Is fish-keeping harder and diseases more prevalent now than it was 10 years ago?

[Stoopid_Fish]

Hey dudes!

So I've been keeping fish since I was a kid, took a break of about 5 years after I had a massive tank crash in my 200L. (White spot, algae bloom, meds killed off the good bacteria, possible bacterial issues. Lost my 9 year old fatty clown loach and it scarred me for years.

So I've gotten back into it a few years back and I feel like diseases in fish are through the roof and the general health of fish in stores is not as good as it was. I've had more issues in the past few years than I ever have and diseases seem to be a hell of a lot harder to knock off than they used to be, which is odd as medications have obviously improved and become more easily available.

I'm in Australia, if anyone else here has anything else to add as well. Not sure if it's just an Aus thing or worldwide.

Thoughts?

 

[Wills]

I have to admit I have been thinking similar things myself. Not based on my experience but through what people are reporting here on the forum and it seems to be all over the world. A lot more people are reporting tough diseases and we know there are a number of medication resistant strains of some common diseases now.

I think the trick is to find reliable shops that import from good places. When I get ready for fish I'm only going to be using a couple of shops and ideally knowing I can get them through a good farm/distributor like Glasers in Germany.

Wills

 

[663]

Thoughts? Simple, I need to take pre-introduction isolation seriously, just in case. After 40+ years of fish keeping I've had no major issues with disease, which has made me soft on needed procedures. One more thing to obsess over, I guess. Thank you for your observations!

 

[Naughts]

Yes, I would agree. I came back to the hobby 18 months ago. I have quarantined every fish for 4 weeks and treated them with flubendazole as a precaution. Some of my fish have had symptoms of gill flukes and intestinal worms so either the meds don't work (I think this is true for gill flukes), or food introduces parasites in. I only buy from one source now as I have had problems with fish from other places. But if the parasites are in my tanks now I cannot have disease free fish. I have shrimps so can't treat the whole tank.

 

[Stoopid_Fish]

Yes, I would agree. I came back to the hobby 18 months ago. I have quarantined every fish for 4 weeks and treated them with flubendazole as a precaution. Some of my fish have had symptoms of gill flukes and intestinal worms so either the meds don't work (I think this is true for gill flukes), or food introduces parasites in. I only buy from one source now as I have had problems with fish from other places. But if the parasites are in my tanks now I cannot have disease free fish. I have shrimps so can't treat the whole tank.

I feel this. I have fully planted tanks so treating them is not an option as I've heard too many stories of plant melt after a good med bombing.
It also makes it hard to fish out any ill fish, or to even see them at times.

 

[Stoopid_Fish]

Thoughts? Simple, I need to take pre-introduction isolation seriously, just in case. After 40+ years of fish keeping I've had no major issues with disease, which has made me soft on needed procedures. One more thing to obsess over, I guess. Thank you for your observations!

Indeed, quarantining is an absolute necessity, especially now. I've just found I've had a few fish show signs of something nasty WEEKS into quarantine. I don't think a month in iso is enough any more!

 

[Naughts]

I feel this. I have fully planted tanks so treating them is not an option as I've heard too many stories of plant melt after a good med bombing.
It also makes it hard to fish out any ill fish, or to even see them at times.

Very true.

 

[Stoopid_Fish]

I have to admit I have been thinking similar things myself. Not based on my experience but through what people are reporting here on the forum and it seems to be all over the world. A lot more people are reporting tough diseases and we know there are a number of medication resistant strains of some common diseases now.

I think the trick is to find reliable shops that import from good places. When I get ready for fish I'm only going to be using a couple of shops and ideally knowing I can get them through a good farm/distributor like Glasers in Germany.

Wills

We're somewhat restricted in Aus. One of the major suppliers here, Aquarium Industries, has been pumping out some shockingly ill fish lately.
I've also experienced this Type II Ich that's been showing up more. It took around 8 weeks for the spots to even fall off the fish, even at 30 degrees C, water changes and Ich X.

 

[seangee]

Sadly fish farming has followed much of the rest of the business world in search of ever increasing margins. This means increasing yields and lower costs which is to the detriment of fish health. Not too many complaints from the industry as selling medication is far more profitable than selling fish .

Wild caught fish are almost as bad because shipping costs are reduced by cramming more in and the most efficient strategy is to get them out of the river and into the end consumers tank as quickly as possible.

