I don't know if you noticed but there are an awefully lot of people posting on disease forums. Why is that? Fish in the sea are almost always healthy until someone puts them in a tank. I have been diving since the early 70s and don't remember ever seeing a sick fish on a reef. How many fish refuse to eat while in a tank? Way to many. How many fish live long enough to die of old age in a tank? Very very few. Why is that? I think I know.
The only thing I think I do that may be different from many people in regard to fish health is to feed food every day that has living bacteria in it. Why is that important? It is important because it is the gut bacteria in the fish, and all living creatures that determine the state of health the fish is going to be. Not the water parameters but the gut bacteria. Gut bacteria in fish is directly responsible for the condition of the immune system and the immune system is directly responsible for the fishes health. In humans it is also partly responsible for mental health, moods and the risk of obesity and cancer. It also helps manufacture vitamins such as vitamin B and K. We don't normally think of gut bacteria until we kill it off by either drinking to much alcohol or taking antibiotics. That hangover is partly due to the of dying of bacteria. Antibiotics have the unfortunate habbit of only killing some strains of bacteria while leaving others unscathed. After taking some antibiotics it could take up to a year for our bacterial flora to return to normal levels. I am not sure how quickly it occurs in fish. The study of gut bacteria in humans and to a lesser extent fish has recently brought about some interesting insights. Experiments are being done by transfering gut bacteria from healthy people to people with all sorts of maladys and in many cases the bacteria returns the ill person to health. They found that if they take stomach flora from an obese rat and put it in a normal rat, the normal mouse becomes obese. That in itself is, to me anyway, totally astonishing and opens up an entire new world of research. This even happened to a person. In trying to cure a disease, they took gut bacteria from a healthy person and deposited it into the stomach of a sick person. But the doner was obese. Guess what happened? Not only was the sick person cured, but he became obese also.
Gut bacteria is probably 2/3rds of the mass in the colon of us humans and probably also in fish. They compromise over 1,000 species of bacteria and the population of bacteria is unique and different in every fish. Gut bacteria is largly determined by what the fish is eating including what types of bacteria and in what condition it is in. We (and fish) have ten times more bacterial genes in us than human genes.
We humans aquire gut bacteria from our Mothers as soon as we are born through breast feeding. It is now known that babies that are fed on formula do not have the correct gut bacteria and are at much more of a risk for allergies later in life. Fish fry get their first dose of gut bacteria from the Mother while they are still in the egg and that is how tiny fry can live in a soup of diseases and parasites as they grow.
One reason why so many people have so much trouble keeping fish healthy is because they feed nothing but dry, sterile foods. Dry foods have all been sterilized through the process of drying or they have preservatives added. If dry food had bacteria in it, it would go bad very quickly and most bacteria (like everything else) needs moisture to live. If you feed nothing but dry foods I believe you should add some frozen or fresh food to the diet.
Why can I put fish in my tank from anywhere without quarantining with no fear of a disease while some tanks are ich magnets and no matter what they do, they can't keep fish alive. I think it is due to the correct gut bacteria that my fish get every day through live worms, or frozen foods such as clams which are filter feeders and are loaded with bacteria. Or as many people like to say, I am "lucky" and have been for 40 years. If you are the type of person that quarantines, I believe you should be feeding types of foods that have living bacteria in them. Frozen foods have bacteria in them in a dormant state that should revive as the food warms up. Live foods such as worms, brine shrimp, mosqueto larvae etc are also full of bacteria although some live foods would be better than others nutritionally. Remember we should not only focus on the nutritional value of a food, but maybe even more important, the bacterial population as that is the key to fishes health and more importantly, our own.
For the many people that don't believe in any of this, think it is fantasy or that I made it up because I have nothing to do, just google Gut Bacteria and how it effects health.
The only thing I think I do that may be different from many people in regard to fish health is to feed food every day that has living bacteria in it. Why is that important? It is important because it is the gut bacteria in the fish, and all living creatures that determine the state of health the fish is going to be. Not the water parameters but the gut bacteria. Gut bacteria in fish is directly responsible for the condition of the immune system and the immune system is directly responsible for the fishes health. In humans it is also partly responsible for mental health, moods and the risk of obesity and cancer. It also helps manufacture vitamins such as vitamin B and K. We don't normally think of gut bacteria until we kill it off by either drinking to much alcohol or taking antibiotics. That hangover is partly due to the of dying of bacteria. Antibiotics have the unfortunate habbit of only killing some strains of bacteria while leaving others unscathed. After taking some antibiotics it could take up to a year for our bacterial flora to return to normal levels. I am not sure how quickly it occurs in fish. The study of gut bacteria in humans and to a lesser extent fish has recently brought about some interesting insights. Experiments are being done by transfering gut bacteria from healthy people to people with all sorts of maladys and in many cases the bacteria returns the ill person to health. They found that if they take stomach flora from an obese rat and put it in a normal rat, the normal mouse becomes obese. That in itself is, to me anyway, totally astonishing and opens up an entire new world of research. This even happened to a person. In trying to cure a disease, they took gut bacteria from a healthy person and deposited it into the stomach of a sick person. But the doner was obese. Guess what happened? Not only was the sick person cured, but he became obese also.
Gut bacteria is probably 2/3rds of the mass in the colon of us humans and probably also in fish. They compromise over 1,000 species of bacteria and the population of bacteria is unique and different in every fish. Gut bacteria is largly determined by what the fish is eating including what types of bacteria and in what condition it is in. We (and fish) have ten times more bacterial genes in us than human genes.
We humans aquire gut bacteria from our Mothers as soon as we are born through breast feeding. It is now known that babies that are fed on formula do not have the correct gut bacteria and are at much more of a risk for allergies later in life. Fish fry get their first dose of gut bacteria from the Mother while they are still in the egg and that is how tiny fry can live in a soup of diseases and parasites as they grow.
One reason why so many people have so much trouble keeping fish healthy is because they feed nothing but dry, sterile foods. Dry foods have all been sterilized through the process of drying or they have preservatives added. If dry food had bacteria in it, it would go bad very quickly and most bacteria (like everything else) needs moisture to live. If you feed nothing but dry foods I believe you should add some frozen or fresh food to the diet.
Why can I put fish in my tank from anywhere without quarantining with no fear of a disease while some tanks are ich magnets and no matter what they do, they can't keep fish alive. I think it is due to the correct gut bacteria that my fish get every day through live worms, or frozen foods such as clams which are filter feeders and are loaded with bacteria. Or as many people like to say, I am "lucky" and have been for 40 years. If you are the type of person that quarantines, I believe you should be feeding types of foods that have living bacteria in them. Frozen foods have bacteria in them in a dormant state that should revive as the food warms up. Live foods such as worms, brine shrimp, mosqueto larvae etc are also full of bacteria although some live foods would be better than others nutritionally. Remember we should not only focus on the nutritional value of a food, but maybe even more important, the bacterial population as that is the key to fishes health and more importantly, our own.
For the many people that don't believe in any of this, think it is fantasy or that I made it up because I have nothing to do, just google Gut Bacteria and how it effects health.
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