She just loves mud
I am not sure why, or when I started adding mud to my tank but I think it was at the very beginning. When I started my tank the hobby just started like ten minutes before. Actually, it didn't even start yet because I had to collect my very first fish but that was in the fiftees. I started my tank with water from the East River right after it passed Manhattan. There was no ASW I could find then, and I couldn't rub two nickels together to make a dime so I collected that water. Under the oil, gas and frankfurter water of course. I put it in my tank along with local snails, barnacles, crabs, snails, fish and the associated mud that came with it. It seemed fine. When salt water tropical fish came along, I had to put pennies in the tank to control parasites as all fish were on the verge of dying as soon as we got them. 20 pennies to the gallon. (no really) Remember, there was no liquid copper then or at least I couldn't get it as there were virtually no stores that sold salt water anything. Pennies today are made out of I phone 3s so don't have much copper in them anymore so you can't use them. If Photobucket ever starts to work, I will post some pictures of the place I collected water.
Here is something I found on line because I am always searching for anything about fish immunity. I got this off some kind of Vet site. This article doesn't talk about the antibodies or anti parasitic chemicals in a fishes slime. But I have a plethora of articles about that.
I am not sure how much people want to read. But you can always ski[p over the text to look at the pictures.
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The slime coat (mucoprotein coating) is the fish's main defenses against infection and disease. It acts as a shield against disease causing organisms in the fish's external environment.
It also acts as a barrier to prevent loss of internal electrolytes and body fluids.
When even a small portion of the slime coating is removed, the fish will bleed electrolytes from its body into the surrounding water.
Essential electrolytes necessary for osmoregulation are lost through breaks that may occur in the skin and slime coat, causing dangerous stress. Open wounds and abrasions caused by handling and netting are readily attacked by disease organisms, resulting in further stress and disease.
When a fish is hooked or netted, handled a placed in a stressful situation, such as low oxygen, high carbon dioxide or temperature fluctuations, the slime coating is disturbed, making the fish vulnerable to disease, such as bacterial, fungal and parasitic diseases.
Particularly when fish are shipped in high concentrations in low volumes of water, they are subject to trauma such as being scraped, bitten and otherwise wounded.
Ammonia, a waste product of fish's digestion and respiration, is released into the water containing fish.
Ammonia is also released at high levels by dead fish and decaying food.
At high ammonia levels, the fish are subject to ammonia burns which disturb the slime coating and adversely affect the fish.
Beneath the fish's mucoprotein coating (slime coat) are its scales which can extend to the outer skin surface from the underlying dermal connective tissue. Beneath the scales in a fish's skin is the epidermis, comprising several layers of cells. The fish epidermis is distinguished from mammalian epidermis in that mammals require hardened layers of skin to prevent dehydration, whereas in the aquatic environment, the fish has no need for such protection. Thus, unlike the case in mammals, mitosis is usually seen in the lower layer of the epidermal layer of a fish. Beneath the epidermis of a fish is the dermis comprising fibrous connective tissue interspersed with black pigment cells. The vascular dermal tissue contains a network of capillaries providing nutrient to the skin.
Stress is the number one cause of a deteriorated slime coat.
Below is a list of some of the sources of stress on a fish.
