures with stronger everything to live on.

I am not sure if this is true but I will throw it out. To deal with transportation you do not want a fish "peeing" or deficating in the bag for the very long trip they must take. Cycling is real. To deal with this issue the solution has been to starve the fish down. Similar to the use of magnesium citrate before surgery. This is incredibly stressful.

There are many many artifical stressors put on fish before they arrive, and we wonder why they are so unhealthy.

 

[Paul B]

Hudu, nice article and to your point, the wolves prey on old and sick deer. The wolves always have enough sick, injured and old deer to eat and if they didn't the wolves would die out like they have in some areas because mostly from Humans.

Parasites prey on old and sick fish so the parasites always have enough to eat. Even in a tank of fully immune fish, I would imagine some parasites out of the thousands or millions get through the fishes defenses to grab a little blood from a gill which keeps it alive. But eventually the fishes immunity will repel that parasite.

As I said, if that were not true, my tank and many others tanks such as Atolls would not exist as parasites would kill everything. (especially in a 50 year old tank) But many, many tanks are not quarantined and thriving fine with no hint of disease.

If our fish die from ich or some communicable disease, it was our fault for not giving that fish the proper living conditions and for me anyway, that includes some living food with gut bacteria and having parasites happily living with the fish to keep their immunity.

We can argue this all day but unless it's a lot of luck, immunity has to be the key and many people just don't wrap their heads around that and feel the need to use medications and quarantine which of course also works if thats what you want to do.

 

[atoll]

Oops wrote this but forgot to send it.

Some animals and fish deal with stress differently and some are less affected by it than others. For instance my springer damsels can stressing one another with their constant chacing around without any physical or mental damage occurring to either fish. Now I have a copperband and know if that was constantly chaced like my damsels it would soon stop eating and succumb from lack of food.
Some humans thrive on stress while others can't handle the slightest stress. Stress is the spark to other problems from mental to physical ill health. Why can't fish be the same including reduced immunity to all manner of diseases. Fish immunity or human immunity or lack of are surely similar. Stress is a complex issue for all animals. It's what stress opens the animal suffering from stress up to, secondary issues.
Like Paul, I am certain there are parasites and disease lurking wating their chance to attack a fish that becomes highly stressed for whatever reason in my tank. Just because you cant see them dosent mean they are not there.

 

[Pankney72]

Adaptive immunity came about the same time as the jaw. So if you’ve got lampreys… no.

anything else, yes. With the caveats and subtleties mentioned by others.

 

[Paul B]

Adaptive immunity came about the same time as the jaw.

Maybe thats the same time parasites developed jaws.

 

[ReefGeezer]

...If our fish die from ich or some communicable disease, it was our fault for not giving that fish the proper living conditions and for me anyway, that includes some living food with gut bacteria and having parasites happily living with the fish to keep their immunity.

I hope I'm not out of line here. Can we discuss "immunity" as it relates to less mature systems. Yep, I think Paulb could put sick fish in his tank without issue. As we discuss "immunity" and stress, I wish to emphasize to new hobbyists that the stress that decreases "immunity" and leads to outbreaks is very hard to avoid in new systems - regardless of what food you are feeding.

 

[mindme]

Tired, good questions and I think I can explain what is "my opinion" which I came upon many years ago from doing this and SCUBA diving.

Fish in the sea are for the most part immune. If they were not, there would be no fish, just like sharks eat fish, but they don't eat all the fish.

Remember, fish in the sea eat other fish, parasites and all.

As you mentioned fish in the sea get stressed. They get old, get bitten, get hot, cold or can't find enough food. Those fish are then preyed upon by parasites because their immunity is weakened.

In my tank, if a fish is dying from something besides disease such as jumping out or old age, before they die, they will probably exhibit parasites. This is normal because that fish has a compromised immunity just like someone on cancer drugs.

I can see why you think fish are immune now, you have no clue what immunity is.

What you are seeing is not immunity, it's just being healthy enough to live in spite of the parasites. And that has nothing to do with your tank that you constantly promote, people practice ich management in all variety's of environments. Hell, my tank has ich in it and yet my fish don't die either and I used dry rock and dry sand in my tank.

Your fish still have ich. They are still dealing with it even if they don't die. They are still dealing with it even if you don't see the dots. Because if they weren't dealing with them, then the ich would not be in the tank anymore, just like it's no longer in tanks that go fallow for 72+ days. The only way that ich survives and lives in your tank all these years is because it's life cycle is continuing.

You just attribute the deaths to everything but the disease. Oh, he died from the ich, but he was old anyway. As if the ich was not a contributing factor at all, when clearly it is.

And it blows my mind that someone who preaches about how to care for fish doesn't even put a lid on their tank.

I can see why the pictures in your tanks always seem to have so few fish despite you constantly taking in new fish to "heal".