Troubleshooting fish losses over 2015-2022, summary

[jjohnwm]

I get where M MultipleTankSyndrome is coming from with regards to decor and cover, and one of my pet peeves is seeing a normally-reclusive fish being kept in a bare tank...but it's pretty clear that thebiggerthebetter is keeping fish in a situation that is far removed from literally any home hobbyist set-up. My first thought when the idea of decor in one of those 4500g tanks was brought up was "That's gonna be trouble..." in terms of every big-ass fish in there seeing a chance to stake out and fight for a territory. And big fish damaging themselves on decor will never be far from my thoughts, either. My Jelly Cat recently got himself a nice gash on his head after deciding he didn't like the placement of driftwood in his tank, and, like everything else that happens in one of my tanks, I consider myself completely responsible; the wood didn't put itself in there. And that's a small fish by Viktor's standards. I shudder to think what might happen if one of those 3- or 4-foot monsters had a mishap like that, never mind all the other possible problems he outlined.

I agree with wednesday13 about enrichment to an extent. For sure I believe that natural food is the best enrichment possible. I may be willing to admit that a can of pellets contains the perfect nutritional balance of ingredients...maybe, probably...but the reaction of a perfectly-pellet-nourished fish to a live nightcrawler or even a frozen shad only needs to be seen once to convince an observer that the fish is enjoying itself when it eats them; as much as I detest using this term...the fish is happy! So, I don't think enrichment per se is a joke...but I also don't think that much of what many people refer to as "enrichment" is enriching anything other than their enjoyment of their aquarium...and that's okay!

Where "should" these fish be? What's "better"? Well, nature is crawling with predators, pathogens, parasites, pandemics, at-risk environments, natural disasters, man-made disasters, introduced/invasive competition, habitat destruction, excessive UV radiation...you name it, and it's out there, ready and waiting to kill every living critter in a heartbeat. So...of course that's where animals should be! Most of us are not keeping fish with an eye towards maximum growth, breeding productivity or profitability...we do it because we want to, plain and simple. For many of us, myself included, that means duplicating nature to the extent possible, while at the same time minimizing or eliminating all those bad elements...meaning, of course, that it's not natural at all.

But, let's not kid ourselves; fish in aquariums face a whole new breed of peril...and it's us! The percentage of fish (or almost any animals) in the wild that actually live out a long enough life to die of old age is vanishingly small...and the same holds true for fish in aquariums, for different reasons. It doesn't matter if you have kept your goldfish or koi or monster cat or whatever for a year, 5 years, 20 years while providing the best of care. If an unforeseen occurrence like a power outage, burst tank or other "disaster" causes its death, you must face that fact that you are responsible; the fish wouldn't be in your house in the first place if it weren't for you. And, in the case of fish that aren't typically bred in aquariums, that hardly matters...because once that fish lands in your tank, it is for all intents and purposes dead. It's out of the natural gene pool, it's never going to contribute to the continuation of its species...it's just taking up space.

That's the difference. In the wild, we are concerned...or at least should be concerned...with the environment as a whole, and with the survival of species. In our aquariums, we are almost always concerned only with the survival of the individual specimen...and that's only important to us as aquarists. It's meaningless in a conservation sense.

I know I'm a hypocrite, because I'm as guilty as anyone of this kind of tunnel vision. I struggle with it more and more as I grow older, and can offer at least some hope for all you other hypocrites: if you grew up as I did, with nets and waders and bugs in jars and frogs in the bathtub and eventually expanded to fish in boxes, you know (if you're being honest with yourself) that you caused the death of a lot of critters as you gained your hands-on experience and learned how to keep them. You also developed an appreciation for animals and nature in general, and are far more likely to contribute to and support efforts to conserve the natural world than those poor souls who only ever saw this stuff on TV and YouTube and yet somehow think they are conservationists just because they keep the world at arm's length.

 

[jjohnwm]

Ya know...I just realized that I may have derailed this thread right off the tracks, over the embankment, over the cliff and down into the canyon. My apologies to all!

