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You.

Ohio Fish Rescue just got done doing a lot of fun work bringing fish to shack's House. You got to check it out. Go to Ohio Fish Rescue on YouTube, find some great content like subscribe, and maybe shoot them a couple of dollars. All right, let's kick that podcast. Welcome to the Aquarium, guys. Podcast with your hosts, Jim colby and Rob dolphin. Hey, guys. Welcome to the podcast. Today, finally, after long awaited period, we have reached out to Segreg's Farms, and we have them sponsoring this particular episode. So number one.

Thank you.

Seagers Farms. Thank you for information in the podcast notes. But today we have the infamous Dr. Fish. James coleman. How are you doing, buddy?

Hey, I'm doing all right. how's it going?

James Collins. I have to edit that out now. How dare are my notes?

You have one name to remember.

I have one name. That's why we're calling you Dr. Fish.

Sure. howdy, fishy, folks?

So, James, you have been working now as head of cyrus Health. Please tell us about your career and how long you've been doing it.

Yeah, I'm the lab manager at seagars Farms. I've been working there for 26 years. That's over half my life. So it's a labor of love, for sure. We're the largest wholesaler or tropical fish in the world. I grew up in the industry, learned how to swim in a production pond, grated fish, and helped same ponds when I was a little boy. Pretty wild. Pretty wild to see the changes. When we started, we were 100% just a family business. There was less than 20 total employees when we started. We're nearly 200 now.

And just to clarify, you said 26 years, and if there's been a disease, I'm assuming you've seen it. I got to visit cyrus in person a couple of years back, and just the mass amount that you guys ship every day blows my mind. You have multiple ups, semis. Generally, they're just filling up, depending on the season and aggressive. Who better to have on the podcast to answer our fish, health, nutrition, and wellness questions? So, in preparation for you, James, we have been preparing a Doctor Fish section in our discord. You can go to aquariumgistpodcast.com. At the bottom of the website, you'll find the link for discord. It's where we do our chat. It's where our whole community is at. And we have one entire sub thread in here dedicated to asking questions. So we've been saving a lot of good ones, a lot of hilarious ones. And all those in between. So, again, thanks for coming on Dr Fish. And I'm your host, Rob olsen.

I'm Jim colby, the good looking one. And I'm Adam on the shark. The smart one.

Sounding so good because he got his computer internet.

Adam got a new computer. We're pretty good.

That's two weeks in a row.

Two weeks in a row, right.

He gets a gold star for attendance.

Gold star.

Before we get into the deep dive with Dr. Fish here, you got some news for me, Jimmy?

Do I have some news for you. Not that I'm aware of.

Your life is so boring, Jimmy.

My life sucks. No, actually, I got my shipment in from Secrets Farms last week. They are still shipping Ups. They cannot send a whole lot through the airlines and stuff. So we've talked a lot about how there's not really a shortage of fish, but it's just a shortage of ways to getting it to you. And so during this whole COVID thing, we've all been what's the word? Struggling to get stuff in. I know you guys are having trouble getting stuff in from the imports, and I know a lot of the locals that raise fish down in Florida have stepped back a little bit because of the COVID deal and stuff. But we're looking forward to having a good fall, good end of summer here with all the good tropical fish that we get out of Secrets farms.

So, James, do you have any insights on the trends of how long this is going to last? That's going to be tight to find everything. Are they beginning to order stuff back in quantity? I mean, you guys are at the forefront there at seacrest.

Yeah, we've got a ton of fish in house, but a lot of the Asian stuff is hard to come by. South American stuff is just horrible right now. Don't really have an update on when those will be reopening, but we are starting to get more and more fish flights opening through Southwest, who we deal a lot with going out, so hopefully that's going to improve the retail end.

Do you see people changing? Like a lot of the Florida farm starting to start back up because of the demand and they see that there's going to be a lockdown for a while or just waiting for borders to open?

I think it's more of a border issue.

Got you again. My news this week is I figured out that our hotline that we have for our listeners also allows to do text message.

No kidding, right?

So we have our number on the bottom of the Aquarium Guys podcast website to call in with your questions and we'll play them on air. We'll read them if they're in an email. But one gentleman decided to text me and I popped up on my phone that came through the site, so said, hey, guys, once, you know, I love the podcast you've been super helpful. So many aspects of getting into a hobby as a whole. I've been starting up a couple of breeder tanks with a pair of red cobra guppies, blue Dream shrimp, which both are breeding, and possibly some auto synchronous spawning, too. I was wondering if I could offer me some ideas, making sure that all three remain successfully breeding in the same tank, if possible. So I answered the question. We went back and forth and he messaged that and I got him back a response within a minute. So he was impressed that we got it. So, hey, why not? Until I get too busy, if you guys want to text us directly, we have our number at the bottom of the website. Accordinglypodcast.com, choose a text message. Maybe you'll be answered directly on the show. But in a tank with shrimp, guppies and autos, if all of them are reading, something's going to eat the babies. I mean, guppies will eat baby shrimp when they can. If they're small enough to fit in their mouth, they're not going to get them all. I mean, guppies aren't avid hunters. They're not going to start going through every nook and cranny, but they're definitely going to lower the population of shrimp. So if your goal is to breed for numbers, do each one of those in separate tanks?

Absolutely.

You're not going to want to have shrimplets getting knocked up by autos or guppies eating auto babies, or even baby fry guppy fry, which have probably the best rates of all three, getting numb by autos, the shrimp will probably leave them alone. You won't have an issue there. But if you want to breed them for numbers, separate them. Otherwise you can breed and just know that they're going to get picked off. And you may only have a couple per batch that live.

We're just here to give you another reason to buy more tanks.

Right? All more tanks. Do you need reasons to buy more tanks?

We just need to give people reasons. And we also give you permission to buy more tanks. Don't talk to your spouse, don't talk to your significant other. Just go ahead and do it. It's just easier to apologize and to get permission. Yes.

Please buy more tanks. Please buy more tanks.

There you go.

There's a flow chart for this. I feel like we got to make like, I want to do this. Buy more tanks. I want to set up this breeding buy more tanks. It just always goes to buy more tanks, buy more tanks, buy more tanks. And eventually set up a fish basement or room and then get divorced.

Exactly. And then lose half your stuff.

And then get more tanks.

And buy more tanks. Exactly.

It's a circle.

My ex wife took half my tanks, just smashed them in the front yard to show me who was boss, and I bought more tanks.

Please tell me that was true.

It is. Pretty cool, pretty accurate.

Just like your hopes and dreams.

Yes. Smashed into smitheries.

She destroyed a lot of your stuff, Jim.

We'll talk about that later.

Allegedly. Allegedly. But no, guys certainly give us some messages back and forth. We love to have them. And above all else, we have all these messages saved. But Adam, have you got any news this week?

Not really. No, I don't think so.

Man, you guys are so boring. I got large clown loaches from a buddy of mine, and they're beautiful. Sitting right next to you, Jimmy.

That's who they are. I did see something very interesting. For those of you who buy the amazon's magazine, you also get the amazon's email. And I sent it to Rob, and I know he didn't look at it because I looked at it. Let's talk a little bit about the house plans that you can put in your aquarium. Did you read it?

Well, see, Jimmy, I have been starting to collect spider plants, as you see on my filters everywhere. Not because of the magazine, but because I figured that I have these and I need to put them somewhere, and I have too many tanks. So if I'm going to get more tanks, house plants need to go in there somewhere.

That's right.

So it's been working out pretty well. So I decided from our jars podcast in episode 41 to make an aquarium jar. And it was beautiful, right? I put the nice volcanic ash substrate in the bottom. I put a big spider plant in there that was coming off the top. It was a huge spider plant. I was getting it ready. Maybe I could put some shrimp in there. And I set it up in my sunroom where it's going to get plenty of light, because again, there's no heat, no light. And the next morning, the entire top was just shaved off and there was cat vomit on the floor.

Cat vomit.

So check what animals you have in your house if you have dogs or cats before you start doing potted plants to check if it's cat friendly. Luckily enough, spider plants are cat friendly. Although puking on the rug, I wouldn't call real friendly, but apparently cat friendly.

It won't kill them. It won't kill them. Yeah, they had a great article in there. They'll tell you different plants that you can put and root into your aquariums and stuff. rob's been doing that over here in a lot of his tanks. It's pretty cool. So check it out. If you go on their email, there's all kinds of different articles that are very noteworthy to be reading. So check out the amazonas email that came out just recently. And if you don't get it, shame on you.

