A discussion of immunity

[ReefFrenzy]

Larry, I still have a little of your food left and am looking for more with the bacteria in it you mentioned.  I have been on this bacteria kick for about a year and we never read anything on it.  I have always added mud to my water for the bacteria.  People just seem content to let their fish get sick, then try to cure them.  I think that is a stupid idea as our fish should "never" get sick and I firmly believe bacteria is the key to keeping up their immunity.  Adding bacteria to your food is a great idea.  With the drought in California I am having trouble getting blackworms so a frozen food with bacteria would be the next best thing.  Especially your food with the blackworms already in it.  I still have some worms but not many. 

I think in the near future we will see added bacteria in all foods as that is the way to go and we have to get off this sterility kick.

Luckily, I can still get live clams, but I usually eat them myself so the fish don't get many.

Who sells your food in my area on Long Island?  

 

Paul, trying to pack for MACNA but wanted to jump on real quick.  You can search our map here:  http://www.larrysreefservices.com/where-to-buy-lrs.html

We have several vendors on LI selling our food. Paul, I'll keep you updated on what progress is made as these research facilities move forward. 

 

I was curious on how long that bacteria stays alive in frozen foods. I assume after you have had the frozen food in the freezer the effectiveness of it decreases. Like I said, this is just an assumption.  

 

Bacteria actually stops replicating in the freezer and goes into a dormant state. When the foods are warmed up the bacteria actually will continue to be viable. Hence the reason we have to cook our foods before we eat them because freezing alone will not render them safe. You can actually google and find a ton of studies on bacteria (and probiotics in aquaculture going back a decade or more) and there is some data to indicate that bacteria will start to decrease it's effectiveness a little bit over time, month after month. That is of of the reasons we have abandoned the typical frozen food distribution model and "self distribute" our foods directly to stores. We don't keep any food here more than ten days and the average turnaround is typically 5-7 days after production.

 

By starting with over a million colony forming units per gram of food it ensures that even after the time sitting at a store (1-3 months based on our typical refill rate)  the product should still be beneficial when it arrives at your home.

 

Gotta run but happy to answer any more questions as time permits.

[Bruleyii]

Bacteria actually stops replicating in the freezer and goes into a dormant state. When the foods are warmed up the bacteria actually will continue to be viable. Hence the reason we have to cook our foods before we eat them because freezing alone will not render them safe. You can actually google and find a ton of studies on bacteria (and probiotics in aquaculture going back a decade or more) and there is some data to indicate that bacteria will start to decrease it's effectiveness a little bit over time, month after month. That is of of the reasons we have abandoned the typical frozen food distribution model and "self distribute" our foods directly to stores. We don't keep any food here more than ten days and the average turnaround is typically 5-7 days after production.

 

By starting with over a million colony forming units per gram of food it ensures that even after the time sitting at a store (1-3 months based on our typical refill rate)  the product should still be beneficial when it arrives at your home.

 

Gotta run but happy to answer any more questions as time permits.

 

That makes sense. So then if that is the case, is there a "Best By:" date on the packages to ensure that you are feeding the proper amount of bacteria that you want? Sorry. This may be an unintended hijack of the thread but I think it still can relate with the bacteria idea.

Edited August 31, 2015 by Bruleyii

[dave w]

I don't see it a hijack but it's not my thread.  Paul would be the authority on that and he appears too easygoing to take offense. 

 

Why not just pick up a bottle of 5 cent gelatin capsules from the local Vitamin Shoppe or GNC, break one open and add 10 billion probiotic bacteria into whatever type of food you offer?  I wouldn't recommend mixing the bacterial powder with flake food, but any wet mix should be fine.  Typically these pills have ten or a dozen different types of probiotic bacteria.  Unless Larry has done research to isolate just one or two types of the most effective probiotic bacteria (maybe likely that he has already done that), a general mix of a dozen types of bacteria certainly should not do any harm, should it?

 

All dozen types in the pill are advertised to be probiotic, but sometimes health food supplements aren't always as effective as they are advertised to be.  I just have no clue whether 2 or 3 specific types are more effective than the other 7 or 8 types in the pill.  

[paul b]

 

 Paul would be the authority on that and he appears too easygoing to take offense. 

Yes he is.  I don't take offense to anything.