 

[wednesday13]

I get where M MultipleTankSyndrome is coming from with regards to decor and cover, and one of my pet peeves is seeing a normally-reclusive fish being kept in a bare tank...but it's pretty clear that thebiggerthebetter is keeping fish in a situation that is far removed from literally any home hobbyist set-up. My first thought when the idea of decor in one of those 4500g tanks was brought up was "That's gonna be trouble..." in terms of every big-ass fish in there seeing a chance to stake out and fight for a territory. And big fish damaging themselves on decor will never be far from my thoughts, either. My Jelly Cat recently got himself a nice gash on his head after deciding he didn't like the placement of driftwood in his tank, and, like everything else that happens in one of my tanks, I consider myself completely responsible; the wood didn't put itself in there. And that's a small fish by Viktor's standards. I shudder to think what might happen if one of those 3- or 4-foot monsters had a mishap like that, never mind all the other possible problems he outlined.

I agree with wednesday13 about enrichment to an extent. For sure I believe that natural food is the best enrichment possible. I may be willing to admit that a can of pellets contains the perfect nutritional balance of ingredients...maybe, probably...but the reaction of a perfectly-pellet-nourished fish to a live nightcrawler or even a frozen shad only needs to be seen once to convince an observer that the fish is enjoying itself when it eats them; as much as I detest using this term...the fish is happy! So, I don't think enrichment per se is a joke...but I also don't think that much of what many people refer to as "enrichment" is enriching anything other than their enjoyment of their aquarium...and that's okay!

Where "should" these fish be? What's "better"? Well, nature is crawling with predators, pathogens, parasites, pandemics, at-risk environments, natural disasters, man-made disasters, introduced/invasive competition, habitat destruction, excessive UV radiation...you name it, and it's out there, ready and waiting to kill every living critter in a heartbeat. So...of course that's where animals should be! Most of us are not keeping fish with an eye towards maximum growth, breeding productivity or profitability...we do it because we want to, plain and simple. For many of us, myself included, that means duplicating nature to the extent possible, while at the same time minimizing or eliminating all those bad elements...meaning, of course, that it's not natural at all.

But, let's not kid ourselves; fish in aquariums face a whole new breed of peril...and it's us! The percentage of fish (or almost any animals) in the wild that actually live out a long enough life to die of old age is vanishingly small...and the same holds true for fish in aquariums, for different reasons. It doesn't matter if you have kept your goldfish or koi or monster cat or whatever for a year, 5 years, 20 years while providing the best of care. If an unforeseen occurrence like a power outage, burst tank or other "disaster" causes its death, you must face that fact that you are responsible; the fish wouldn't be in your house in the first place if it weren't for you. And, in the case of fish that aren't typically bred in aquariums, that hardly matters...because once that fish lands in your tank, it is for all intents and purposes dead. It's out of the natural gene pool, it's never going to contribute to the continuation of its species...it's just taking up space.

That's the difference. In the wild, we are concerned...or at least should be concerned...with the environment as a whole, and with the survival of species. In our aquariums, we are almost always concerned only with the survival of the individual specimen...and that's only important to us as aquarists. It's meaningless in a conservation sense.

I know I'm a hypocrite, because I'm as guilty as anyone of this kind of tunnel vision. I struggle with it more and more as I grow older, and can offer at least some hope for all you other hypocrites: if you grew up as I did, with nets and waders and bugs in jars and frogs in the bathtub and eventually expanded to fish in boxes, you know (if you're being honest with yourself) that you caused the death of a lot of critters as you gained your hands-on experience and learned how to keep them. You also developed an appreciation for animals and nature in general, and are far more likely to contribute to and support efforts to conserve the natural world than those poor souls who only ever saw this stuff on TV and YouTube and yet somehow think they are conservationists just because they keep the world at arm's length.

Appreciate that u see the “reality” of it all ??… were all hypocrites… Cant keep fish in a box at home and act like ur better than the next guy doing the same thing. Theres always room for improvement in any scenario.

 

[MultipleTankSyndrome]

Ya know...

Yep. No disrespect intended at all but I'm not sure how to respond to what you said earlier ?‍

Decor becomes fairly detrimental to large fish......

Honestly not sure how to respond to that also. Information overload, with this and what jjohnwm said. But still, for courtesy's sake, no disrespect intended.

I don't believe I'll reply again unless I can think of something to actually say.

 

[thebiggerthebetter]

May I ask how you know that you haven't lost a fish from lack of decor stress (such as a hiding fish not having decor in which it could hide in)? I am not doubting this, but would like to know how you know.