You can get the digital version, and we're not sponsored by them at all. So, Matt, where's our free commission?

Yeah, the guys from Amazon have been nothing but great to us. They've had quite a few people on this podcast, and they're going to be more people on this podcast from Amazon. So it's been a great friendship and a great partnership that we've started with these guys.

Show him some love. Say hi. And, oh, here's the thing, right? One of my listeners apparently messaged Matt peterson that was on the podcast. He's one of the head editors for Amazon Us. Right. And message in the notes because he was buying every back order of Coral magazine and said that rob's from the Aquarium Guys podcast told him he'd get a free year subscription. So you guys are mimurs out there. I did not say that. But I appreciate the love. Always pick on Matt for us whenever you buy back issues.

Yeah. And if you're going to go for a free subscription, get a three year, not a one year. Oh, yeah. Three years.

Way better.

There you go. Three years. So don't know where that went. We'll find out. But that was a lot of fun for me, getting emails from Matt during the week. All right, well, we should start into our topic. And again, before we kick this off, I just want to say a big thank you again to seagers Farms, who gave us the opportunity to spend this evening with Dr. Fish. And if you guys got questions, again, go to our discord. I gave you information before. We'll happily do them otherwise. We are doing these podcasts live on Monday nights, about 700 Central most nights, weather permitting. jimmy's got a long drive to going across the street to my house. So we'll see.

If I go around, I don't walk through the yards anymore. I take my motorcycle. And it took me about 40 seconds to get over here tonight.

That's a new record.

Yeah.

You should be careful. There's traffic out there.

I drove slow.

Well, again, you'll find more information on Secrets Farms. So if you're a pet store or wholesaler, they have a business license to resell. Fish certainly go to seekersfarms.com, thanks to them. So, Dr. Fish, sir, are you ready for your first question?

Absolutely.

First, we got to do some interview questions with you. Number one, what got you into the hobby and doing this amazing stunt of half of your life dedicated to the aquatic trade?

Just my background in the industry. This part of Florida is the heart of the tropical fish growing industry in North America still. So it's just something that's been in my blood, and I'm an animal lover.

And for those of you listening, they are located in Tampa, Florida, near Gibson, near Big Bend Road, away from the Disney World. It's the Disney World for fish geeks.

There you go. The audience demands this question. What fish should you start out with?

Oh, me? I couldn't even tell you my first fish. I've had fish my whole life, so my favorite fish still to this day was a large Jack dempsey whose name was jack had him for quite a long time. We had to move and he jumped out of the bucket during moving. And I was pretty brutal. I was a sad little boy, but he's always been my favorite fish.

So he was suicidal is what you're saying, yeah.

Rest in peace, Jack.

Did you name your Jack dempsey? Jack jack dempsey or because of one of the managers there jack.

No. Jack dempsey.

All right.

Got to clarify that one.

I just want to clarify that I haven't been in jack's office for years.

So what are you keeping now? What is your personal collection since again, you get to be right at the forefront of everything new that comes in.

Actually, I've recently retired as a hobbyist.

Do you have some tanks for sale?

I have you've got some recently smashed ones you need to fix? No, I've got 4000 freshwater tanks that I take care of pretty much daily. Although I'm the lab manager, I'm pretty hands on. So I'm personally siphoned and feed all the discus for you all every day.

Essentially, segregation is your personal hobby at this point?

Absolutely.

If you want to experiment for something, I'm assuming they'll let you put up a rack and do what you do.

Yes.

All right, so starting down with the questions. So again, Dr. Fish, and we've been saving these now, forgive me, I'm going to have to spell out some of these. We have some deep intellectuals and some really beginner users. So we have a variety of questions. Number one, what do you suspect to be the most common culprit for hlle in marine fish, and do you have any tips to stop or reverse it?

They did some good work at Living Seas Disney Orlando and they found that the fines from the activated carbon can really exacerbate that issue. Also, they're not sure why that happens. I think it's so small that it becomes an irritant. Basically just another stressor.

Well, before we go too far, because we got a lot of different listeners listening to this podcast that may have never had marine fish. So explain to us hlle holding the.

Head and lateral line erosion. So the symptoms you'll see with that are big open looking wounds normally near the eyes, above the eyes, or near the rostrom of the nose of the fish.

Fine particulates is seeing exacerbates it, correct?

Yeah. Fish that don't show signs of it, once they're exposed to tanks that have activated carbon in them can start to show signs of it. There's no clinical proof of that yet, but it's anecdotal evidence. But that's one thing. Another thing is just water quality in general can really make that breakout. Water quality is number one. And in all of our aquaculture classes, every aquaculture class taught, water quality is always going to be the top priority for healthy fish, no matter what. Heavy metals can also be a factor in hlle.

Is there any treatment for that. That works.

No, actually I've never found that. If you've got activated carbon, you can take it out and see if that works. If you've never tested your water for heavy metals, you can always test it for that one thing. Nutrition can improve it, not necessarily make it go away, but really good nutrition get their guts healthy. That would be my second thing. My number one thing is always water quality. And my number two thing, feed your fish the best you possibly can. They're pretty resilient critters. They'll pretty much take care of themselves if you can give them those two things.

So it's not necessarily a death sentence when they get the hole in the head. But it definitely is going to be a challenge.

Absolutely. Yeah, it's not going to be pretty, but it's not necessarily going to kill them. Maybe long term if it gets really deep, but a lot of fish aren't going to live that long anyway.

There's been some videos that have tried to treat this in the past. Again, I've never seen like you guys, any medications that really, quote unquote, work like any other home brew recommendations. Like, oh, work for me. Well, it could have been just water quality. You do water changes. But I have seen a couple of correlations with people doing like, vitamin dosing. So they'll take their cyclic pellets, soak it in a fish vitamin supplements, and that seems to help. But that's just generally trying to improve your overall fish's health. Maybe they're lacking some nutrients in the first place. What's the disease? I'm thinking of spiral nucleus hexamata.

What they used to call hexamita.

There you go. Thank you. That's the one I'm thinking of. So, yeah, I've seen that commonly done as another attempt. But yeah, like you said, it comes down to water quality.

So right back to for also a healthy gut. So, I mean, feeding vitamins get your guts a little bit better. Totally understandable.

That's why you had your probiotic yogurt today, didn't you? With your applesauce and pills?

No, I take my pills like anybody else. With eminems. Mix your pills in with eminems, it's much better.

It's like, which one tastes good? We don't know today.

Question number two, better than skittles, put it that way. You people are nice.

So just as a note, right, we have Dr. Fish here, he works for seacrest Farms and he's not going to be recommending any particular medications. He'll make some suggestions, talk about ones that are out there. But as far as which brand is better, that does the exact same thing, has the same active chemical, that's not what Dr. Fish is here for. But next question is, in reality, API cure is as effective as people say and why?

I will say that my colleagues in the public, aquaria, really like it. Like I said, there's no documented studies on it yet, but it and other quote unquote holistic treatments are being researched now, so we'll be able to find out if they are actually doing something or if it's more a combination of just taking better care of our fish, which I think in a lot of cases, it could be. But if you have luck with it and you're using it, I would say keep using it.

So a lot of these things that people say API, like general cure is they're using stuff that they think is it. Like, for instance, like people say quick cure or some other IC treatment. It has methyl blue in it. Generally, that's the activated ingredient that some people are looking for. I was talking with one of these gentlemen before, and I believe that's where it was aimed after. So as far as dealing with stuff like IC, the active ingredient, methyl and blue is the reason why a lot of those general cures can be so effective. At least the question that he was trying to answer specifically, oh, I got you.

For IC in particular, just formalin is the best treatment, really. And if you can if it's somewhere, you can. If you take those fish out, IC is an obligate parasite. If you take those fish out and just leave the tank fallow, they die within max, 36 hours. Once they're free swimming, if they don't find a host, that's the surefire way to always get rid of it.

Wait, doctor, are you recommending more tanks?

More tanks, you're saying? So if you have a tank full of molly's and they come up with IC to take the mollies out, put them in a different tank that you just purchased, attempt to treat and attempt to treat, and then in 36 hours, the IC that was in the other tank should be dead.