As for probiotics, why not just feed live or fresh food which have all the bacteria, of the correct type in the right amounts that fish need?  I don't know what is in probiotic capsules (even though I take them myself)

Most fish in the sea don't take probiotic capsules.  It's not just the bacteria in "real" food.  It's the oils, vitamins and minerals along with calcium that fish need.  Why give them fake food, then try to boost the value with artificial bacteria?

That is what they do with white flour.   Whole wheat flour is healthy, but it requires expensive refrigeration and it goes bad.  So the makers of it remove the fiber, and wheat germ leaving only the starch.  Starch is not food, it is glue so they are not allowed to call it food.  So they always "enhance" white flour with vitamins and minerals so they can sell it as food.  Look at the ingredients in white bread.  Those are added nutrients.  Look at the ingredients on flake food.  After the first one or two can you recognize anything else?  Does it sound like food, or preservatives?  I feed my fish food with one ingredient such as worms, clams, or Mysis.  In the sea they eat one ingredient food such as "fish".

If you want your fish spawning, immune and living ten or twenty years with no problems, feed them real food that doesn't need anything to help it. 

 

[Bruleyii]

I was reading in one of the fish magazines last night that black worms were great, but the writer had concerns about the gut bacteria in them because they come from freshwater and are not necessarily a marine worm. They were thinking that the bacteria might be different. They mentioned to feed them with other things like Paul does. Like his clams and what not.

[paul b]

I have heard that many times.  How I usually answer that is to say that some of my still spawning fish are over 20 years old and have eaten live blackworms every day of their lives.  Those fish, and all my fish have never been quarantined and I add stuff from the sea almost every week and add livestock from many different stores all year.  I think that proves my point.

[Bruleyii]

Im not disagreeing with you, just wondering if maybe they get other marine bacteria from the mud or other foods you are adding. Do you have fish that strictly eat blackworms?

[paul b]

All my 28 or so fish eat blackworms except the blue stripe pipefish.  They try and sometimes get a tiny piece, but they are just to small and normally pods or newly hatched brine shrimp.  I do add mud and my tank was started with New York water but I think it is what the fish take in through their mouth that makes the most difference although the mud in the water probably helps.  I really don't know.

All the fish, including the pipefish, eat clams.  Except for occasionally eating LRS food and frozen Mysis, that is all I give them.  Fish don't need a variety, they need what they are supposed to eat and that is whole, fresh or frozen foods.

If you have ever read the history of my tank the reason I started to feed them blackworms was in 1971 I bought 7 blue devils.  http://www.saltwatersmarts.com/paul-baldassano-40-year-old-saltwater-aquarium-3078/Those were among the first salt water fish imported to New York City.  They lived fine, but after a while I started feeding them live worms.  In 6 weeks they started to spawn and this was when almost no one even heard you could keep salt water fish.  Mine were spawning.  I have been feeding live worms ever since and even now, virtually all of my paired fish are spawning and are immune.

I try to back up what I say with pictures.  There are no references I could post from those days because the little that was written, I disagreed with, and still do.

Here is that male blue devil then over his nest of eggs in that gooseneck barnacle shell.    Blue devils are a very common fish, but remember in 1971, they were the "only" fish available and not very cheap.

 

Here are his eggs.

 

 

 

Edited September 1, 2015 by paul b

[Bruleyii]

Lol. Nice. Like I said I don't doubt what you say. Just more so bringing different ideas and to see what your thoughts were about it. Side note, I just got done watching your podcast on youtube with r2r. For all the people that say your concept isnt true or doesnt work, I say "The tank is the proof." 

[paul b]

Too bad the tank came out all washed out in that video.  I didn't know it was going to look like that or I would have shut off the room lights or dimmed the tank lights.

I think the tank looks fine

 

Edited September 1, 2015 by paul b

[Bruleyii]

I agree. I can't believe you have so many fish in there. It never seems like it when you show pictures or videos. Are they mostly small fish?

[paul b]

These guys are about 3 1/2"

 

 

Another 3" guy

 

The watchman is about 4" and the two pistol shrimp are full grown

 

The copperband is the largest and the bangai's are probably next.

 

 

The older fireclown is about 3",   He is in his 20s, the female is about 2" and she is 16.

 

The rest of the fish are smaller like mandarins, ruby reds, pipefish, gobies etc.

 

I don't like tangs and angels as I have had so many of them, I find them boring.  I like the odder fish like the bluestripes and the ruby reds.  If I see something unusual or something I have never had, I buy it.

 

In this video, you can see some of the fish  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ysdngGagoU

Edited September 1, 2015 by paul b

[dave w]

Paul, are you coming down to MACNA?

