Unorthodox ways to do things.

[paul b]

I thought it would be interesting to talk about some of the odder things some of us do that is not the norm.

Thanks to computers and the internet much of this hobby has become a cookie cutter endeavour and many people do the same things the same way.

I started way before the internet so there was no easy way to exchange ideas so I had to develop them myself. I have been doing these things for so long that I forget and think everyone does it that way, but I find that I am wrong. When I post these Ideas, people just look at me funny. Well, I can't really see them, but I think they are looking at me, or at least the computer screen funny.

So I decided to write down some of the wierd-ish things I do that some people may not have heard of. If you did, just humor me.

 

I think I will start with Pop Eye. I just answered a post about this and the person is still looking at me, or the computer screen anyway.

Fish get Pop Eye all the time, I don't know exactly why and neither does anyone else. I know there are all sorts of theories but trust me, no one knows for sure. But no matter what caused it, it is easy to treat. This usually heals on it's own with no help from us and I would wait a while to see if that happens, but if it keeps getting worse, the eye could completely pop out. That is not real good and I know I would not like that happening to me. Of course I don't think fish feel pain like we do but that is for another post where everyone can yell at me for my opinion.

If the fish has a severe case of Pop Eye, no matter what caused it, the eye is protruding for one of two reasons. One is gas behind the eye and one is pus from an infection. Either way it is not an eye problem but a malfunction in the way the fish was designed. If you look at a fish skull, you see a dent in it where the eye goes and a tiny hole in the back where the optic nerve attaches to the eyeball. Once gas or a infection gets back there, the preasure has no place to go so it pushes out on the eye. (we have sinuses and all sorts of places for preasure to go, not that it makes us feel any better but our eyes don't usually pop out) It does not seem like there is any blood flow to that area because there are no veins that I can see and no hole through the skull for the vein to enter. There also would be no need for blood flow there as the eye has it's own blood supply that seems to travel with the optic nerve. Of course I am not a fish surgeon but I do occasionally operate (if their insurance covers it)

Anyway, the preasure needs to be releived so the eye can get back to where it is supposed to go.

To do this, I catch the fish and hold it in a net. I position the fish so that I have access to his eye. Then I take a sterile hypodermic needle with nothing in it and gently stick it in the thin stretched skin that is still holding the eye in. Usually the top part is stretched the most. Then I pull back on the plunger and the eye instantly goes back to where it is supposed to be. Either air or a milky fluid will come out. Sometimes the eye does not go back all the way and I do it again the next day.

If I notice that there is fluid and not just gas, sometimes I inject a little injectable antibiotic, then remove it.

In the 45 years or so and the dozens of patients I have done this on, I have never lost a patient, been sued, caused blindness, or could not cure the fish.

I don't puncture the eye and the needle can not penetrate into the brain because the skull is totally behind the eyeball.

Now for people who think this is barbaric, and you know why you are. Just think, if your eye was hanging out of your head to the point where you could lose it and someone said to you that they could totally cure you in 5 seconds would you say, "Oh my God No, I kind of like my eye like this, maybe I could get on TV" Or would you say, "hurry up and do the dam thing?"

 

I will post another one tomorow, in the meantime, if anyone has any un orthodox ways to do things, feel free to post as I am not the God of fish tanks.

[SunWyrm]

This gave me chills, but if one of my beloved fish had this I'd do it in a heartbeat. I remember feeling so helpless when this has happened in the past, just waiting for medication to take effect (it never did ).

Thanks for posting oh god of fish tanks! I look forward to more!

 

 

 

My unorthodox quirk to add - I load up on stress coat at the slightest sign of injury/stress. I overdose it like no tomorrow (k maybe not that much, it gets expensive..). I've had fish floating at the top and barely breathing sit in a container full of good water and a big dose for an hour and come back just fine. It looks very calming to them (I've seen some fish look a little loopy) and definitely seems to speed up healing.

[paul b]

If the fish is going to die we should try to help them. Remember I am not saying for anyone to do these things. I do them, but I do a lot of things that a lot of people won't do.

My first saltwater fish was a figure 8 puffer. Yes, I know they are brackish but I never told him that and I kept him in salt water.