It's gone.

It's gone. That's interesting. I never knew that. I've had some pet stores I wholesale. I've had some people that have talked about not being able to get rid of ick out of a tank and actually bleach bombing a tank. But then you start fresh trying to put in your bacteria in a bottle type of stuff, and I just never really liked that idea. But to actually remove the fish now, will a snail carry IC?

I've never seen a snail carry IC. I can't say that would never happen. But I don't believe so.

I mean, because, you know, most people take out their fish, but they leave their snails. Or what about that cooley loaches living in the gravel that you haven't seen since 1974? That's what drives me insane.

Yeah, absolutely. It's not a simple thing to do, but it is just pure fire away.

And you said a formaldehyde or what were you saying that was the best?

Yes, formaldehyde. Formalin is the actual technical term formula. And the 37%, because back when I.

Started in the business 20 some years ago, they're saying use formaldehyde. And I bought two gallons of formaldehyde. I still have 1.98 gallons of formaldehyde, and you should probably get rid of that shit. What do you do with it? It's highly carcinogenic.

Bring it to a veterinarian so you can put a sheep's head for classes.

We're not doing that. But formaldehyde will take care of a lot of problems. But there again, trying to dose it is really tough when you're not knowing what you're doing.

You are not allowed to watch investigative Discovery Channel anymore.

Exactly. So what about copper? Do you ever recommend copper?

Only when I have to in freshwater. I never use it. Never ever.

And why is that?

Just because you've got to worry about the alkalinity issues. If your alkalinity is too low and you dose a normal dose rate, say you just forget to check the alkalinity and it's at 75, well, that copper becomes so much more toxic. The same dosage that it would be if your alkalinity is over 100, even 150 is really safer.

Interesting. I've never heard that before. So more great information here that every time we do one of these podcasts, we learn something new and interesting. And I will take that and write that down for myself. Personally, I use copper quite a bit. Actually, I'm probably going to quit.

I thought you only used it when you go to adam's place and he has octopus. No, the pregnant sea horse.

Seahorses furious.

That's all he uses it for.

Yeah, I'll treat Adam seahorses with that.

On the next question. How exactly does malachite malkite malachite. I've always got malachite. Malachite affect an organism's DNA.

The actual DNA structure, I'm not sure, but it is a mutagen and a terratogen, so it's not safe to use. It was commonly used for years and years and years, but most people are moving away from it, and I believe it'll probably be fairly not legal to possess what I have, an old bottle of old. So you're saying I should buy some more?

Yeah. Yeah, you put a stock up. Yeah. And this explains why a lot of the tropical fish farmers have anywhere between three to seven fingers per hand.

Don't you mean twelve? No, that's their children.

That's just one hand. Okay. I don't know.

So if someone like me has a bottle of malachi green, what do you recommend? Do you recommend just using it? Any precautions? I'm assuming it's remedy removed, because, again, it is a toxic chemical. You're going to safely use it?

Proper ppe, I mean, covet all the way. Gloves, gloves, masks, the whole deal.

You don't want it touching your skin. You don't want it getting into your mouth.

No, you don't want to snort it.

No.

You don't want to inject it. Okay, we got a little bases covered. How many times have your fingers been green?

Oh, all the time.

I know.

I'm nervous as hell right now.

I know. I'm thinking about methane blue and magnetic green. And all the times my fingers have been stained for weeks.

On end the meth blue is probably not going to hurt you.

Okay.

Potassium pinbang, either. That one's pretty okay. Although those stains last a really long time.

Yes, they do. I came home one time with that stains and my wife said, did you rob a bank or what do you mean rob a bank? They put those explosive dyes in the bag and I said, no, I didn't rob a bank. And then I went and bought a jet ski.

They do what in bags now.

They put a die bank. Yeah. If you want to rob a bank today because you're wearing a mask and they were open by chance and for.

Some reason they still had cash in 2020.

Right. A thing in the bank that will explode and will die. All the money a bright color plus your hands and stuff. And it's been something they've done for years and years and years. Like a smurf blue, a nice smurf blue.

Blue or pink. And then they also have it so that once you leave, like a certain radius of the bank, it will explode. It explodes and it renders all the money worthless.

And they put it in atm, too.

I'm learning a lot of stuff here. I didn't have a clue like this. So what you're telling me this is hard for me to believe that the same thing they do in pools. If you take a crap in a pool, it goes blue or p. Right. That they do the same thing to money in banks?

Yeah, pretty accurate.

Okay. I feel like I'm in the twilight zone right now.

I'm just saying, the next time that you run the microwave, close the door. I think it's starting to affect your little doctor.

I've consumed too much moluse green. Be careful with those, everybody.

What else you got?

All right, next question. What diseases are truly affected treating with aquarium salt?

Okay. Aquarium salt, it's a wonderful thing. Salt is a good thing for freshwater fish. You don't always have to keep it in there. It's not going to hurt anything. I definitely suggested on when you first bring fish home or bringing in fish to your store, it's a really good thing. Does a lot of stuff. It can help promote a healthy slime coat and the nitrogen cycle, your nitrite, especially when you're bringing in new fish, you've got high ammonia in those fish, which is going to turn into nitrite, and the chloride competes for space on the gills with the nitrite. So theoretically, the more salt you have in the water, of course, fish are only your freshwater fish, depending on the species, are going to tolerate so much the higher your nitrite can be and not be as harmful to the fish because the chloride ions are on the gills instead of the nitrite.

So what are some of the issues that you use that's like a go to? Like I'm seeing symptoms of this disease.

I'm.

Going to treat with salt.

Salt will help with IC treatments. Salt can help with actually, many protests are affected by salt. Tetrahymemon, not so much, but your other guys are going to get knocked off. kyla danella doesn't like salt very much. Throw salt in for even trematodes like your Gilflux dactyl of gyrodactylus. High levels of salt you can use to treat those for now, when you're.

Talking about using salt, are you talking like one teaspoon, two teaspoons per gallon?

Depends on what you're going to do. If you're doing it to promote your slime coat, it's only going to be a little bit. You're going to want to get your tds. Your total dissolved solids up to about 1.5% to 3.0 is a nice bath treatment for new fish, even full time for many freshwater fish. And if you're talking treating for diseases, you're going to go to as much as 30 ppt or to equate that. That would be like 30% solidity.

Now I know for years. I bought them from you guys before. Do you still sell the tds meters?

Yes, we do.

If you're a secret buyer, heads up stores. Heads up stores that you can buy the tds meters. I know it's on the very final few pages where they offer things like rubber bands and bags and stuff. And I got a tds meter from you guys for years ago, and I still use it today, and I really love it. But I was told, too, what is shimmy like on molly's? And why does salt help that that.

Can be caused by a number of things. Typically, they're just I'll try to explain it. They're just super stressed. They're just like overstressed. They kind of shut down. They don't want to eat, and they act weird. But salt really helps that. It's not always the same thing. Sometimes fish are a lot like people. Different diseases can cause similar symptoms. So it's not always. Sometimes it could be a protest, sometimes it could be gyrodactylus. Sometimes IC.

I've noticed a lot of times too, that one thing brings on another thing. Do you see that a lot?

Correct? Yes.

It starts out simple, and it just evolves into something greater.

And then Jimmy has slow bone AIDS, right?

No, I don't have AIDS. You put your pills in with your eminem and you eat your damn eminem.

And then you get malachite green in.

And then you're fine and you're good.

Yeah, but yeah, the stressors equal disease. Really?

My rule of thumb, and I think this is where this question came from, is we've had so many questions over the time we've done the podcast, and they're like, what would you recommend as easy recommendation just to keep healthy salt if this happens? I'm like, well, did you start with salt? If you did the salt and that's not working, then we can move on to other things. And it's always just my flow chart is start with salt. I'm glad to feel validated in that.

Jimmy well, I've said it 100 times before. I used to get some goldfish from one of the goldfish people over in the carolinas, and they had sent me a sheet one time about eleven items about that goldfish gets. And I think nine out of the eleven items that bother goldfish actually are helped or cured by salt. Does that sound about right?

Yes. You can treat a lot of issues.

With salt, and salt is cheap and should always be in the cupboard if you own an aquarium.

Now, you can go and purchase aquarium salt, or you can get the extra coarse, softener salt. Same deal. You got to make sure that it's extra coarse and not those pellets, because that's got glue and crap.