When I lose a fish I often know why and most usually have educated guesses, and rarely at least some thoughts. Lack of decor has never been it. It may be due to my ignorance.

The smaller the fish, the easier it seems to bring its care and keeping closer toward the ideal. The bigger the fish, the harder it is.

Decor becomes fairly detrimental to large fish. They can eat fake plants, rocks, plumbing parts, leading to their own demise even when being kept in a tank alone. Injuries can happen very easily also from any kind of hides and even drift wood. Nothing worse than growing a fish to 3’ and have it gash itself open from being startled. They can also get stuck in deco resulting in injuries. The territorial disputes are always there also. No good in my opinion. Captivity will never be the wild. As long as fish are being kept in a box the most import thing to care for is water quality. To put it bluntly “enrichment” is a joke. The only plausible thing i can even entertain as enrichment for a fish is varied diet or something “fun” to eat i.e. live food and most people are appalled by that these days even tho fish eat fish, mammals, birds, etc. We all play the same game of fish in a box… play it as u wish ??… but be realistic also. Fish dont need toys… there only concerned about killing to survive ?… we provide them with a cushy life indoors in a controlled environment and out of harms way aside from “human error”…The elements alone and seasonal changes are enough to wipe out a healthy specimen on any given day not to mention something bigger… and hungry… just how it goes… its only natural.

One full speed burst into a tank wall is death to a fish despite any amt of enrichment, decorations or tank size…Nature can be filled with plenty stress and hazards also just trying to survive on a daily basis.

Wednesday is one of my many great teachers. I learn a lot from him. Now what he wrote above IMHumbleO may sound a bit one-sided, as some fish do appear to benefit from enrichment more than others, but for the most part, as a generalization, I find it quite agreeable.

Anyway, no one has time to write a 20-page treatise with 100 literature references from the far smarter professionals in the field on the subject matter to dot all i's and cross all t's. ... Well, maybe except JJ haha...

If legal, tilapia might b another option for the sump chamber. For example they use them in aquaculture when raising bass solely to eat their poop. I will stake my claims on comet gold fish tho. They get around the size of a basketball so its not too far fetched they could actually eat enough detritus in ur sump chamber to be beneficial to the system.

Interesting idea. Thank you. I ain't got mechanical filtration, so the large sumps are also a sediment and catchment basins. Any movement in there will result in murky water in my case.

I get where M MultipleTankSyndrome is coming from with regards to decor and cover, and one of my pet peeves is seeing a normally-reclusive fish being kept in a bare tank...but it's pretty clear that thebiggerthebetter is keeping fish in a situation that is far removed from literally any home hobbyist set-up. My first thought when the idea of decor in one of those 4500g tanks was brought up was "That's gonna be trouble..." in terms of every big-ass fish in there seeing a chance to stake out and fight for a territory. And big fish damaging themselves on decor will never be far from my thoughts, either. My Jelly Cat recently got himself a nice gash on his head after deciding he didn't like the placement of driftwood in his tank, and, like everything else that happens in one of my tanks, I consider myself completely responsible; the wood didn't put itself in there. And that's a small fish by Viktor's standards. I shudder to think what might happen if one of those 3- or 4-foot monsters had a mishap like that, never mind all the other possible problems he outlined.

I agree with wednesday13 about enrichment to an extent. For sure I believe that natural food is the best enrichment possible. I may be willing to admit that a can of pellets contains the perfect nutritional balance of ingredients...maybe, probably...but the reaction of a perfectly-pellet-nourished fish to a live nightcrawler or even a frozen shad only needs to be seen once to convince an observer that the fish is enjoying itself when it eats them; as much as I detest using this term...the fish is happy! So, I don't think enrichment per se is a joke...but I also don't think that much of what many people refer to as "enrichment" is enriching anything other than their enjoyment of their aquarium...and that's okay!

Where "should" these fish be? What's "better"? Well, nature is crawling with predators, pathogens, parasites, pandemics, at-risk environments, natural disasters, man-made disasters, introduced/invasive competition, habitat destruction, excessive UV radiation...you name it, and it's out there, ready and waiting to kill every living critter in a heartbeat. So...of course that's where animals should be! Most of us are not keeping fish with an eye towards maximum growth, breeding productivity or profitability...we do it because we want to, plain and simple. For many of us, myself included, that means duplicating nature to the extent possible, while at the same time minimizing or eliminating all those bad elements...meaning, of course, that it's not natural at all.