[paul b]

No.  Every five years or so we have this reunion of the old crowd all our friends, some from high school.  We are scattered all over the country, Hawaii, Arizona, Florida Keys and North Carolina.  We will meet at my marina for a big party that will last 4 days. 

[dave w]

At your marina?  You party for 4 days, spill every imaginable biological waste product into the water to be ingested by clams and amphipods, then harvest the bloom of sea critters for your aquarium?  

 

Recycling at its best.  Everyone has their own way of going green.

[paul b]

The party at my marina only lasts for friday night on the dock. We have garbage cans and don't put anything in the water. The rest of the party is out on the east end of Long island and upstate New York. We have a different location each day at someone's house. We used to all go out in boats, but we don't have enough boats any more.

[Bruleyii]

Just make sure if you are in the water, it's intentional. 

Edited September 3, 2015 by Bruleyii

[paul b]

I think if we want to quarantine fish for any length of time, that quarantine tank should be at least as large and well cycled as a normal tank we will be keeping that fish in for the rest of his life.  I just read that someone has a copperband butterfly in a small quarantine tank and the fish, that was eating at the store, stopped eating.  Now he wants to know what type of medication he needs to add or what type of food he needs to get the fish eating again.  Is it me?  There is nothing wrong with that fish, but you can't put a copperband butterfly in a small bare tank for any period of time, much less two months and expect it to eat and most importantly, stay alive.  So many fish are lost this way that to me at least, it is mind boggling.  People will jump all over you if you try to keep a tang, or butterfly in a small tank, but feel it is perfectly fine to confine it to a small, bare tank for quarantine.  Like Duh.  This stuff is so simple my 3 year old Grand Daughter could figure it out.  Well, almost.

[paul b]

I think many in this hobby are thinking as we did in the 70s, but I feel we need to advance and progress a bit. We humans try to become immune by being inoculated with weak organisms and it works for us. We are immune from most things. Our ancestors were also immune from most things because they were exposed more to stale food, and dirt. Remember for the first 300,000 years we didn't bathe or wash anything including our food and we got along just fine except for that Saber tooth tiger thing.
Now that civilization here is relatively clean, our immune system is not as strong as it used to be. Even in the last 100 years we have lost some immunity. My own Mother lived to be 99 never being in a hospital or taking an aspirin. As a young girl, when she would get sick, her Mother would make her sleep in the stable with the horses because they thought the smell of horse poop would keep her free of disease. It seems to have worked.
Her brother, my Uncle, also lived into his 90s, never having seen a doctor or dentist (or paid taxes) in his life. Like never. And he was very strong and would have killed you if you looked at him wrong. Those were strong people with a strong immune system. He was even stabbed numerous times and cleaned it with a rag he cleaned eels with. Now that is an immune system. (he worked at the New York City docks and that was one of the toughest places on earth in the 1920s) If any or us did that, we would be dead. I don't advocate living like that, but it shows how our immune system can be if it is exposed to disease organisms and how us modern humans unfortunately lost most of that ability through our hygiene. Now we depend on doctors and medications to keep us healthy because our immune system is not allowed to do the job it was designed for. But we can keep our fish immune without feeling bad that they don't practice the proper hygiene. Their tank is not supposed to be squeaky clean. It may make us feel better but it is bad for the fish who were designed to live in an ocean that has everything in it including Amelia Hearts shoes and Columbus underwear.
I realize this thinking is backwards from the way we were brought up and I can't help that. I don't like thinking about re cycled Ideas that obviously don't work. I get a lot of flack from my ideas but I feel it is common sense.
I also was always taught to wash my hands before I eat and still do, but just because we were taught that doesn't mean it will help us stay immune from anything.
Doctors are now prescribing much less antibiotics for this very reason, so our own immune system can strengthen itself and help us in the future just as Supermodels sometimes do.

[paul b]

I understand from the publisher that the "Pre E Book" sale of my book will be this Monday.  I think that means if you order the book that week, it is cheaper.  I think anyway.  I am not going to buy one as that would just be silly.  But I did forget much of what I wrote so maybe I will.  The printed version will be out a couple of weeks later.  I don't know the price because the printer still has not told the publisher yet.   They are still reading it and rolling on the floor laughing.  Some of it is funny.  I think so anyway, but I think everything is funny so you can't go by me.  I get paid in sinking pellets, and not to many of them, so I won't be taking any vacations from the sale of this book. 

