- Today we start a new journey.
It's Elliot from Marine collectors joining us.
And we're going to find out
what goes into a healthy pet,
a healthy fish.
What does it take to actually have long term success
and do it better than we possibly were doing it before?
- Yeah you know we're gonna kind of go through
all the steps,
you know from the process
of when you get the fish,
what should it look like?
You know what does this healthy fish actually behave like?
what does it look like in appearance?
If it's unhealthy,
what does that look like?
We're gonna go through how to QT the fish,
how to set up a hospital tank
and how to quarantine things properly.
So you can have a higher level of success
than what you're probably used to seeing or hearing about.
We're gonna make it really easy.
- I think that we will double the success rates.
If anybody watches this it'll be a 15 part series
but you're gonna learn things that you've never seen
before anywhere else.
And all in a cool little condensed format
right here on BRS TV.
Starting with number one,
what does a healthy pet or fish look like?
And how would I even know if I achieved it?
- You know I think the definition
that we should be looking for
is that the fish in our home aquarium
it lived longer there than it would've
in the ocean you know,
and the way that we executed that
or the way that we produced those results
was that we executed proper quarantine.
You know we made sure that the fish was parasite free
and it wasn't having to constantly battle parasites
and things that are gonna compromise itself.
You know we dialed in their diet
a lot of fish have very specific diets
and they actually need specific type of foods.
So we did that as well
so that they're covered on all bases on nutrition.
We also size the tanks properly
and catered to anything else that they might have needed.
- And if you're wondering what the number one measurement
of success,
how do I define whether or not
I'm good at this hobby or not?
It's not a snapshot or a picture
of how well the tank looks like today.
It's when we take that picture of five years from now
how many of these animals are still alive?
Number two,
just do the best you can it's all we ask.
- Yeah you know everyone's got a different skillset
you know a different amount of time
depending on what job you might have
and obviously a different budget,
you know just do as much as you can
to better the life of the fish.
And you know actually make that extra effort.
- You know there's really a dozen different steps
you could do some of 'em really easy.
Some of 'em really hard,
but the thing that I would get across
is pick the things that you're going to do
and do those ones well,
don't just pick it apart and say,
hey I'm gonna do quarantine
but I really don't wanna do like three
other steps of quarantine.
Cause it's probably not gonna work out well.
So if you're gonna do quarantine do well
but each one of these things
you know just pick the things that are manageable
and do that one thing well
and you'll increase the success rates for sure.
Number three,
obvious after the fact start with a healthy system.
- Yep that means that if you already have parasites
in the tank,
don't keep adding fish you know,
let's practice some efforts of management first
and then maybe down the line we'll add some fish.
Obviously the gold standard here is gonna definitely
be to keep parasites out of the tank to begin with though
you know through proper quarantine,
we're gonna go across corals,
fish and vertebrates everything.
- So here's the reality of it.
As we sit here today a lot,
a lot of people haven't practiced perfect quarantine before.
So some of these parasites might already be in the tank.
And so when we ask you not to add more fish
because putting a healthy fish in a tank full
of parasites has a pretty low percentage outcome.
- Yeah. - It doesn't mean
you can never add another fish
in the tank but if you see an ICH outbreak
now is not the time.
Number four it isn't yet
but I hope it's the future of reefing
medicated fish quarantine before new additions.
- Yeah you know,
I know a lot of people they think it's really difficult,
it's really hard it's really not.
It's a little extra labor.
It's a little more time consuming
but there's definitely ways to do it
and methods about it that its very achievable.
You know the best thing to do is
keep parasites out of the tank
before they even get there you know,
give your fish a safe home to live,
something where they're not gonna have to keep battling
things off with strong immune system
you know waiting for a,
you know disaster,
big stress event to kind of knock 'em down.
- One of the things that people say often is,
well I didn't do it in the first four fish,
so it's useless now,
which is totally untrue.
Even if I did it in the middle
which will be most of us at this point in time
hopefully different five years from now.
But if even if I did it right now
I might not even have flukes in the tank right now.
Let's not add them right?
And that's why it's important even now in the middle.
But if you can set up a tank like this one
which is a glass box with some PVC and an airstone
there's a pretty good chance that you could do this too.
And it isn't as hard as you think
and we're gonna give you the exact outline
in the series on how to do it.
It's easy anyone could do it
and should part of all of our process.
Number five coral QT before additions matter as well,
not just for coral parasites,
but for fish parasites as well.
It's tough to swallow but true.
- Yeah you know unfortunately corals
they can carry fish parasites you know,
I have repeatedly unfortunately added fish parasites
to my own personal display tanks at home.