Anwyay after a few years he got a tumor on his belly and after a while he couldn't swim any more so I removed him and put him in some wet cotton. With an Exacto knofe I excized the tumor which was quite large. I put some Iodine on the wound and let him be. The next morning he was still alive so I took him out of the water and put some food in his mouth. I did that for a week and the fish lived 12 years. He thanked me every day for a few months after the surgery.

As I said, I never lost a patient from surgery but that little puffer would certainly have died if I had not operated.

[Origami]

Calling Dr. B.... Dr. B, report to surgery. Stat.

[Incredible Corals]

When I read your threads and can't help but think of Andy Rooney.

[paul b]

When I read your threads and can't help but think of Andy Rooney.

 

Why? Because he is dead!

[surf&turf]

Great info!! Thanks for sharing.

[yagerboy]

Thanks for the post! I wish you had posted yeeterday b/c I just lost a fish to Pop-Eye where his eye came completely out. Only thing I could find on the web was to treat with Copper, which did not work. Would try your method in a heartbeat. Keep them coming.

[jason the filter freak]

Got to say you have the most fascinating threads, and a new perspective on the most unique topics.

[tightline]

omg thought i was the only one to do crazt stuff like that

[benjipang]

Waiting for your unorthodox way #2

[paul b]

The second unorthodox thing is chlorine bleach treatment of sea water.

Don't do this. Don't do a lot of the things I do. I am not responsible for anything you do, so just take it for what it is, unorthodox. First of all let me say that I did not invent this, that was Robert Straughn "The Father of Salt Water Fish Keeping".

In the fiftees this guy who was my mentor collected and kept just about everything except corals. His favorite thing for a tank was an undergravel filter but he didn't understand the principal of how it worked. He used it as a particle filter and didn't know or understand the bacterial aspect of the deviceAnyway, he also explored using Clorox or chlorine bleach to treat sea water. In his day and in my early days you could not easily buy artificial sea water so we just went to the sea and collected it. Here in New York where I live I used to collect it in the Long Island Sound. For those not familiar with that body of water it is between Connecticut and Long Island and it is fed in part from the East River which runs past Manhattan. It is not the best place to collect water because of a few factors. There is chemical pollution from the city run off, industrial run off from the factories, bacterial pollution from sewage treatment plants and paracitic polution from the red tide that occurs almost every year when the Sound gets too hot.

Not all of these problems can be fixed with bleach but organic, bacterial and paracitic pollution can. Bleach will not help with insecticides or metals so that water should not be used anyway. Of course we want to try to only collect pure water.

The dosage of bleach is one teaspoon to every five gallons of water. After 3 days the water needs to be airated and preferably run over carbon. If you don't want to use carbon then don't use that water for a week. Either way add chlorine eliminater at twice the dosage available at any pet shop.

It is very important that only "REGULAR" bleach be used. Any scents and your fish will die in about 10 seconds. Don't ask.

Now I know most people don't use NSW but there is another use for bleach.

If you have a tank of water where everything died from either a paracite, bacterial infection, flatworms, ich, fungus, the heartbreak of psorisis, whatever, you can still save the water. Bleach is just chlorine gas in water. If you left a bottle of bleach un opened, it would become fresh water as the gas evaporates. After the bleach does it's job, it evaporates leaving just pure water.

I have done this quite a few times with excellent results. Some of that water is still in my reef as my tank has never been emptied.

You remove any animals that are still living and add one cup of regular bleach to fifty gallons of water. You should leave in the rocks and sand. Airate it and after 3 days filter out any dead organisms (they will all be dead) and suck out tthe detritus with a canister filter. Add twice the dosage of chlorine remover and either run over carbon or airate it for a week. If by then there is no smell of chlorine, you can use it. I would test it first on some brave fish because I did once have an accident where I killed almost all of my fish. I used

"New Fresh Scent Clorox" bleach and in less then 10 seconds most of the fish were dying, some tried to jump out of the water. I did manage to save a few. Oddly enough the corals did not die but for a few weeks after, they had a nice fresh scent.

The first squid eggs that were successfully hatched, did so in bleach treated water.

When I started in this hobby everything had ich. I just thought all salt water fish naturally had white spots.

