Terry's paper Advanced Aquarist

[John_Brandt]

Also coraline algae can grow in freshwater. A lot of the FW tanks at the Shedd have coraline algae which grows well in the Lake Michigan water.

Mitch, the red algae in the freshwater system at the Shedd Aquarium is not coralline. AFAIK, there are no freshwater coralline Rhodophyta.

 

[dizzy]

John what type of algae is it that goes in those tanks then? It certainly looks like a hard algae and not one of the soft types. It was one of the staffers there at the Shedd that told me it was coralline on one of the behind the scenes tours. Seems like he claimed Lake Michigan had lots of calcium in the water but it was a few years back. I guess good help is hard to get everywhere.
Mitch

 

[Terry B]

It surprises me that a shark will tolerate a sailinity low enough to effectively treat Cryptocaryon irritans. I would be interested to know the species and what the actual salinity (not SG) is.

I find that formalin dips work the best for brooklynella. Hypo may not kill brook or it may just make it dormant until the salinity rises. I haven't found copper to be particulary effective against brooklynella either.

I haven't seen any conclusive studies on the use of hyposalinity with parasties other than crypt. However, I have heard a lot of anicdotal reports of people using it for some other parasites.

I believe that the value of hyposalinity treatment in not limited to parasite control. I believe it will have a positive effect in helping fish to recover from stress. Osmotic disturbance is an inherent part of stress in fish. This is counteracted via salinity manipulation. When the mucus/scale/skin barrier is compromised it exasperates problems with osmotic disturbance. Fish that are injured have more difficulty maintaining osmotic balance (osmoregulation). Add stress to the mix and it is no surprize when some of these fish die from osmotic shock.

BTW, monitor the pH daily with hyposalinity.

Cheers,
Terry B

 

[dizzy]

Terry,
I'll call Ken Yates and see if I can find out what salinity they are using at Aquarium Restaurant. I'll also ask what species of shark they are keeping. I remember seeing a large sawfish. I thought sharks sometimes swim into freshwater rivers. Didn't Shark Week run a segment where a large (Great white?) attacked some swimmers in a freshwater river
in New Jersey or somewhere back in the 1920s or so?

IME I'm not even sure formalin works all that well against brooklynella. Some clownfish just seem to have a much greater immunity to outbreaks than others. Clownfish with severe cases rarely survive no matter how they are treated. Selecting out the individuals that have been exposed and have exhibited an ability to resist the effects make sense for breeding purposes to me. Being a small town retailer we often keep fish for long periods of time before they sell or worse. I have kept many species of clowns for 4-6 months or longer in systems at normal SW salinity with copper added to the system. In the meanwhile new clownfish are added to the system on an almost weekly basis. Sometimes the new clowns will breakdown while the clowns that have been there never seem to breakdown after they have survived for a couple of weeks. A few species of clowns seem particularly susceptible to brooklynella. I have never been able to get a A. chrysopterus to survive without breaking down. The success rate with wild chrysopterus has got to be miserable. True sebae clowns with yellow on the tail or belly also don't fare very well. True sebae with only black and white colors do much better, although they are susceptible to popeye. Even the A. chrysopterus and A. sebae that are being produced by aquaculture appear to be much less hardy than other species. I have also observed that the hybrid cross of A. sebae x A. polymnus seem prone to popeye as well. Attached is a picture of A. sebae that is immune (at least so far) to broolynella and also has not develped popeye. I have had this clown for over two years now. (knock wood)
Mitch

 

[John_Brandt]

John what type of algae is it that goes in those tanks then? It certainly looks like a hard algae and not one of the soft types. It was one of the staffers there at the Shedd that told me it was coralline on one of the behind the scenes tours. Seems like he claimed Lake Michigan had lots of calcium in the water but it was a few years back. I guess good help is hard to get everywhere.

I don't know what that freshwater red algae is. It's been there at least since I volunteered in the early 1980's. I don't study freshwater algae.

Lake Michigan water does not contain "lots of calcium". I've tested the water myself directly from the lake (I live about 200 feet from the shore) and I seem to recall it having under 100 ppm of calcium.