In all honesty, you can even use marine mix. Of course, you're going to use a tiny, tiny bit. And if you have soft water fish, you're not going to want to use that on them. But the trace elements, when you're mixing something that low, they're good for your freshwater fish, too.

Yeah, I remember the first time that I went down this is probably 20 years ago, I came down to visit Cigarettes farms, and I then went over to what interested me is that they had pallets and pallets and pallets of water, softener salt, and that's what they were using. And this whole time I was buying the expensive stuff. And if you own a pet store and you want to sell the aquarium salt that's in the box, which cost retail three, $4, you know what? If you want to make some money, go buy yourself a 40 pound bag of the granular salt and bag it in £1 bags and sell it for half the price of what your box is, and your six dollar bag of salt will net you $40. So it's another money maker for you if you want a Pep store.

Chaching. So next question is, what is the purpose of raising temp in the tank as it relates to a fish's immune system?

Raising the temperature of a tank, it's going to accelerate metabolism, not going to change the immune system a whole lot. What it will do is speed up the lifecycle of parasites like IC. You can actually help. Another way to get rid of it quicker, because the IC that you see on their side, it is the only protest we can see with our naked eye, which is pretty cool. As much as I love the fish, I kind of dig the parasites, too. I've been doing it for so long. But, yeah, that's the only protest on the planet that we can see with our naked eye. But those little white spots, you can't treat them with anything. The best chemical in the world isn't going to penetrate that. You have to get them in their free swimming stage, and you can get them into that stage quicker by raising the temperature of your tanks.

We've talked over and over about IC on this program and stuff. A lot of questions that are asked, do you ever see IC and fish in the wild?

Not as much. Because they aren't stressed. Because they're in the wild.

And so basically it's just something that's internally in the aquarium trade, is what you're saying.

Yeah, absolutely. Fish are just like people in that there are parasites on our body at all times. It's just whether that load gets high enough to make you sick, that involves gut health, that involves mental health, physical health for humans. Same thing with the fish. All those little things are more stressors, and that's what causes disease to break, typically.

Now, one of the best things that I learned and correct me if I'm wrong here, but some of my stores taught me that sometimes if you're treating a fish with a certain medicine, if you soak that medicine in like, say, frozen blood worms and feed it to them that once they ingest it, it's just much better than putting it in the water for their bodies to absorb it. Do you guys do a lot of that?

Yes, we feed with medicated feeds and we make our own medicated feeds. Much better to get the medication in them with food. Now, unfortunately, when fish are too sick, they're going to lose their appetite or have inappetence and they won't feed. But if they're well enough to feed, that's always the better way. Metronitisol for spiral nucleus or hexamita for both your discus and your angels. Always also your trophy of cichlids. It's a good idea to feed them because these fish have this in the wild spironucleus and stuff like that, straight out of the river, the fish will have them. Absolutely.

All right, doctor, going back to the original question, that it somehow affects the immune system, again, fish are cold water creatures. So the higher the temperature, the faster their systems metabolize. So if you give them supplements or leave them alone, they're either going to get better with medication and food, faster at a higher temperature, or they're going to get worse faster because they're metabolizing. And again, you're not treating it, is that correct?

Yes, that's one way to look at it.

So essentially, either way, you're increasing the timeline. So if you're treating and you want to see results faster, it's better to raise temperature. If it's not just something like IC.

Yeah, it could be.

So if you raise the temperature for IC to try to kill the IC, what temperature is probably the most effective and still safe?

That's really going to depend on your fish. Your colder water fish aren't going to tolerate more than tough one. I want to say low eighty s at the most.

82, 82 degrees to help increase the.

Yeah, that increase the life cycle.

Unless you have discus, then 105, because.

130 degree they can live in boiling.

Water yeah, it's crazy. Yeah, we keep ours about 87 right now.

And do you have to put a heater in for that or do you have to put a fan to cool it down? Because I've been in there, it's hot as hell.

Actually, we do have to heat it. Now, the heater doesn't run a lot, but we do have to heat it and it's hot. Those are closed systems. Those pumps produce a lot of heat.

Just for the listeners. You guys have your discus on one separate system, correct?

Yes, absolutely. And the reason I'm taking care of them right now is because for our biosecurity, nobody that works with the discus can work with the other fish.

So you're just the discus guy then.

Explain to me again, why can nobody else work with the discus?

So we don't transfer any diseases from there to any of the other fish. Most of our systems now, we've actually segregated by country of origin. So our Florida fish now Florida, North America, South America. We're not too worried about mixing. But Southeast Asia, we keep those fish in different systems than we keep our South American and our North American fish.

Do you see different parasites coming from different countries? I mean, is there something that could affect one country and not another?

Yes, especially virally, which is a concern in the industry, industry wide. Same thing with public aquarium research facilities, viral emerging diseases. Kind of like what we're dealing with for ourselves, honestly.

So I think my fish has a tumor. What can I do to fix it or help him?

You can remove it.

You can excise that if you're talented enough. I have assisted in removing a tumor before. It's not something that I would say a novice should tackle, honestly. For one, you need to anesthetize the fish and that's tricky. That's why your anesthetician bill is so much when you have surgery. It's tricky to keep a fish not from stressing and do work like that on it. But there are veterinarians out there that can do it and will do it. Not sure where that person is, but they can look online. And there are aquatic veterinarians out there, more and more of them, actually.

So when you remove the tumor, help with removing the tumor, what did you because again, you make a decision, you cut out the tumor, what do you sew it up with?

Actually, we just put a little bit of superglue on there and that seals it up. That's one of the primary things used in fish surgery that people don't realize.

Superglue was invented for surgeries. Correct. I mean, I think that was the first thing they came up with. Superglue was used for a lot of surgeries in medical professional.

I mean, you tell us you were alive then.

Oh, yeah. Oh God, you are all a hole's today, I tell you.

Love you, buddy. All right, the next one is how do I safely use anesthesia at home?

That's an open question. Is that on your wife or your kids?

I'm going to go with Fish Here podcast.

Yes. On fish at home. Probably the safest thing to do is actually alka seltzer tablets, and they'll put the co2 in the water, and that'll knock them for a loop if you need to do something for them. You can also use clove oil. And the avma approved way is through Tricane methanosulfanate or Ms triple Two. But that's hard to get. You probably have to have a veterinarian to get that.

Why does work? Because I've heard that and I've always wondered, how did somebody figure out it.

Works and what does it do to work? I never understood this.

And then who walked up to the first fish and says, does this smell like chloroform?

I did that to somebody at a bar one time.

Oh, man.

Clove oil does work. I'm not sure exactly on the mode of action or the mechanism, but it does actually work really well. They use it in Europe. It's used in a lot of scientific research for anesthesesia.

Where do you find clove oil? Is it something you can just find online?

Yes.

Interesting. Does it work on anything other than fish? I mean, can you use it on, let's say you want to take care of that hernia and your hamster, will that work on him or not?

I have no idea.

I'm literally pulling up the Google here.

Are you googling hamster hernias?

Does it work? It doesn't work in salt water. Tell us what you find online, because Adams questions first. I want to know this one. Does it work in salt water?

Yes. Okay.

So traditionally, cove oil has been used for easing digestive, upset, relieving pain, and helping with respiratory conditions. Found that clove oil may have benefits dental and topical applications for treating infections and fighting cancer. I feel like I just got some, like, how do we put this hippy hotline when I put an essential oil?

The kabucha hotline.

Yeah. That's what's happening here. So not a whole lot of extra.

Information on that one and a disclaimer on it. The eugenol that's in the clove oil is actually what works. So if you can find that, that's even better, because you know exactly how much eugenol you're putting in rather than with clove oil can vary, because nobody tests clove oil for how much eugenol is in it.

I want to step back to Elkisel sir. That just takes all the co2 out of there.

It puts co2 into the water?

Into the water. A lack of co2 will knock them out. Just like being a lack of oxygen.

Yeah.

So like a pillow over your face.

Wait, so could I use co2, the alkaliner tabs, for a co2 supplement my aquarium?

I don't know. I don't believe so. I don't think it would stay long enough. And the point to use it with the fish is you can get them in there, get them sedated, and then do whatever you need to do and then put them right back into their regular water.

Make it easy and quick.

And the other thing I know about elka Sulter is you do not feed it to seagulls.

