The Advantages of Keeping A Natural Tank

[paul b]

The advantages of keeping a natural Reef

 

We all know that there are many ways to run a tank but I would like to start a thread about keeping a natural reef. The ocean is natural and the fish there are all very healthy and never have to worry about getting sick, getting enough food, getting enough sunlight, exercise etc. They do however have to worry about getting eaten by something larger or getting caught in a net, suffocating on the deck of a ship then being stuffed into a small can labeled "Dolphin Safe".

None of the tanks we keep are natural by any stretch of the imagination but I feel we should strive to get as close to naturel as we can.

There is a reason for this thinking. Fish in a natural, unstressed state are just healthier. They are healthier because they eat better and by that I don't mean the foods they eat have more nutrition, although they could have. I mean they eat healthier because the foods they eat have the living bacteria in them that help keep fish immune from disease.

 

Fish are different from most of us and some of us smell better than fish. Fish in the sea eat mostly fish and crustaceans and many of us also feed that type of food, but fish in the sea eat whole fish and crustaceans, bones, guts, eyes and all. It is difficult for us to get very tiny whole fish for food and I discussed this point with fish food manufacturers a few times. I can buy very tiny whole maceral babies in an Asian market but they are always freeze dried with the consistency of wood. Fish won't eat wood and neither would I.

 

My last few weeks in Viet Nam we were issued what they call LURPS. It's basically freeze dried stew but if you tried to eat it without adding boiling water, it would be like eating Styrofoam with powdered Styrofoam on top of it. Our problem was that we hardly had water, much less boiling water. If you just added water the same temperature as our tanks, it would just float, and you still couldn't eat it. That’s the same problem with trying to feed our fish freeze dried food.

The ingredient in foods that will keep the fish immune is the bacteria and parasites in its gut and a wild fish eats that at every meal. A fishes gut, or intestine and stomach is filled with bacteria just as ours is. We and the fish need that bacteria because it is that bacteria that keep us healthy. That is the reason that when we take antibiotics we get the "runs" and feel lousy. The antibiotics kill our stomach bacteria and we can’t live without it. I don't really know how fish feel but I do know they are supposed to have a gut filled with live bacteria and parasites as all the fish in the sea do.

 

That is the reason fish in many tanks are so delicate and the reason for all the disease threads. Fish are actually very robust and rarely, if ever get sick on the proper diet. A healthy fish in a natural tank will eat right away and not hide for days at a time, unless it is a type of fish that is supposed to do that. All healthy fish will also try to spawn. Of course if you have an algae blenny it won’t try to mate with a whale shark.

 

So many people have trouble with feeding fish such as mandarins, copperbands, moorish Idols etc. That is because IMO, it is not a natural tank.

When we get the fish from a store, that fish may have been collected a month ago. In that time it was not eating the food it is supposed to eat along with the bacteria and parasites it is used to eating. It’s like us on antibiotics and its stomach and intestines are not working properly because a fish gets its immunity from its kidney and the kidney knows what types of immunity it should churn out by the types of bacteria and parasites in its stomach.

If we get a new fish and put it in a tank with copper or antibiotics, that fish is off to a bad start. I myself used to do that. Treat new fish just to make sure they were “healthy”. I learned the hard way that that is not the way to go. Naturally if we get a fish in the process of having last rites, or if an angelfish is giving it mouth to mouth resuscitation, we have to treat it, but we should rarely get a fish like that.

 

Healthy fish in natural tanks spawn continuously because that’s what fish do.

The Mother fish imparts her immunity to her fry so it can survive its first few days outside the egg because a fish fry has a thin coat of slime which is the fishes only defense against pathogens. If that slime doesn’t have any immunity in it from its Mother, it cannot survive because it will be attached by every pathogen in the sea, or a tank. If it’s Mother doesn’t have immunity, neither will its babies because where would it come from? The baby fish hasn’t yet been exposed to anything so it could not get any immunity and it would not survive. As that baby fish starts eating, it consumes bacteria and parasite laden foods which it should be immune to, but only if it got that immunity from an immune Mother.

 

If you keep a sterile tank with no input of natural bacteria or parasites, that fish will always be at risk of infection from bacteria, viruses and parasites so everything in contact with it needs to be quarantined. But even if you quarantine everything that is in contact with that fish, you can’t keep all disease bacteria away from it, especially if you buy coral or rock because those things, even if quarantined for years can harbor disease pathogens in the form of viruses and bacteria that quarantining will have no effect on. Quarantining can remove parasites, but nothing else.