 

[John_Brandt]

Terry, hyposalinity is not very effective against cryptocaryon. Even freshwater baths are very poor at eradicating this protozoan. The trophonts have been shown to withstand pure freshwater for up to 18 hours. It may be effective to use 10% salinity for about 10 days. Use Spotte (1992) as an excellent detailed reference for this.

Hyposalinity and freshwater baths are effective against the common trematode infections. Blasiola (1992) conducted excellent experiments on this. I seem to recall that 100% eradication by freshwater bath does not occur sooner than about 15 minutes.

 

[John_Brandt]

So far, no one has contacted me about participating in the study I discussed previously concerning evaluation of methods to reduce shipping mortality. I guess nobody wants to obtain net-caught fish that have been properly handled and shipped. Another advantage of participating in these evaluations is I can provide fish (a limited number) at less than it costs to purchase them from an importer.

Peter, at Marine Ornamentals 2004 you presented experimental data on mortality from shipping. You had figures from a variety of experimental stressors (cyanide capture, stress, etc.) as well as control data. There were some very curious findings. I seem to recall data showing lower mortality in some stressor batches than in control batches. I think you may have posted these data here earlier.

Would you be willing to post this again for discussion, please?

 

[Terry B]

Hi John,

You and I must have different definitions of hyposalinity and how to implement therapy. For more about my thoughts on the subject see my series of articles in Advanced Aquarist Online magazine on this Website. It is called "News from the Warfront with Cryptocaryon irritans".

Cheers,
Terry B

 

[PeterIMA]

John, I will post the data later today (don't have it here in my office). I think what you are referring to was that there were two controls. The first involved handling the fish by moving them from the original tank to a test tank (that did not contain cyanide). This control involved handling but not cyanide. Hence, it could be compared to the condition where cyanide was added to the second test tank. The results for the handling control was 25% mortality. The condition with cyanide-alone AND HANDLING resulted in 37.5% mortality. It should be noted that the stress-alone condition (fish not moved but disturbed by removing their corals in the holding tank) also resulted in 25% mortality. I interpret both the handling control and the stress-alone conditions to be stressful. The second control involved not disturbing the fish and not moving them to a second tank. I believe the mortality for this control was about 16% (need to check the amount). Anyway, the no handling control (where fish were not stressed) is lower than any of the other conditions either alone or in combination (as one would expect). Does that answer your concerns?

Peter

 

[PeterIMA]

Table 1. Per cent mortality of damselfish, Pomacentrus coelestis, exposed to cyanide, stress and starvation alone and in various combinations (Hall and Bellwood 1995).
_____________________________________________________________
Treatment

Cyanide-only 37.5
Stress-only 25
Starvation-only 0
Cyanide+stress 25
Cyanide+starvation 33.3
Stress+starvation 66.7
Cyanide+stress+starvation 41.7
Handling control 25
No handling control 16.7

 

[Kalkbreath]

is this test suggesting that each time a fish is moved from tank to tank in a retail or wholesale setting that 25% of the fish die? Is this data also suggesting that when a fish is sold in a retail store that 25 out of 100 of the newly sold fish die simply from being moved from the retail stores tanks to the hobbyists home aquarium?{ I had better adjust our 48 hour fish guarantee :lol: |

 

[PeterIMA]

Kalk, Yes it does indicate that simply netting a fish and transferring to another tank, or placing it in a plastic bag using a net is stressful, and could result in mortality. I would not want to say that it always results in 25% mortality (but it did in this case with the Handling control in the experiment conducted by Hall and Bellwood).

Peter

 

[Kalkbreath]

Yes but I would like to be able to contrast this data to the real world. One batch of a certain species of fish is a nice start to useful findings ........but without data on the remaining trade fish and from various sources, data like this is pointless. Even you agree that 25% would not be the norm for simply moving a fish from one tank to another. Take into account that if the stress and starve data was a real world stat........this would leave very few fish alive at the end of a normal chain of custody shipping route. Fish are moved when bagged to leave the islands........then moved when unboxed........then moved again at the wholesalers during system rotation and consolidation. Then the fish are moved again when being bagged for shipping to the retail stores...........moved again when unboxed. ........moved during the week at the store as retailers switch fish tankmates based on aggression ............ Most fish receive their first food at this point. This would leave .04 percent of the fish alive for sale based on this data........ Can you explain of what use this data is to us or to hobbyists if the data is in no way a real world scenario? Even if hundreds of studies come up with conclusions that 99 percent of damsel fish die during the transport chain........... The damsels at the retail store selling for 4 bucks will always discount these silly notions.