But, let's not kid ourselves; fish in aquariums face a whole new breed of peril...and it's us! The percentage of fish (or almost any animals) in the wild that actually live out a long enough life to die of old age is vanishingly small...and the same holds true for fish in aquariums, for different reasons. It doesn't matter if you have kept your goldfish or koi or monster cat or whatever for a year, 5 years, 20 years while providing the best of care. If an unforeseen occurrence like a power outage, burst tank or other "disaster" causes its death, you must face that fact that you are responsible; the fish wouldn't be in your house in the first place if it weren't for you. And, in the case of fish that aren't typically bred in aquariums, that hardly matters...because once that fish lands in your tank, it is for all intents and purposes dead. It's out of the natural gene pool, it's never going to contribute to the continuation of its species...it's just taking up space.

That's the difference. In the wild, we are concerned...or at least should be concerned...with the environment as a whole, and with the survival of species. In our aquariums, we are almost always concerned only with the survival of the individual specimen...and that's only important to us as aquarists. It's meaningless in a conservation sense.

I know I'm a hypocrite, because I'm as guilty as anyone of this kind of tunnel vision. I struggle with it more and more as I grow older, and can offer at least some hope for all you other hypocrites: if you grew up as I did, with nets and waders and bugs in jars and frogs in the bathtub and eventually expanded to fish in boxes, you know (if you're being honest with yourself) that you caused the death of a lot of critters as you gained your hands-on experience and learned how to keep them. You also developed an appreciation for animals and nature in general, and are far more likely to contribute to and support efforts to conserve the natural world than those poor souls who only ever saw this stuff on TV and YouTube and yet somehow think they are conservationists just because they keep the world at arm's length.

Wild stuff! So much to digest and mull over! Thank you for this. Several novel to me and valuable concepts to ponder, like death rates in the wild and in captivity, fish being "dead" already when taken out of nature, the conservationism, the hypocrisy... You've obviously been thinking about these things for a while...

Of course, none of this eliminates the need to give a fish an adequate care as best one can. I am sure you meant all this as a complimenting part to taking reasonable care of our wet pets.

Ya know...I just realized that I may have derailed this thread right off the tracks, over the embankment, over the cliff and down into the canyon. My apologies to all!

No problem on my end. I think you are loosely but on topic

Appreciate that u see the “reality” of it all ??… were all hypocrites… Cant keep fish in a box at home and act like ur better than the next guy doing the same thing. Theres always room for improvement in any scenario.

That's right. Growth and progress, learning and enjoyment - these are what makes it worth while or not, to me anyway.

And yes, more or less, we are all hypocrites, agreed. But again, let's not lay in this dirty puddle like swine but try to crawl out of it every now and then so that eventually we never return into it. That too would be progressive.

 

[tigerhouse]

Howdy. This is Mark from YouTube.
I have always been told that it was better to feed saltwater fish, shrimp and so on to freshwater fish because most saltwater pathogens and parisites cannot survive in freshwater or freshwater fish. It takes very little salt in a freshwater aquarium to act as a tonic against numerous freshwater pathogens.
Usually feeding unstressed goldfish that are healthy and fed are fine as a feeder for your monsters.

As far as decor goes I have found that PVC (sinking kind) works wonders. Easy to remove, clean and non toxic.

I would agree there could be a contaminate coming in with you water. Things in the water like high levels of calcium or magnesium will slowly kill certain types of fish over time or make other fish just feel bad and other species will not be effected at all. A full chemical analysis by a lab may need to be done.

As far as pathogens go you would probably be better off talking to Dr. Kyle Farmer http://aquatactics.com
Eventually you will talk to the right person with the right answer but I would hate to treat as many gallons as you have with any medication on a trail and error basis. About 40 years ago we had a vet who was an avid fish keeper and he enjoyed curing fish diseases with sheep, horse or cow meds.

Also remember some fish even from the same species are not immune to certain pathogens. If a fish species has not built up a natural immunity to a pathogen in your aquariums then they may just be doomed from the start. Also even in the same species fish collected, raised may be immune to a pathogen but the same speccollected or raised somewhere else may have no immunity to the same pathogen. The Europeans killed thousands of Indians in the new world just by exposing the Indians to pathogens they had no immunity to.