You know I love Zoanthids,
especially because they make a nice backdrop
to my fish and I always put a frag in there.
You know sometimes I just see something that I can't resist
and
almost always I introduce ICH.
You know a lot of people
they already have ICH and the fish have built a resistance
which is why you might not see it.
But if you wanna practice really good
effective eco eradication and velvet eradication,
you know keep all of those parasites out of the tank.
It's a really good thing to practice.
- Now it is a numbers game obviously on the fish,
the host of the parasite is much more likely
than on the coral itself
and different corals have different components
of numbers game as well.
Meaning like a euphyllia colony
with a lot of exposed skeleton
has much more likely that it settled out on it than
if I had a tiny little SPS frag
where I cut off the plug the chances of parasites living
on the surface of the tissue of the coral,
at least fish parasites really low.
So there's a good better best to this.
And in our coral QT episode,
we're gonna cover them all.
Number six,
it's kind of hard sometimes but avoid the time bombs.
- Yep you know,
I mean my favorite fish Achilles tang
but that is not a fish I recommend to everybody,
you know it is one of those fish it's just,
they do not have that chance to fight it off
especially with ICH and velvet
they're incredibly susceptible to protozone parasites
and it's not a fish that we recommend,
you know a fish like that
any of the powder tanks we call 'em
powder blues, powder browns,
gold rims, achilles you know,
just bad choice because they often
become a breeding ground for,
protozone parasites.
What ends up happening is that you have a spike
in parasite population and parasite density.
And then you know,
you can have be two tank crashes and you know
mass stress events will usually spark that type of thing.
- My best advice if you love powder blues,
achilles is
start a fish only tank that probably
doesn't have any corals in it as well all right
and feature those fish in that tank and do the quarantine
from the beginning,
cause this is gonna be really easy.
We're gonna show you how to do it.
Everyone could do it. - Yeah.
- All right and then once you've done it
you'll never have to worry about those things in the tank.
And now you can have all those fish
without worrying about it.
But if you're not going to practice proper QT
the likelihood of an ICH outbreak
on all of those types of fish is really high.
And even if you're raising your hand right now
saying no no no no no,
I actually have done it.
He's doing just fine.
Well you're just waiting for that inevitable power outage.
You're waiting for that heater failure.
You're waiting any of that stuff to go off
set off a element of stress.
- Yep big stress event
type of thing that always leads to high mortalities.
- Yeah. - Even then the next step
if you're gonna not listen to any of that
now you need to set up your system with so much redundancy
that none of that will ever affect you.
Number seven nutrition in diet
probably one of the most important components
of fish health,
avoiding mortalities.
Also the area that we are probably the furthest behind
because most of us are just being told
put in some fresh water
mysis shrimp into the tank,
call it a day.
Yes fat important.
Yes protein important,
but there's so much more.
- Yeah you know a lot of fish in the ocean
they have really specialized diets.
I mean tangs,
they're one of the fish that like almost everybody has
in the wild they're not chasing down you know
mysis shrimp on the ocean floor,
hunting protein right?
Those fish are only eating algae
they graze on the rocks all day.
That's what they do.
Moorish idol something like that you know,
a lot of times they don't do well in captivity
but it's because they're not being fed the right food
you know for long term success with delicate fish
like that you know,
they need to be have you know
their natural diet more replicated.
They eat a lot of sponge,
high fiber diets super,
super important for fish like that.
- You know sometimes I wish that,
you know the people that sold the fish
actually had on the website
like what this thing actually eats and the frequency
that it,
it should eat as the person selling me
the pet should actually tell me how to care
for the pet as well.
All right and like I think of some
of the foods should say this as well.
It could be called Calanus
but it could also would be called anthias food.
You know tiny little plane divorces animal
that's designed to be fed multiple times a day,
really designed for,
or I should say their digestive track is designed
for that type of food and it's gonna be way more successful.
But sometimes we ignore these types of things as well.
Like it already says angel food and that you know
it's filled with ocean nutrition with sponge
and for some reason we're treating like,
you know the shrimp is one size fits all
and you know what,
for many fish it actually is
a fish that eats prey all day has high protein,
high fat diet and it is perfect for them.
But something like tang like you just mentioned
we put these little clips on the glass here
we throw on a,
a little bit of Nori.
It looks cool.
It seems like it was fun.
Somebody told me to do it.
But what we lost track
of is this is the primary source of its diet.
The rest of it is all supplemental.
We should be getting it it's intended food source.