There was no copper so I used pennies. There also were no test kits so I lost a lot of fish. Sometimes the ich was so severe that the fish would start to get spots in the bag even before I put them in the tank. I think it was from osmosis. OK maybe not. But you know what I mean.

When the water was like that and nothing would live in it, I took out the bleach and treated the water. If it were not for bleach, I would have quit the hobby.

So to sum up. Please Don't do this. I do it but I am wierd. This is a thread of un orthodox practices, not necesarilly what you should do.

Someone once called me yelling that his fish died because I told him to put bleach in his tank, "with" his fish. I never said to do this to a living animal unless you want it dead, but fresh smelling.

[Guest thefishman65]

Paul,

 

So if you you fresh scent bleach and all the fish die, does the fresh scent really work?

[paul b]

It works great. Kills them instantly.

[Annap729]

HAHAHAH. Paul, you must not be from the North shore originally...this sounds like such a south shore thing to do .... I come up to Huntington a lot because one of my really good buddies owns a Sea Tow Franchise up there. We get drunk like we're being executed the following day, and then wake up wishing we were.

 

Im a newbie so this is great reading. I think you need a blog.

[paul b]

I am originally from Queens NY but I always collected my water from the Sound. Now I get it out east in the Atlantic. If I take it from the Sound I still sometimes bleach it. It raises the orp way up and the water just seems so much more healthier.

Maybe it's me.

[Annap729]

Wow that's neat. Had no idea the orp went way up. What's next a chlorine reactor instead of ozone haha

[Origami]

Yes, chlorine is a strong oxidizer. That's why it raises ORP so much. ORP = Oxidation - Reduction Potential. It's very effective at breaking down organics. However, too much of it kills everything. If it weren't so darned effective and dangerous (both from direct contact and from intermediate byproducts of its action on organics), it might even be a good alternative to ozone. Unfortunately, it's not.

 

Like Paul says, if you use it to clean water, you need to do a two things that are rather critical:

 

1) Use a dechlorinator in sufficient quantity to ensure that you remove any residual chlorine that may still be present, and

2) Run carbon to facilite that breakdown of chlorine/chloromines and to capture the byproducts of the breakdown, some of which can be harmful (such as chloroform and trichloromethanes)

 

Aeration can also help accelerate the removal of chlorine from the water, and even some of the chlorinated organics.

[lancer99]

Paul B: "Fish get Pop Eye all the time"

 

Not if you give them decent growing conditions.

 

 

Paul B: "Bleach is just chlorine gas in water. If you left a bottle of bleach un opened, it would become fresh water as the gas evaporates. After the bleach does it's job, it evaporates leaving just pure water."

 

Really?

 

 

Paul B: "Don't do this."

 

Good advice.

[YBeNormal]

Paul B: "Fish get Pop Eye all the time"

 

I've been housing fish since 1976 and have never had a fish develop Pop Eye. Ich, velvet and a myriad of other ailments--yes--but never Pop Eye, a symptom I firmly believe to be caused by, or at least related to, poor water conditions and diet.

[paul b]

I am not sure what causes Pop Eye but I don't think it has anything to do with growing conditions or water quality. My fish rarely get it but I use this method in aquarium stores and wholesalers all the time. My moorish Idol got it after 3 or 4 years and my fireclown got it once after he was about 8 years old, he is now 17, spawning and in semingly perfect health.

Once I had a bangai cardinal that got it and he was also old and spawning.

It seems to just show up occasionally but like I said, in my tank I think my fish have only gotten it maybe 5 or 6 times in 40 years. And I have had hundreds of fish.

Us humans also occasionally get things for no known cause. If you keep fish long enough and you keep enough of them, you will see it.

If you search for it on these forums, you will find a lot of cases of it.

Some people think it comes from an eye injury but I am not sure about that. It could come from an opening in the thin skin that surrounds the eye allowing water to get in. It is an infection behind the eye where there is no blood circulation

 

. After the bleach does it's job, it evaporates leaving just pure water."

 

Really?

 

 

Yes really.

Edited November 11, 2011 by paul b

[Guest thefishman65]

So if you you fresh scent bleach and all the fish die, does the fresh scent really work?

Yes, I realize it kills them instantly, but if the dead critters are not removed does it still smell fresh?