I feel like there's a story there.

That's not my story, but it's something I read online that some jerks were feeding seagulls elka seltzer and they exploded. That's what it said.

Wouldn't they be messing with the phony migratory bird act?

I'm sure it would, Dr. seuss.

Wait, too bad they're destroying it, right?

Yeah, I did hear about that. They're actually removing the migratory bird act. Yeah.

Really?

That's been talked about. Anyway, so if that's the case, then feeding seagulls McDonald's French fries and that making them blow up.

Same thing.

Same thing.

Probably worse.

Well, next question. What makes guppies get skinny and not want to eat but stay active in swimming?

You forgot to feed them.

Worms aside, since I've done deworming already, so this sounds like his particular issue.

Okay. Sometimes the deworming doesn't always be 100%, so sometimes you may have to deworm again. It's really hard to say without performing an examination on a cohort of it. So we could look inside and see. But to do that, then bye bye fishy. But it could also have a disease which causes granulomas like mycobacteria, or there's numerous other diseases that cause granulomas and can keep the gut from functioning correctly.

How would you treat that?

No treatment for myco, no treatment for most granulomatous disorders, unfortunately.

So activity of yogurt wouldn't work very well then?

No. But probiotics are good for fish gut health.

Yes, exactly. I got a quick question now we're talking about guppies real quick. The Florida guppies seem to be so much more healthy than the import guppies. How are they keeping them over there? That kind of they don't do well here.

That's a mystery that is yet to be solved. A lot of times there may be some leanings towards a viral disease, which is what happened here in Florida back in late 80s. They called it guppy. AIDS couldn't keep a guppy alive in Florida. And that's actually what collapsed the big Florida industry. Almost all of our guppies came from Florida when I started at seacrest. But it's rough.

When I first started bringing in guppies, the reason I got into this business is my local place that I purchased my fish were saying, hey, can you raise me some guppies? I'm going, oh, heck yeah. That's how I lost my 1st $18,000. And we've talked about that on this podcast. But at that time they would get and I heard Graham gram positive bacterial infection, heard gram negative bacterial infections, and nobody really had an answer for any of it. And nothing seemed to work no matter what you threw at it.

No. And it's lean into it was more than likely a viral disease.

And so that is something that they have over there. And once they're sent over here, they're stressed out, it pops up and then.

Bye bye fishy sometimes. So all the more importance for your water quality, less stress.

So next question is, in your opinion, what are some ways to prevent common fish illnesses and how to treat them if they pop up? Salt. Sorry, go ahead.

Water cold. You stole my thunder there, for sure. Absolutely. Stress removing stressors, that's the best thing to do. optimum water quality nutrition is going to reduce stress level. It's also going to improve their immune system health. Always use a qt tank. More tanks, more tanks, more tanks. It's the safest way to do it. You qt a fish for three weeks. If it's going to break with disease, it's going to break with disease, and you're going to know and be able to treat it. For freshwater fish, saltwater dips are very beneficial. For marine fish, hypocalinidity or freshwater dips are very beneficial.

So you do freshwater dips on saltwater fish?

Absolutely. It's very good.

I have not heard that before in all the years I've been in the business.

How would you want to do a salt dip for some fish?

A salt dip? Just get yourself a five gallon bucket. aerate. It really good. On a five gallon bucket, I'd say about a cup and a half of salt and dip them in there. At that level, you're talking about three ppt. They can stay indefinitely. You're always going to want to be watching them, though. I wouldn't just walk away. Especially if you're dipping a species that you've never dipped before. You don't know their tolerance. All fish are different.

And how many times do you have to dip them? Is it a one time and go, or is it a three time?

It's a no, depending on what the issue is. For freshwater fish with protest parasites, you're going to want to do multiple dips, if that's what you suspect. Or even better, you can get a cheap microscope. Now that's quality for under $100. You can have a microscope and do skin scraping and fin clips and find.

A lot of stuff.

Actually, I'm suddenly just imagining like a lipton tea bag just being dunk like three times for this flavor, six times for that disease, except there's efficient side.

Efficient side to see bag. Let's not even talk about tea bagging. Let's just go on to the next question.

You already got the segregation. We have an HR department yet, or is that something that we're going to.

Be forced to have?

They quit. We're looking for new one.

Yeah, we're going to all have a meeting on Monday again.

They heard story time, too, and they just gave us an immediate resignation. All right, so what are your thoughts on specific tank maintenance to stop or halt any types of poor fish health issues, ie. Stress and water quality, lack of frequent water changes, quarantine time length, types of chemicals that are not used often enough. So I think we've answered the majority of this. So I'm going to pick on the last part of that. What do we not use enough in the industry for overall health and the aquariums?

Probably salt.

Oh, doctor.

I did not feel thunder that time. I was thinking salt, doctor is too kind.

So next question.

Bloat.

Is it a fungal disease or bacteria? I've heard both ways, but don't want to over medicate for both unless I know for sure.

That's really going to depend. And it could be as simple as a bacterial infection that's causing a fluid build up in the salon body cavity. Or it could be a worm infection, but fungal is a stretch for bloat, I suppose, somehow, but I would doubt that.

So you're saying it's either like some sort of like parasitic or viral? Essentially.

Are the two options bacterial? More than likely. Bacterial or parasitic. Got you.

So how would you tell A or B? Is there some telltale signs?

Honestly, no. Not to diagnose that, we'd have to sacrifice the fish.

So you first start treating salt. Good measure.

Absolutely.

Or wash your fish and dial soap antibacterial.

Oh, no, don't do that. That's terrible. All right, from the email, what is the weirdest craziest disease you've ever seen in a fish? I think this is on point right here.

Yeah. I don't know if it's weird or crazy. It's definitely monster level, though. They're called acanthocephalins. Their common name is thorny headed worm. They are probably the creepiest thing I've ever seen in the water. It's like one of those miniature bobbit worms from storytime.

I'm glad you liked that little story there, didn't you?

I loved it.

I just pulled up some pictures for Jimmy and he's not going to sit comfortably for the rest of the show.

Yeah, they're a nice looking worm. Is this something that attaches to the fish?

No, it's inside the fish.

Inside the fish?

Correct.

It kind of reminds me of like, a round worm and then at the end it has a tongue that sticks out. It looks like it's a spike hammer.

Yes.

We just looked at a zoomed in picture and it literally looks like a tooth malice. It's incredible.

What do you use for treatment for that? Just whack the fish over the head of the mallet.

Burn it away.

Yeah. Unfortunately, you're not treating that.

This is something you've seen free swimming in the water, huh?

Oh, no. Inside a fish on a diagnostic.

Okay. I thought, like, maybe you're scuba diving and you went through a swarm of these things.

I'm like, you know that cold, heavy, gb feeling shake.

I know. Like my ex wife standing over my shoulder.

That just happened. My butthole is nice and tight.

Thank you very much.

All right. Thank you for that horrible question emailer. Wait, wouldn't a candy ruby even worse?

What swims up the urethra.

Well, that's not going to be in fish, hopefully.

Doesn't it attack fish?

Do you see that? Ever seen that disease? Their doctor what?

Candy ru it's not a disease, it's a fish.

Right, but have you ever seen that carried in a fish at seagrass?

Oh, thorny headed worm. Yes, I have.

No, the one that Adam mentioned, the.

Candiru, that little fish. Does that just go on mammals or.

Does it attack fish, too?

You've seen the shows, like on River monsters where they talk about I got you.

Candy ru yes. They will do that to cows as well.

So apparently it's not something that affects other fish then.

Not to my knowledge. They eat dead fish.

They're just there for us in our Peters.

But they'll swim up your thing. That's not good.

All right, moving on. Before we've lost all our I'm not.

Going to sleep tonight.

Forgot.

Oh, my God.

I'm going to put duct tape over my butthole tonight when I go to.

Bed, just to be safe.

Just to be safe.

Not because it needs waxing, although it does. You should call someone.

Next question.

This is crossed out. It says Fish AIDS crushed out disease transmission through pedicures fish. pedicures. So I think this is based off of the garrar rooma, which is commonly known as the pedicure fish. Are there fish diseases transferred through that fish to humans that you've ever heard.

Of when they're chewing on your toenails?