 

[PeterIMA]

Kalk, While I believe that your extrapolation is somewhat in error (show us the computations) my sources of information cited in a paper now in press still indicate high rates of mortality in the trade at each step of the chain of custody. I have not used any data obtained from Frank Lallo. I believe that the mortality at each step of the chain of custody is above 20%. Hence, the real world data is not that different from the results of the experiment by Hall and Bellwood (1995). However, they did not attempt to determine cumulative mortality. Hence, their data is not directly comparable to your extrapolation in the last posting

Peter

 

[Kalkbreath]

Your Data suggests that 66 percent of fish die when you net them and transfer them to another tank without feedng them. Its propaganda and you look silly standing in front of your peers preaching this stuff. Why is it that the data you like to preach like at MAC is something quite different from what you fall back on . If twenty percent is what you feel is accurate........then whats the purpose for preaching that 66 percent of these damsels died when someone looked at them funny! Or that some stores in the eighties reported 68% DOA DAA when they continually ordered huge amounts of fish like ribbon eels.......

 

[naesco]

Your Data suggests that 66 percent of fish die when you net them and transfer them to another tank without feedng them. Its propaganda and you look silly standing in front of your peers preaching this stuff. Why is it that the data you like to preach like at MAC is something quite different from what you fall back on . If twenty percent is what you feel is accurate........then whats the purpose for preaching that 66 percent of these damsels died when someone looked at them funny! Or that some stores in the eighties reported 68% DOA DAA when they continually ordered huge amounts of fish like ribbon eels.......

Kalk Dr. Rubec has data. You have nothing.
Dr. Rubec has a doctorate and you have ?
Dr. Rubec is an author on numerous topics on the subject of cyanide and you have authored what?

You have the right to disagree with him but please treat the gentleman with respect.

 

[PeterIMA]

Kalk, First get your facts straight. Frank Lallo claimed that the average mortality at the retail level on the east coast was 60% (not 68%). This is not so different from the experimental result by Hall and Bellwood's result for stress and starvation. Both estimates may be high, but I did not even mention these numbers in my previous postings today. Read them.

I stated that my sources (Like Bob Fenner, like a major Canadian importer and also a large retailer) had informed me that the mortality (at the import and retail levels) exceeded 20%. Other than that I suggest you wait for the paper to be published before you try to refute it (it will be published no matter what you say now).


I was replying to John Brandt about two controls in the experments by Hall and Bellwood (1995). Lets discuss what that paper found and what it might mean. You are off the topic.

Peter

 

[Kalkbreath]

Why is it you always seem to take ten years to write a conclusion ....yet I seem to be able to do so in ten minutes? 8O :? 8) :lol: :x :evil: :twisted: :roll: :wink: 8O :? 8) :x :roll: :wink: :x 8O :? :lol:

 

[Kalkbreath]

Cyanide-only 37.5
Stress-only 25
Starvation-only 0
Cyanide+stress 25
Cyanide+starvation 33.3
Stress+starvation 66.7
Cyanide+stress+starvation 41.7
Handling control 25
No handling control 16.7

1.]Stress seems to help cyanide fish ......

2.]Cyanide seems to help stress and starvation

3.]" Cyanide Only" ......means you got 100 % of the cyanide only fish to eat and never moved them from the transport box {other wise fed or moved fish would make those fish in ineligible to be tallied in the" cyanide Only" labeling}

4.]Only 16% of the "No handling fish" fish died despite being left unattended in the original shipping box un feed and untouched. perhaps this "no handling" data illustrates the less then talented skills of thewater quality and people caring for these poor test fish?

 

[Kalkbreath]

Double post