You can’t turn a sterile, quarantined tank into a natural tank very easily because those fish have no natural immunity to anything because they are not exposed to anything so it would be a slow and possibly scary process. The fish would need to become infected, and then cured by un natural means until the fish builds up immunity or unfortunately, dies.

 

It is much easier to set up a natural tank in the beginning but of course that can also be scary, especially if you are new at this. If I were to set up another tank tomorrow I would do it almost exactly like I set up my present tank. Reverse Undergravel filter and all, but I doubt the UG filter has much bearing on the health of the fish.

I am lucky that I can get some natural water and mud from the sea, but I also add regular dirt from outside my house. Dirt that doesn’t have pesticides, fertilizer, weed killers or battery acid from a 1957 Oldsmobile Cutlass. I add a little soil, not for the soil, but for the bacteria. If I collect earthworms for food, I leave the dirt on. It’s the same dirt that is inside the earthworms. Eating a little dirt won’t hurt us and it won’t hurt your fish.

 

I would also feed something with live bacteria in it at every meal. I use white worms, blackworms, earthworms, or clams that I buy live and freeze myself. Clams that you freeze yourself would still have the same bacteria in it as when the clam was alive because our home freezer is not that cold. Processed fish food you buy is questionable as to the presence of bacteria because it needs to be somewhat free of bacteria so it can last and be sold. It may also be irradiated.

(If I could only use one food, it would be clams)

 

Our fish should only die of old age and fish on the proper diet in a natural tank do.

This is all just my opinion of course and I would like to hear your ideas on keeping fish healthy

 

Edited August 22, 2017 by paul b

[Nart]

Always enjoy reading your write-ups Paul.

 

I really wish the ocean was closer to me so I could collect ocean water and mud...

Speaking of white worms, I still have that culture back when I started caring for the green spotted Mandarin (which I have given away since) I should feed my tank with white worms!

[sen5241b]

"... some of us smell better than fish."   

[paul b]

  All worms are great. 

[elbowdeep88]

Many people have clownfish that regularly lay eggs. If these pairs were seperate from other inhabitants, I presume a large portion of these clutches could hatch. Seems like a potentially good sustainable source for live baby fish. Following what you say about mother fish passing nutrients/immunity to their fry, what if newborn clownfish were bottled and sold like vendors do with copepods? If supply chain/logistical and market desirability issues ("poor Nemo") could be overcome, and assuming the mothers were healthy/well fed, could you see this source of live food being good for other fish? Issues with the nutrients in rotifers, etc wouldnt matter if the fry are eaten soon enough and still packed w mom nutrition per your theory.

Edited August 23, 2017 by elbowdeep88

[paul b]

Clownfish and other damsels will spawn even on substandard food and I don't count a spawning clownfish as a real good marker for a healthy tank.  They are kind of like guppies where you can't stop them from spawning.

After saying that bit of useless information I will say that clownfish only lay a small amount of eggs compared to many ocean fish such as mackerel.  My clownfish spawn every few days and I never counted but it looks like 100 or so eggs.  Mackerels lay thousands of eggs and a mackerel is an oilier and much cheaper fish than a clownfish so they should be used to get the baby fish for our tanks.  I don't know why they don't sell frozen baby mackerels.

Baby clownfish are also too small to even see clearly and would need to grow for a few weeks to be used as food for almost anything.  Many ocean fish are 1/4" long as newborns which would be perfect.  The sea is full of them.

 

See the fry to the left of this nurse shark.  That shark was about 6' long so those fry are a good size, and they are newborns.  They are all over the place on any reef.

 

[elbowdeep88]

Ah I see. You want them a bit bigger than I was thinking. So is the issue w baby mackerels with harvesting them? That's why I was thinking something that breeds well in captivity

[paul b]

Yes, biggerr.  No fish except pipefish and other fish with tiny mouths would see baby clownfish and the entire hatch from one clownfish isn't enough to feed even a 2" fish for one meal.

I know they can collect tiny mackerel because I can buy them freeze dried.  If they would only freeze them, that would be great.  But they don't.

Most commercially sold fish fod is a mixture of many different types of fish and crustaceans which is OK.  But whole fish is what fish eat in the sea and that food has the exact portion of oil, fat and minerals that fish need. 