There are zoanotic fish diseases. I don't know of the pedicure or Garrofa actually having being diagnosed with a Zoanotic disease, but there's always a potential. So I think it's a cool idea. I would never beat my feet in their water, not because of the fish, but because of the hygiene between person to person, personally.

So this is something that some of our listeners probably hadn't heard about, but in certain salons in certain states.

I'm so ready. I've done a ton of research.

Certain countries you can go into, like going into the club and you can pay your $20, whatever, and you spa, Jimmy Spa. And you drop your stinking toes in the water and then they eat all the crusties out from between your toes. Correct.

So in Asia, they've set up these they call them pedicure fish spas. Right. And this has been done for a long, long time before it has been popularized in Asia. Right? And essentially, they have a pool with a bunch of these guerra roof, and you stick your feet in there and they'll suck on your calluses. They'll eat your dead skin off of your body without harming you, is the idea. But the reason that it's not commonly used in the States is because it is an unlicensed spa treatment. They cannot do it because there's no way to sanitize the fish between just like you're saying person to person or the water. Now, I'm saying this because I have done the research. I have made prototypes for these footbaths and it is quite fun. I've had plenty of gara roof in the past, had my own feet numb on them. And it does work. I can't say it's better than getting out a pestle and mortar and grinding down your feet, but it certainly does remove a lot of dead skin. I have injured my feet. spoiler alert, gross warning. I have actually torn both of my big toenails right off my foot. They were like really grown in. Right? So I'm missing toenails on my big toes. So because there's no toenails, it's just skin, it's healthy. But I have a lot of extra flaky dead skin on those toes I.

Just threw up in my mouth.

Hey, we talked about fish swimming up your peter earlier. So it does work and I haven't had any issues. But again, if I ever had a sore, never went in the fish bath, it was mine. It was not communal. People did not come over and just start putting their feet in my shit. It wasn't a line. I just wasn't prepared for someone to sue me for herpegonosphalades in their feet.

Right.

So again, I did the homework. The whole thing didn't end up doing it, but it is quite the experience. So if you see a fish spa, don't go in. If you have a cut, I would.

Just skip it entirely and maybe go to Walmart by yourself. Some abrasive stuff like back in the oil changing section of the car. And just scrub your feet good.

Just drop them down.

Just scrub them down and not have anybody chew on your toes. What's your next question?

So are there effective additives such as vitamins, except that can be safely added to improve overall health and color of fish? If so, can you recommend any specific product on how to use them? Maybe homemade ideas?

Vitamin C, spirulina, Betaglu cans? Lots more research to be done too, but all three of those are definitely going to help your fish's gut health. Probiotics beta glucans is extremely important and that's readily available online. Get it into the feed and then feed your fish with a supplemented feed.

Make them bright and happy, healthy.

Absolutely.

So the other thing on the other side of the coin is that that's being a good fish keepers, trying to keep your fish health, keep your fish bright, use vitamins, good supplements, whatever you want to do with your fish. But on the opposite hand, we hear about these terrible traits of juicing where people are trying to inject their fish with certain hormones and try to brighten them up. Again, Seekers does not condone that process. This is me just asking outside of this and do not try juicing your fish at home, use vitamins, do correct health resources. But what is the process that some of these people overseas have done to try to do that? Do they inject the fish commonly? Do they treat. The water.

They actually put it in the feed. They have hormone feeds. You can actually get some of those hormone feeds in Canada. Not that I'm saying to get them.

Those crazy Canadians will sell you anything.

It's all maple syrup. That's the active ingredient right there, maple syrup.

But yeah, in my view, I don't think it's good for the fish long term, for sure, fish aren't people, but there's enough similarities, organ structure and stuff like that. I'd say it probably does the same thing to them as it does to us.

So the last part of that is, is there any homemade supplements that you've heard of people using with success for color enhancement, anything?

Astozanthans are really good. What's that? It's a carotenoid. It doesn't only help with reds, but it can help with overall colors. Overall, where would want to find something like that online?

That's another treatment. But there's no like, I can suddenly go get zucchini out of my garden. You give them just the skins and suddenly that'll give more color?

I suppose so. I've never tried that. If you say so.

All right, so no homemade treatments then. Next question is, is there a full shelf of meds, like a local fish store that you'd stock up on? And why should I buy one of everything and just have them on hand? Since my luck will something will pop up in my tank Saturday night after I close and whatnot I know this is very important when it comes to treatment. So again, what would be that shelf that everybody should have met?

One of the four or five items that you suggested people have on hand.

Salt, proxy, quantile, potassium, permanganate, copper, if you like it and have had experience with it. But those are pretty much the go to, really.

And those will cover a good majority of what you're going to see in the aquarium trade. There's going to be other things that of course are going to show up, but those are the majority of this can take care of.

Absolutely. And for most medications, like you mentioned, some of the stuff you've had for years and years and years, you do have to take into account that don't just buy it and then it goes out of date before you can ever use it. Because some of those chemicals, especially the more toxic ones, can change over time and malice.

I green, and they're very expensive.

Absolutely.

So is the Florida Fish Co op still selling most of that stuff?

They should be. They just moved their physical location. But as far as I know, their website is still up. We just call in our order because we're right down the road, but I believe it is.

And for those of you listing, there's a store called the Florida Fish Co op in Tampa, Florida, down by is it Gibson or ruskin area now they've moved to Tampa. Yeah, I've been there several times, and it's one of those deals where you walk into a feed store, but they've got everything that you could want for aquatics. They got the large great big bags, they've got nets, they've got brine shrimp by the 16 ounce cans, they've got frozen food and stuff. And they do have a website. You can go on there and find a lot of that stuff and they can order it. They'll send it right out to your door. So that's the Florida Fish Co Op in Tampa, Florida.

Yeah, I believe that should be ftff.com.

Now, next question. What illnesses are usually shared between fish, snails and shrimp? What risks are there by introducing snails into established aquarium from another source?

Okay. Snails can be a vector for multiple parasitic flatworms. They're typically species specific to that snail. So if you stay away from particular snails, you can stay away from particular diseases. So that's the good thing. They can be an intermediate host is what happens. Those flatworms they're digging, so they go through a complex life cycle, so the fish isn't even the definitive host. That's typically a bird.

And that goes, again, that snails are host for. But is there any diseases or illnesses that are transferred between fish, snails, and shrimp that they can all get?

Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

Just the platforms.

Yeah, that's the one that's going to really cause issues. There's also some human diseases that snails can carry, like shastomosis.

Is there any treatment for that other than pressure?

Yes, there is.

What do you use for that?

For schistemosis? chloroquine, actually.

Will that harmony the inverts?

Well, I wouldn't treat it in a tank. That would be for a few minutes. Got that.

Okay.

All right, next question. Just checking to make sure because we have a lot of people live to make sure we didn't get missed any of their questions that they got. Oh, there's a lot of people saying that they're grossed out as well.

About what?

Apparently there's a lot of people eating while they're listening live to the podcast.

That's their problem. They should know better.

Yeah, toenails and all. Next question in the list, is there a medication that can be used weekly to keep up all things in the tank happy and healthy? What's your marriage here?

No problem. Yeah, less medication is usually better, in all honesty.

So how often would you treat salt? Every water change?

Yeah, absolutely. Like I said, indefinitely. For some fishes, you can keep molly's, sword, tails, goldfish, even up at five ppt the whole time you have the five parts per thousand of salt.

So is there risks for planted according to using salt in those low amounts just for the slime coat?

Yes, it can. It can be for certain plants, like with certain fish, may not tolerate as much salt. Certain plants are not going to tolerate as much salt either.

Any particular plants you need to be worried about? You can think about a common one.

Just the green ones.

Just the green ones?

Yeah. The lace. Yeah. I've never put salt in a lace.

Plant tank, but don't put in the mix of laces. 1 second here. Okay. This is a user that just read the instructions on the doctor fish section here. So he's like, get him to go off on the absolute scam that is Melafix, beta fix and other meme meds. So what is your opinion on such melaleuca treatments of, like, Melafix and others and offbrands?

I don't use the Melafix. We do use the catapult leaves for our shrimp and some of our other dark water fishes. I do find that fish do better when we have them there and not as well when we take them out. No scientific evidence for that, just anecdotal. I can say that people in the public aquarium circles do like some of those products, but we couldn't afford to use any of those specific products in our aquarium systems. It would cost us probably, I don't know, $10,000 to treat a system. Our systems are minimum 3500 gallons.