[dave w]

I'll buy one of the real books when it comes out.  I'm not into reading e books so much because i prefer to keep my books for future references.

[paul b]

I am also not an E book kind of person unless it is a novel that I will throw out or give away when I am finished

 

I still have some books from the 70s and 80s with my notes and folded down pages. It is hard to fold the tablet or surface.

[DBL]

What's the name of the book?

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[paul b]

The Avant Garde Aquarist, A 60 year history.

I have nothing to do with selling the book. It will be sold here, where I am a writer

http://www.saltwatersmarts.com/marine-fish-heal-through-slime-3962/

[paul b]

Getting back to immunity, I am not sure if I mentioned this (more than 8 times)  but when I was 20 I was stationed in Viet Nam.  Not in Saigon or some other relatively clean place, but the jungle.  Just like Tarzan movies but without Jane although I am not sure if any of the numerous of monkeys were named Jane.  If you don't know anything about a jungle I will tell you.  In the rainy season, when it is not raining, it is raining harder.  In the (very short) dry season, everything is covered in red dust.  Especially when a helicopter lands near you which happens maybe 5 times an hour and you are covered in sweat because it rarely gets below 95 degrees (not that I had a thermometer or anything else) and you spend your "free" time filling sand bags, (and swatting bugs or shooting snakes,)  you look just like Sasquatch because red dust is caked all over you.  So you go and take a " shower."  Oh, but wait, you have no water, or shower, or anything that resembles a shower (unless it is the rainy season and you are up to your waist in it, and leaches) so you wait to take a shower.   You wait for the day you leave the country which happens after a year.  We didn't have a few things you normally have in civilization.  Things like a roof, walls, floors, tent,  electricity, plumbing, water (unless it is raining) bed, real food (we ate C-Rations) or underwear.  That is correct, they didn't give us underwear, they didn't give us that because when it remains wet for a year, it rots.  Why am I saying all this?   No, I don't want you to join the Army, but it would be a noble thing to do and I am sure the conditions are now better.  I am telling you this to show that the human immune system is a fantastic innovation, especially when it is allowed to do it's job.   People now walk around with that silly bottle of hand sanitizer, and do you know who are the people who are always sick?  Correct, the people with the hand sanitizer.   Our bodies were built to handle dirt, bacteria and viruses.   Go to any Natural History Museum and look at Primitive Man.  See if you notice any of them holding hand sanitizer.  In most museums, you won't see that.  Cave men were well equipped to handle germs and the occasional Woolly Mammoth tusk stuck in their arm pit.  I spent an entire year in that jungle and never got sick.  I slept in the mud every night (when you had time to sleep) I never washed my hands, as the little "clean" water you had was for drinking.  That "clean" water came from a river.  When we ate, which was any time we were hungry and we had C-rations, helicopters would land, covering our food with dirt.  It didn't matter and made the C-Rations taste a little better.   If we were going to stay at that LZ   (clearing in the jungle)  for more than a few days the helicopters sometimes  sprayed the surrounding vegetation (and us) with bug killer (probably DDT) and Agent Orange.  When we found ourselves in water, which happened quite often we burned leeches off ourselves with cigarettes that came free in our C-Rations (which by the way were put in the can before I was born)

While in Viet Nam, I never got sick, nothing.  Not a cold, Fly, headache, rash, food poisoning, ich, nothing.  Why was that?  It was because my immune system was up to the task.  Before going to a place like that they gave us shots for plague, parrot fever, jungle fever and a number of things I can't spell.  That is because we Americans have never been exposed to those things and our immune system was not prepared.  The local people there had no shots and they looked mighty healthy to me.  For the rest of the illnesses like colds, flu, sore throat etc, I never got that because before going to Nam, my basic training was conducted in mud which built up my bodies defenses. 

We in this hobby need to change our thinking about keeping fish healthy.  Sterility, long quarantining, antibiotics and siphoning the sand bed is not the answer.  Strengthening the fishes immune system "is" the answer and the only answer if you want to keep your fish alive and healthy in a natural way where they are immune from everything except a broken heater or a Supermodel with a bottle of copper and no test kit.

This is a "friend" I met there.  He ate rats which were like ants here.  They were all over everything.  When we were, shall we say, "in the bathroom".   (Which had no bath and wasn't a room) we would take M-16 rounds, remove the projectile and fill it with soap to shoot them while they tried to climb up on our feet.  This way, we didn't blow off our feet.