[ctenophore]

My aquaculture buddies in FL use the bleach technique all the time on natural seawater. It works well, just aerate for a while to make sure all the Cl dissipates. Use a chlorine DPD test to make sure it's gone. There are no residual byproducts from using it, except dead plankton etc which might give a little nutrient spike. The water is completely sterilized, so anything dead in the water is technically "fresh", but it will get recolonized by decomposers if exposed to air long enough.

[paul b]

Unorthodox feeding methods

Again, I thought everyone did this stuff. OK maybe not but it was always common sense to me.

Like I said there was not always commercially available stuff to feed our animals. The hobby of keeping the animals started first, then the hobby about feeding and careing for them came about. This is about food that is maybe not available to everyone.

At one time or another I have kept everything available in the hobby except manta rays, I always wanted one of those.

Before we kept reefs many of us kept predator tanks. I liked triggers, lionfish, moray eels, puffers and especially anglerfish.

These guys are not especially difficult to feed but many specimins will only eat live food.

I could always get goldfish and guppies but it was always thought you should not feed these freshwater prey to saltwater fish.

In the summer I can collect saltwater fish for food but I don't like chopping through ice to collect saltwater fish in the winter so I came up with something that in my mind anyway I thought was better.

Most predators love guppies and goldfish and they are cheap so I had a tank with these fish in it and just before I fed them to my fish I injected them in their belly with fish oil. You knew I was going to get fish oil in this post someplace, didn't you?

Fish oil like cod liver oil is of course from salt water fish and very healthy for our fish. I figured if I injected this oil into a prey fish my predator fish would get the benefit of the salt water oil. It worked and whenever I have one of those fish that will only eat live fish, I fill the guppy or goldfish up with salt water fish oil. (I take the stuff myself every day)

I also inject live grass shrimp with oil but I don't think this is needed, I do it just because I can and I think the extra oil helps.

This also has another benefit but not so much for the guppy. The prey fish does not swim too well after this enhancement so the predator can catch it easier. Now don't be a Sissy, these are feeder fish that are going to be fed to fish anyway. I eat fish every day along with shrimp, clams, oysters and squid and I never really thought how that animal suffered before I ate it. I don't eat red meat so I don't hurt cows so it evens out.

Besides those shrimp you are feeding your fish were also happily swimming around minding their own business.

Another thing that some may find a little odd is feeding Plaster of Paris to fish. Don't re read that, I did say Plaster of Paris, the stuff your walls are made out of. OK not just plaster the way it comes out of the box. I do something to it first.

And I only do this for special fish like moorish Idols and maybe angelfish. Plaster of Paris is just calcium, you can eat the stuff, (but don't)

I also did not invent this but it was used many years ago, before we forgot some basics.

When I keep moorish Idols or any fish I want to get extra calcium into I do this. I mix a little Plaster of Paris and when it starts to set, I can ad whatever I want like banannas. Moorish Idols love banannas, I have no Idea why. I also add some vitamins and greens like nori, maybe a little flake food and fish oil.

The natural diet for Moorish Idols is sponge and in the sea that is al I have ever seen them eat. I found a sponge in New York that grows only on floating wooden docks and Idols love the stuff. They practically jump out of the water for it, but sometimes I ran out of this and needed something to fill in.

This Plaster thing, wnen set becomes the same consistancy as sponge and moorish Idols along with some other fish love the stuff. I never tasted it myself. The Plaster gives the fish needed calcium, the texture fools the fish and I can add whatever I think will benefit the fish.

I am able to keep moorish Idols for a while longer than many hobbiests do and that is, I think because I have spent some time diving with them trying to learn their secrets. In the sea I never say them eat plaster but that is only because Home Depot doesn't deliver to Tahiti.

I am sure everyone on here knows how to force feed a puffer that does not want to eat. But just in case, you just grab him, being careful not to get bit and being a puffer, he will try to puff up. So you then stick the food in his mouth with a toothpick. They don't puke too well so usually the food will stay down, but not always. Fish also don't have tongues for anyone who never looked in their mouths. Thats probably why they can't speak well.

[FearTheTerps]

Sorry Paul, I reread Plaster of Paris twice lol. Very interesting ideas.