I remember when the mela fix and the pima fix first came out, and it was going to be the answer to all our prayers. And the first time I used it in my fish warehouse, somebody came down there and go kind of look at me really strange and said, do you have VIX vapor rub on your chest or something? Are you sick? I go, no, it's the freaking pima fix or melax, whatever I was using. And I never really saw anything that it did other than foam up the water. So I'm not really sure about it.

Adam firmly believes that it's a miracle cure, but the secret to it, correct me if I'm wrong here, Adam, is that you have to keep the tank dark. Yes, you filthy hippy. I like it.

Why do you like it, Adam? Tell me.

I don't know. It's always worked for the different things that I've used it for. It smells good.

It smells good. So it is a cheeseburger, but that doesn't do a damn good, right?

You don't hug Melafix. You huff prime.

That is the thing.

What did you use it for, Adam? Because I remember you using it, and I thought, you're a filthy hippie. But I don't know.

I've used it on loaches and stuff and corridors catfish my endlers.

Whenever I had a problem, I'd always use that.

I never was big on using salt.

I would just turn up the temperature.

Put some mela fix or pima fix in it, and shut the lights off and call it good. And usually that would fix stuff.

And so by turning off the lights, what does that do?

Well, supposedly the reason why it's in blue bottles is the medicine degrades when it hits the light.

Okay?

That's why you have to put it in the blue bottle.

But I don't know. I think the whole thing is that by putting it in a dark aquarium, that when your fish die, you just don't see them.

I'm seeing james's face just smile during this whole conversation.

I have a really good hippie joke that my wife hates.

Hit us.

How do you hide money from a hippie? Put it under the soap. Can we get this regulated so that we don't upset like a lot of people?

Oh, no.

We're going to talk to our HR department.

We started with certain people, and it's just downhill from there.

Segregating segregation is a good thing in the aquarium. That's all I said. jerk.

All right, next one is I got a good one. Have you ever seen microbacterium infections spread to humans? And how does the treatment differ between fish and people for that particular microbacterium?

I have met two people in my 30 plus years in the industry, and I did work somewhere before. Seekers too, but that have had mycoinfections neither of them got them from working. They both got them in their home aquarium, actually. One was saltwater involved, one was freshwater involved. But it's not very common whatsoever. Most cases, you see, they also call it fishmongers disease. So, like at the meat markets, when they're slicing fish and cutting fish, if they're not wearing proper ppe, they cut the fish, then they cut themselves. The fish blood and their blood get together, and then they get myco treatment for humans is multiple courses of antibiotics. Usually it's multiple antibiotics treatment for fish, there is none.

So I have two stories here. One, Jimmy and I both had issues where we've ordered in fish from overseas and we had like a small hangnail or a cut on our hand, and we're sitting there dumping bags, and then suddenly that gets swollen and infected me. I've just been able to put, like, triple antibiotic on it, and it goes away in a few days, maybe a week. How about yours, Jimmy?

I'm going to the doctor not that long ago because I had a pretty good size rash. It just continually got bigger and bigger, and he really didn't have an answer for me. He gave me some cream and did some voodoo witch doctor stuff on me. And it cleared up after about two weeks. But like we talked about on an earlier podcast, when these fish bags, especially the ones that come from overseas, they handle different chemicals, different medicines, non FDA.

Approved, probably, and banned on the UN list.

You never know what's coming in on these bags and stuff. And so if you are not using washing your hands and having a long sleeve shirt on when you're handling this stuff, you don't know. But we've talked about it several times before, but it's just better to be safe than sorry. And you got cuts in your hands, but I don't pair of rubber gloves that are cheap and they're very effective.

The other story is I was at Jimmy's place. We're getting ready for a party and having a good time in the basement. And Jimmy's got he calls it the Underground. It's his bar at home, and it's filled with rock memorabilia. And part of it is they have this glass to hold scotch or liquor. Beautiful glass skull, right? And you have matching little skulls that look like shot glasses next to it, correct? And inside of it, because it's decoration, they just got it set up there because they figured no one would be stupid enough just to open it up and drink it. They put just water in there. It's been sitting there since it's been open. It hasn't been washed. It's nice and pretty. It was washed maybe on the outside, but regardless, festering water in this for what, three years? A couple of years.

Couple of years.

Couple of years.

And so Rob, my friend who doesn't drink, right?

So I'm like, oh, they put water out for people to sober up. How nice. And I just pop the top, puts them in a couple of shot glass, and swing a couple back.

And what do they tell you hour later? What did I tell you? I wouldn't drink that.

Yeah, you wouldn't drink that. And they're like, all right, I stopped drinking. It too late. The damage has been done. I in the hour, start getting massive hershey squirt symptoms, right? My stomach is reeling in pain. I go home. I start puking. I crap my world apart, and my wife takes me home because I cannot stop. It was a whole, like, imagine stevo on jackass, but just hitting that button every time.

It was terrible for you. The rest of us were laughing, right?

Just having a good time.

Because we told you what, don't drink the bottle. Don't drink the bottle, okay? It's not you.

It's on me, 100%. So I go to the hospital. I'm there for over two weeks, and they come in my room with head to toe ppe, which makes it look like a hazmat suit. They have no idea what's going on. And they talk to some infectious disease specialist, and they say, well, it's going to take X amount of time to get tested to figure out what type of horrible shit he found in that or anything else where this could have happened. Just treat him with everything. So they decided to IV drip, like the whole gamut. I had every flavor of snow cone liquid dipped into me. And after two weeks, I came out, and I could finally eat again.

And we had the water tested, and they found nothing.

No, they didn't test the water.

Yes, they did. I brought it in.

They brought the bottle in. They said, well, you already fixed, so we'll charge you if you want to test it. And I'm like, well, I don't want to get charged. This is what my insurance is for. So they wouldn't do it without me paying.

So what did you learn?

Don't drink decorative water bottles.

Correct.

Right. But bacteria infection. So imagine, like, splashing and get a little in your mouth. Be careful. That's all we're saying.

I'm just saying that a lot of times that I'm drug tested at work, so I just keep extra urine in that bottle in case I need it. So that might have been it.

Oh, joy. All right, next question. I'd be curious to talk about his treatments for marine brook and velvet. Everyone has their own cocktail for dealing with that shit. I'm just reading off the thing here. So what is marine brook and velvet?

Okay, brooklynlla and velvet what they call velvet, which is amyladenium two different protest. Well, one is a dinoflage, one's a protest. But Brooklynlla, it has a direct lifecycle. Freshwater dips and formula are going to be the primary treatment for that. The copper and malachi green aren't going to do anything to it.

Methyl and blue.

Not likely. methyl and blue is a bacteria stat, so it doesn't even kill bacteria. It just keeps them from multiplying and reproducing.

Which is why it's so good with eggs.

Correct, exactly. Your hypo solidity bath. I like to use buffered ro water. So take your Ro water, put some either baking soda or soda ash in there to get your PH up to what your fish are in already, you're going to have to do repetitive baths probably once every other day. Once every day for close to three weeks formal. And you can treat daily if you're doing water changes. If you're not doing water changes, you're probably only going to want to do it every other day, but you're still going to want to do at least a 10% water change.

Well, there's the secrets. Since everybody has different treatments.

Amylidenium, they have an indirect life cycle. Copper is always what my go to for those 00:15 to 0.2 milligrams per liter, and that's non chelated copper sulfate. And you're always going to want to measure free copper. Not cooper made. That's a totally different thing. It's copper, but the way it's in the water is different.

So you have to be half aquarium crazy person and half chemist in order to be in this business.

Yes. And a word of caution. The Elasma branch, like your cartilage, genius fish, sharks, rays, skates, all those guys, they're not going to tolerate copper at all. You can only use that on bony fish.

So you forgot the equation. Also, 100% dreadlocks is required.

Close.

It's hard to see. Just curls. We got, like, a silhouette of you in the camera. It's pretty great.

Yeah.

All right, Doctor, next question. Is it normal for cory doors to swim all around the tank and not just stay in the bottom?

Absolutely. They're an active little fish.

Well, that was easy.

Exactly.

That was the best one all night. No gross recommendations from Jimmy about tapeworms or fish to swim up by a peehole.

What's the difference between corey's rock? I like corey's a lot.