Occasionally I am able to net a bunch of tiny baby fish in my marina.  The fish can't eat them fast enough and I think they love the sport of chasing them. 

 

There are also many more mackerel in the sea then clownfish.

Here on Long Island we have a fish called Bunker (Menhaden)  They are a very oily fish that we can't eat because they would taste like a can of Mobil Oil.   But we use them for bait and catch everything on them.  They are harvested by the thousands of tons for their oil that they make into cosmetics.

 

I see thousands of babies all the time but the ones I see are an inch long so to big for food for most fish.  I don't know where the fry hide but If I find out, I will collect them to feed my fish as the oil in them makes them very healthy for fish to eat and the cosmetics industry won't miss a little lipstick.   

Edited August 24, 2017 by paul b

[zygote2k]

Adding natural seawater, soil, rocks, and mud from the local waters probably is the thing that you have going for you that the rest of us do not.

Otherwise your tank is no different than many here.

[paul b]

That may be true, I don't know.  Unfortunately I have not added any NSW or rocks this year but I did add some mud and amphipods.  If I couldn't get that, I would add dirt. 

I don't know what everyone's tank looks like, I am just trying to convey some thoughts on how to keep fish healthy and immune so they live out their natural lifespan with no quarantineing, no medications, no hospital tank etc.

I can see by the disease forum that that is not the case with many tanks.  Just a thought.

 

I write this stuff to try to help people like most threads are about, of course no one has to read it or believe it 

Edited August 25, 2017 by paul b

[newbie2014]

I've always enjoy and appreciate your write ups, Paul.

 

It's refreshing to learn how to keep reef tank the natural way; and to know that this hobby doesn't have to be overly complicated, time consuming, and expensive. Your tank maybe not the best looking one, but I bet it probably has the most healthiest environment of them all. Perhaps, that's what we should thrive for; to have the healthiest tank for the fish, and not necessarily the best looking one for us.

 

Please, keep us informed.

[paul b]

Thanks Newbie. I do strive for natural and to me that means all the fish that can spawn are spawning and the fish all only die of old age, some of them, like clownfish can live into their 30s.

Many people feel if they can keep a mandarin 2 years that is great. 2 years for a mandarin stinks as that fish lives over 10 years. Even hermit crabs live over 12 years.
If we lose a fish to disease or before it's normal lifespan, we failed and that is not acceptable.
We will all get there some day but we are all Noobs.

You are certainly correct that my tank is not the nicest one on here. Not even close. It was never meant to be. My tank was set up as an experiment/hobby 46 years ago and it is only for my enjoyment and no one else. I like it and it is just the way I want it. Nitrates of 160 and all which is why I can't keep very delicate SPS, which I am not looking for now. There have been years when it was mostly SPS but I like LPS, gorgonians and sponges so much better. Some people feel this is a contest to see who can have the prettiest tank and that is fine. My tank has been TOTM probably 10 times on different forums and I am always surprised because I don't strive for that. I strive for health and naturalness. I know that if I have a pair of fish and they are not spawning, they are not healthy and I need to do something.

In the life of my tank I have added lobsters, flounders, eels, sea robins, horseshoe crabs, numerous crabs and the young of almost anything that I catch here in the sea.
I have built all sorts of feeders, traps, UV sterilizers, Ozone generators, lights, algae troughs, fry collectors etc, just as experiments. Some worked, many were disasters. My lights now are made out of copper tubing which water flows through to cool the LEDs soldered to it.
It's all for fun, nothing else. 

Edited August 25, 2017 by paul b

[newbie2014]

A nitrate of 160 would definitely give most of us a heart attack.

 

Your location and accessibility to the sources lend a hand in making your tank as close to the natural habitat as possible. When I was just a kid living in Southeast Asia, I could breed and raise fighting betta like no one's business without filter, heater or light. Except the container, everything that I needed I got from the pond 300 yds away from my house for free, even the fish.

 

Just the other day I stumbled on a thread created by Timfish on Reefcentral.com. It's about how his reef tank has been skimmerless, filterless, reactor-less, no additives, and no PH/wave makers for the last 20+ years. He keeps his system going with just 7-10% weekly water change. He uses an empty sump to increase the water volume and better gas exchange.

 

I'm gonna try to emulate that with my puny 40+ gallon system, and see if it's doable.            

[paul b]

Sounds like a plan Newbie, but then you will have to change your name to Ex Newby