And sometimes we can look outside
of the ways that people are doing it before,
which is I don't particularly like the nori
cause I had to put my hand in there
but then I can use those LG extreme pellets,
you know which is a pelletized version 77% LG,
not a bunch of fats
and protein has all of that fiber different solutions.
But we're thinking about what the fish actually needs.
Number eight UV basically population control for parasites.
- Yeah you know it's not a solution,
it's definitely not gonna eradicate a problem
if you've already got one,
you know but a very useful tool
if you've got it ICH in the tank or you think you might
because you didn't quarantine your initial fish
it's a great additional preventative I could say to
keep population down.
It's definitely not a cure though.
A lot of people think that UV actually kills the parasite.
Once it goes through it does
what it doesn't is sterilize it.
It just makes so that it can't reproduce like that parasite
once it goes through,
can still go and feed on the fish.
It just won't be able to reproduce once it falls off
- It breaks the cycle.
So you know,
one of these guys falls off and one turns into a thousand
eventually a thousand turns in into a hundred thousand
and so on what we can do is process an enormous amount
of that water.
I mean we're turning over almost all of the tank water
in many cases you know,
three to four times an hour
trying to catch those things so that,
you know instead of having one turn into a thousand turn
into a hundred thousand,
we can either you know find a point
at which it stops the population and explosion
or at least with really terrible things like velvet.
We can slow it way down.
So we have time to actually do something about it.
Number nine similar to that actually is
if we're thinking about the fish's health
and we're thinking about low population of parasites
in the water cause we didn't do our QT
for perfect to begin with.
Actually is a sediment filter
I never really used this myself using ODI
but not on the tank.
- Yeah you know it's kind of an old school method
but basically the principle is that the free swimming
form of the parasite is a certain micron size.
And then the sediment filter
that you're gonna use is smaller than that.
So,
you know by just pushing water through
you can actually catch a lot of 'em
and prevent them from actually attaching to the fish.
The great thing about this is that you can also remove them
once you actually change the sediment filter
you can also push as much flow through as you want.
You know it's not like a UV where you gotta dial it in
but you can actually just push as much water as
you possibly can through it.
It is a little more labor intensive
but it's definitely worth looking into.
- So if you're gonna do this
you're thinking about these big giant guys,
big blues
because it's tankful of organic waste.
It's gonna clog up pretty quick.
You can think about to put in your filter sock before it,
your roller mat before it
even maybe a bigger sediment filter.
And now that I know this,
I'm gonna go look for
what we call true depth sediment filters,
whereas cause we're looking for five micron
or smaller to catch these guys
but that means it's gonna clog really quickly
on the outside.
If we get one of 'em true depth sediment filter
it got like a hundred microns on the outside
and slowly gets tighter
and tighter towards to get the center.
We're gonna get a lot more life out of it.
Cool cool method because way easier to install,
isn't dependent as much on flow rate,
but does have more maintenance than UV.
UV once they get the flow rate it tuned in,
turn it on let it go.
I probably changed the ball,
about every nine to 12 months
- Yep. - Sediment filter,
I might be changing that out every couple of weeks
easier in some methods
but does require a lot more maintenance,
Number 10 a watchful eye,
meaning after talking to Elliot for a while
I've learned that what most of us think are signs of ICH,
brook, your anema velvet
and all the rest are actually not signs
of the disease that you could go do something
about they're actually end stages of this disease.
- Yeah. - I mean they're much harder
to deal with at that point
but there's signs before that.
- Yeah you know,
we're gonna kind of go through
what fish behavior should look like.
You know are the eyes clear?
Are the fins clear?
Are the fins clamped?
what does the respiration look like?
You know is it fast?
Is it slow?
Is it labored?
All those types of things,
you know once you actually see the physical symptoms
on the body of the fish,
that usually means that the population in the tank
has actually gotten past where it's just infection
in the gills and it's actually spreading
to the rest of the fish you know
and that's kind of the stage where it's a lot
harder to combat once it's gotten to that point.
- Sometimes these things are a little vague meaning just
because it's scratchy itself doesn't necessarily
mean it's ICH,
but it can be a couple of different things.
Often the treatment for one thing is really the treatment
for all of these things.
It could be medication,
but it could also be just the kick in the butt
that you needed to start thinking about.
How do I really care
about the nutrition of this fish properly?
Maybe I should install the sediment filter
or I should install the UV.
But if I'm watching for these early signs
I'll actually never see the end stage.
My belief,
this series is actually going
to cut fish mortalities in half Elliot thinks
if you follow it,
it'll actually be more than that.
But the entire series,
all 15 episodes
we're gonna start building on them now.
The next one in this playlist right here
which is the 10 things we wish everyone knew
about fish health.