 

[Stoopid_Fish]

Sadly fish farming has followed much of the rest of the business world in search of ever increasing margins. This means increasing yields and lower costs which is to the detriment of fish health. Not too many complaints from the industry as selling medication is far more profitable than selling fish .

Wild caught fish are almost as bad because shipping costs are reduced by cramming more in and the most efficient strategy is to get them out of the river and into the end consumers tank as quickly as possible.

I was actually thinking this myself earlier.
Fish are a little like the "designer dog", in a way. Premium prices for messed up, badly bred animals that are pumped out due to an increase in demand.

 

[Colin_T]

Medications haven't changed or improved over the last 40+ years. We are still using the same crap treatments they did back in the 70s, and most of the disease organisms have developed some sort of resistance to the chemicals used in the medications.

To make matters worse, people are treating tanks for unknown ailments and throwing all sorts of stuff in their tanks when they don't know what is wrong with the fish. And in reality, most of the time the fish only needs clean water.

Finally, fish aren't as good a quality as they used to be 20 years ago. They are inbred and have new strains of old diseases, as well as a few new diseases (mostly viruses).

-----------------------

We're somewhat restricted in Aus. One of the major suppliers here, Aquarium Industries, has been pumping out some shockingly ill fish lately.
I've also experienced this Type II Ich that's been showing up more. It took around 8 weeks for the spots to even fall off the fish, even at 30 degrees C, water changes and Ich X.

The white spot parasites drop off the fish after a few days. If the fish had white spots on them for 8 weeks and the spots didn't change place or drop off, it wasn't white spot.

If you have persistent strains of white spot, use copper.

 

[raylove]

Yes, fish definitely not as strong as they were back in the 1980's because of the way they are farmed and fed with growth hormones. They don't ultimately grow as big either. Fancy fishes have been over developed and I find that most of the traditionally easy fish, such as livebearers, are offen the most delicate now. I would never recommend guppies for a new tank!
However, I don't find diseases to be an issue nowadays, possibly because fewer fish are coming from the wild. In the 1990's I had issues and at the time I put this down to centralised filtration systems that meant that fish in the stores were in such clinical conditions that they couldn't cope with 'normal' tank conditions.
Whether that was true or not I don't know, but it seemed to pass. I haven't now had any diseases for probably 15 years so haven't had to add any medication for well over a decade. I never used to quarantine either but I did start to do do when I had delicate species in the main tank that wouldn't have stood up to any medication that I might have had to add. None of the fish in quarantine ever showed any problems.
Very occasionally I buy new fish and one will become off colour. This is almost certainly due to a problem caused by intensive breeding or shipping stress which would only be made worse by treatment. I let nature take its course and sometimes the fish recovers, sometimes not. But it's not a disease and I accept the loss. My own experience is that fish are weaker but not more infected with anything that they can pass on or which they can be treated for.

 

[663]

I have to admit I have been thinking similar things myself. Not based on my experience but through what people are reporting here on the forum and it seems to be all over the world. A lot more people are reporting tough diseases and we know there are a number of medication resistant strains of some common diseases now.

I think the trick is to find reliable shops that import from good places. When I get ready for fish I'm only going to be using a couple of shops and ideally knowing I can get them through a good farm/distributor like Glasers in Germany.

Wills

Wow, another pandemic. It looks like I found this forum at the right time, and seemingly lucked out. We just added two juvenile BR parrots using the old shot glass approach. Both seem to be fine currently. I can only speak for the US, but it seems like our tendency to over-medicate is coming back to bite us on more and more fronts.

I was about to diversify our stock. I have no idea what the status of our breeders is here (Chicagoland area). So I can only hope that Google is still my friend. I've been watching aquascaping videos lately, and noticed right off how gorgeous and well-stocked European stores are. It must be great. We went hunting for nerites' a week ago at a local petsmart. The attendant started to shift gravel around looking for them. My wife and I nearly ran from the store.

 

[663]

Indeed, quarantining is an absolute necessity, especially now. I've just found I've had a few fish show signs of something nasty WEEKS into quarantine. I don't think a month in iso is enough any more!

What do you recommend then for an appropriate quarantine period? Your opinion on tank size and accoutrement's for an isolation tank would be great as well. The 10g I've been using to medicate simply doesn't seem fair to fish being housed for extended periods.

 

[itiwhetu]

@Colin_T summed this up perfectly. I don't feel fish nowadays are nearly as strong or robust as they used to be. Even though somethings have improved over the years, most things have remained pretty much the same, like medications and diagnosis for diseases.