What is the biggest thing you see with corey when you start having trouble? I mean, I've seen some especially like Albinyl corys kind of get that bloody look to them. What's that?

A lot of times you can fix that with water changes. The corey stay on the bottom a lot. Not that they are always on the bottom, as we just alluded to, but your opportunistic parasites are going to lay down there on the bottom of the tank. And because the quarries are in contact with the bottom so much, they're very likely to pick them up, siphoning water quality.

So right back to water quality, good gut health and you'll have a healthy fish.

What's the difference between IC and how am I supposed to say that, Jimmy? You see the word there, right?

Epistilis.

Good enough. And subsequent treatments.

Epostylus and IC are both protest, but they're different kinds of protests. So your ick is a holy trick and it's a silly your epistilus is a stalk produce. You can treat them both with formal and salt and still having the same results, correct? Yeah. Episodes doesn't really hurt the fish per se. It's not a parasite. It is a protest and it can be a pathogen, but it's not actually a parasite. It's not feeding on the fish. It's just anchoring itself to the fish and feeding off stuff in the water.

So another question that I have is why do I have so much success treating iq with UV filters and high.

Flow strong enough, UV can kill the free swimming stages of iq. It's got to be really strong. So if you've got a really oversized UV on your tank, you can achieve killing iq with UV.

That's essentially what I have. I showed two different ones. The UV bars are getting more and more popular. They're little bars you can purchase on Amazon and they're about $1012. You can put them in your hang in the back filter, but again, there's no encasing, so you want to put them where there's no exposure from that light to your fish. So again, the hang in the back filter is the best place. I have fortunes. Mine are black and covered. Those really don't do enough treatment. They'll slow down IC, but they don't treat it. Instead, I have like a $35 power head with UV sterilizer inside. And that's, like you said, overpowered UV sterilizer that I use for treatments in case I ever see it. And that seems to just blow it away. And I use that for different treatments for like, clown launches where I can't use some of the copper treatments.

Yeah, that's a great idea. It's all about contact time with UV. So even if you don't have somebody can't afford a really super strong, like a UV rated for a 250 gallon on a 25 gallon, if you can't afford that slow down your water flow, you'll get more contact on.

Wonderful.

So not necessarily power, just the speed. All right, what is your opinion on photo lactality? Help me.

Jimmy proofactor caliph.

I don't know. prophylactic?

Yeah, prophylactic. Yeah, we'll go with that.

Treating new fish that appear healthy, wouldn't it increase disease resistance?

I would agree with that. I'm not giving antibiotics to any fish that I don't know has a bacterial disease. preferably I'm going to have that bacteria. Maybe not ID, but we'll do a susceptibility test so that we can see what drug would actually be preferential, because all antibiotics aren't going to treat all bacterial infections. And salt would be the only thing that I would say to always treat your new fish with.

All right, next one is we already had the difference between iq and not going to try to pronounce that one. Now, what's the difference between IK and velvet?

Iq and velvet actually do have indirect life cycles. So that's the only way they're not related at all, but that's the only way they're really similar, other than they're both protest.

Outside the usual ammonia and nitrite. What are the most critical water parameters to have success in the hobby?

It's really going to depend. alkalinity is important for your PH. That's your natural buffering capacity. So a lot of times, sometimes people in the industry will say old tank syndrome. I don't know if anybody's heard of that. It might be too old of a term.

Well, explain that to us.

Well, what happens is you use up all your alkalinity. The fish, when they respirate, they're giving off co2. If you have plants in the tank, they're giving off co2 during the daytime, during the night time excuse me. They're giving off oxygen during the day, but they're doing the exact opposite when your lights are off. So you're messing with that carbon cycle that's in the water. You've got your nitrogen cycle and you've got your carbon cycle. Once you tip the scale on that carbon cycle, the co2 is always eating away at your alkalinity. So if you don't do good water changes with water that has a high enough alkalinity, then it's just going to continue to drop.

I'm just going through here. We got another one of the most recommended meds to have on hand. We answered that one, but how about the best fixes for prescription meds? And what's the best way to obtain a prescription medication that's going to be.

To go through an aquatic veterinarian. Even some of your exotic animal vets will work with you. A good way to get some help with that is do Google Scholar searches and be able to take them documentation that says, hey, these people are working with this medication on these fish. Is there any way you can get me a prescription for this?

Because that's the best recommendation to find a specialist in that. I am in the bunktown, Minnesota. I do not have that luxury. I don't think there's one in the cities that is publicly known in the state of Minnesota. So if I'm going to try to get something, like, I've got antibiotics before, like cephalaxin, and you cannot get that over the counter. I go to my local bovine veterinarian, tell him that I need it, and he just doesn't care. He's like, okay, sure, here's your script.

He goes, here's the size of a cow, and I think you're just right.

So if you're in a pinch and you really need it, and you bring in the documentation and you say pretty please, other vets can get that for you as well.

Absolutely. Doctors and veterinarians can use medications for off label use, not all medications, but many medications at their leisure.

All right, two more questions, and then we'll have to call her and do another episode in the future.

Again, I want you to answer the one from Scrap jaw there.

That's what I'm going to do. I've got a beta that suffers from finrott on the regular. I treat him, he heals up over a period of time and then inevitably returns to melting. My water parameters stay relatively stable. Is he just old, or is there no point of return? When a fish has been sick so long often that they can no longer recover well enough, it could be a.

Little bit of both, honestly. I mean, most just regular fancy mel beta, if you get five to seven years out of them, that's a really long lifespan for those guys.

Five to seven years. Holy you got a good beta life cycle there, buddy. Like three to five. I've had luck with you.

Put them in water clearly, but not enough.

Not enough. I feel bad all of a sudden. The first time I was like, I had a goldfish for two years. Well, they last 45. I'm doing it wrong, mom.

Yeah. Don't drink the water.

Also, another thing to look at is what's in the what's in the aquarium with them, you know, do you have a lot of the fake plastic plants that are real sharp? I see a lot of beta fins get shredded when there's another fish that's trying to run away from the fin gets caught. Make sure that you're not having a lot of even some driftwood. They can have fine points on driftwood, and they can shred their fins, and that can be a recurring problem. So look at the decor that you have and see if it's getting caught somewhere.

Yes. Even if you have a finn nipper in the tank with them, like a tiger barb or another bed, even a female battle will nip about them otherwise.

Watch behavior again. I just got a bunch of clown loaches from a buddy because he had them with his big discus tank, and clown loaches are real docile, but apparently he was watching the behavior nip one or two of them, so they had to go. That's his prize discus. All right. Can larger sharks like zebra Nurse and Black Tip sharks get IC or some form of IC?

Typically, you don't see IC involved with your Elasma brands.

The larger sharks, like the zebra Nurse or Black Tip, just ball of sharks.

Ball of sharks are totally vulnerable.

Ball of sharks, albino sharks, anything that's albino, be it albino tiger barbs, albino, rainbow sharks. The albinos are genetically some of the weakest, just like the Black moor Goldfish.

We're joking because those aren't actual saltwater sharks. We're just naming fresh waters.

I'm just stuff just to throw people.

Off to make you feel like shark. You're a shark enthusiast.

Shut up.

Well, Dr. Fish, it has been a pleasure. Hopefully this sends your career off. Dr. Phil came on oprah. Now he has his own show. I'm just saying.

Wow. Yeah.

The beginning of Dr. Fish has started here. And don't forget about us.

You got it.

I think he just peed himself.

Well, guys, remember, mondays 07:00, certainly join us in we want to do this Dr. Fish segment on a regular basis. So this is, again, episode one of Dr. Fish. You can go to aquariumgistpodcast.com by the website. You can email us, call us, text us, go on discord, put it on the board.

Smoke signals, send us smoke signals, you.

Know, part in Jimmy jimmy's direction generally with a question. And we will save it for the next episode of Dr.

Fish.

Not to mention we'll still answer a few in between time. And all complaints are to go to rob's.

Rob'S olsen. Exactly.

We need new HR. Thanks, guys, for listening to the podcast. Please go to your favorite place where podcasts are found, whether it be spotify, itunes, stitcher, wherever they can be found, like subscribe. And make sure you get push notifications directly to your phone so you don't miss great content like this.

I never knew that a Minnesota accent.

Could be so sexy until I heard adam's voice.

Go frank yourself. Don't you know that's my boy? Don't you know?