On a side note keeping wild caught fish actually increases the wild population. When you buy wild caught fish your purchase makes money for the local populations which incentives them to make sure there is a steady supply of that fish in their local waters to collect and sell.

 

[jjohnwm]

On a side note keeping wild caught fish actually increases the wild population. When you buy wild caught fish your purchase makes money for the local populations which incentives them to make sure there is a steady supply of that fish in their local waters to collect and sell.

I've read this before, specifically referencing Cardinal Tetras. The logic works...assuming, of course, that every person in the supply chain understands it, believes it and has a sufficient concern for their own future and the future of their local economy. In other words...dream on! This might actually work in some tiny percentage of cases, but...most of the time? Not a chance. It's just a transparent effort to make greed look like an environmentally conscious enterprise.

Think of a random selection of a dozen or so people that you know. Then read the first sentence of the paragraph of yours that I quoted. Think about it; try not to laugh out loud.

 

[tigerhouse]

I am sorry about the loss of Brutus.

Even though you think it is overfeeding I totally disagree. You have something going on that not only killed all your bass but a bunch of other fish.
I have been going through your videos looking at your live fish and most of the fish look pretty good except for your koi. The body shape on some of the kio concerns me. Their bellies are not robust and their bodies just seem to be little elongated with wrong curvature from the mouth to the tail. My first thought is something is messing with their digestive system causing them to look the way they do. Even if you agreed with me I am just not sure how you would proceed. You could quarantine a couple fish in different tanks and treat them but even if you cured them I am not sure they would regain a their proper shape. I would look for a more robust belly to see if a cure was working. I am still leaning towards an internal pathogen/parisite.

On a side note I was talking to a local water guy about an R.O. system for my tanks. He suggested a water softer before the R.O. system to increase the longevity of the R.O. membranes.

 

[fishdance]

Hello Viktor,
Good to see you are constantly improving. Sometimes it's hard to see the trees for the forest. Reliable clean source water is critical for fish, just as a solid foundation is essential for a building.

Do you analyse your well water? Does the water table level or water composition change?

Do you constantly pump from the well ? This would be very expensive.

So you water change 100% every 3 days? This is similar to a flow through system so no filtration is needed.

Have you sampled soil (composition) including clay content? The soil, not water. And in several locations/depths.

I'm short of time so will email you privately next week but what I'm thinking is you could incorporate solar distillation to reduce reliance on expensive RO membranes. Alternatively store water in mud ponds for cathodic reduction of magnesium & calcium - similar principle to ion resin exchange but done naturally for free. Nature ponds will also drop pH (algae photosynthesis) and boost dissolved oxygen assuming your well water is anoxic. You could run through sand settlement tanks to remove iron precipitate (becomes insoluble as dissolved oxygen increases). And reduction of water through-put will extend RO membrane life.

Hmm half of my reply has disappeared somehow but I'll email you next week.

 

[jjohnwm]

The smaller the fish, the easier it seems to bring its care and keeping closer toward the ideal. The bigger the fish, the harder it is.

I think that many people overlook this ^ basic truth. Even my relatively tiny amount of experience with relatively tiny fish has shown me how much of a factor this is. When you are keeping fish who inhale a larger volume of water with a mouthful of food than is contained in many entire aquariums...you are in another dimension...

...Anyway, no one has time to write a 20-page treatise with 100 literature references from the far smarter professionals in the field on the subject matter to dot all i's and cross all t's. ... Well, maybe except JJ haha...

Hmmm...I think I've just been told I need to edit my posts a bit more aggressively...

...death rates in the wild and in captivity, fish being "dead" already when taken out of nature, the conservationism, the hypocrisy... You've obviously been thinking about these things for a while...I am sure you meant all this as a complimenting part to taking reasonable care of our wet pets.

Why, no...this just came to me while on the toilet yesterday...

Lol, I think a bit of introspection on the morals and ethics of fishkeeping (or almost anything else a person does for a half-century-plus...) is a good thing, and is pretty much unavoidable even if it is not desired or planned. One's ideas and thoughts must mature and must be improved and refined to allow one's actions to follow suit.

...Growth and progress, learning and enjoyment - these are what makes it worth while or not, to me anyway..but again, let's not lay in this dirty puddle like swine but try to crawl out of it every now and then so that eventually we never return into it. That too would be progressive.

You, sir, are a poet!