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Wild caught or farmed.

2K views 20 replies 11 participants last post by  CrypticLifeStyle 
#1 ·
202 specimens of Astronotus ocellatus (Oscars), were collected from a freshwater lake in the state of Amapá, northern Brazil.
A total of 6,308,912 parasites belonging to 11 different taxa were found. Protozoa was the most abundant; flukes, worms were also prevalent and abundant.
http://www.journalofparasitology.org/doi/abs/10.1645/12-84.1


It would be interesting to see figures on commercially bred fish.

And to think we want to bring these into our homes.
:smile:
Maybe there is a good argument for a QT tank with a working UV sterilizer.
 
#2 ·
Not sure how effective UV is on parasites attached to the fish, or intestinal parasites.
Believe UV work's best by killing that which is free floating, and passes through the UV.
Prolly could catch equal number of Oscar's from stream's, lakes in Florida, and other warm water states.
 
#5 ·
Not surprising at all really. Parasites and disease is everywhere... The point of keeping up with water changes, and a good diet is to keep the fish healthy enough to fight off the parasites. It's like if you go to a mall and test 200 people, you will probably find millions of germs, and what not on them. By keeping healthy and eating right, your body fights off any attempts for them to bring you down. Same rules really...

Adam
 
#6 ·
It's like if you go to a mall and test 200 people, you will probably find millions of germs, and what not on them. By keeping healthy and eating right, your body fights off any attempts for them to bring you down. Same rules really...

Adam
Germs or bacteria is one thing, worms, flukes and protists is another.

I was quite surprised by the heavy load and variety.

Basically in humans the organisms are different but the equivalent of, malaria, sleeping sickness, entamoeba, giardia, cryptosporidium, hookworm, tapeworm, pinworm, liverflukes.

I'm not sure I'd want to be shopping in that mall:eek:

... and I certainly wouldn't be eating amazonian sushi.:)
 
#8 ·
The combination of cooking our food, and having access to clean water, and having waste disposed of in a sanitary manner does wonders for cutting down on parasites and disease. :)

Even so, there are probably many more parasites in/on you then you realize. Most of them are relatively harmless and difficult to notice, like those mites that live in most people's eyelash follicles.


Just for fun, give these a google image search:

loa loa
dracunculus
bot fly

:icon_conf

Anyways, yeah, having good water conditions does wonders, but also just having some control over the tank and food cuts out a lot of parasite vectors.
 
#10 ·
Hole-in-head disease.....that is the worst. Almost every oscar I've ever had as a child always contracted this. Regardless of how clean I kept the water....it always reared it's ugly head (pun intended) once the oscar reached 6-inches or so in length.
 
#12 ·
That print is so out dated though, 1994. Back then they thought it was parasite related, now they arnt so sure. There's a little list of suspect causes. I've always been a fan of the carbon argument as i've seen this in real life, and the difference of using it and not using it, and most reputable shops wont use carbon.
 
#13 ·
So what's the definitive mechanism with carbon?
You can find anecdotal evidence where the disease developed without carbon.
You can find anecdotal evidence where the disease developed without hexamita.
The only thing I could sniff out as the common mechanism might be loss of factors caused by their adsorption in carbon or obstruction by the parasite.
There is also a school of thought that believes it is a factor of the quality of the carbon (phosphate leaching), yet others point out that phosphate buffers are often used with no ill effects.
It may be that the use of carbon make the fish susceptible to hexamitiasis.
I guess until this directly affects aquaculture it will be unfunded and remain controversial.
 
#14 ·
Well my experience with carbon was the tanks i ran with carbon years ago the fish seemed to get hith, and the tanks i didnt never got it. A lot being the same species. All the tanks were on the same maintenance schedule, same water, all CA/SA species. I never use buffers.

At the time i had a really big batch of tapajos redhead juvies. Half the batch got hith, and split tail. I ran a lot of carbon on that tank. Uncle Ned from Uncle neds fish factory came over, and pointed it out, and explained there was a lot of discussion going on about carbon dust being the culprit. Since that day years ago i havnt ran carbon on any tank period. Never had a case of hith again.

I know a study proved carbon was the case in a saltwater fish study, but there's argument against that study for freshwater fish, cause they were salt water.
http://www.coralmagazine-us.com/content/activated-carbon-hlle-smoking-gun-found

After that article i'm almost convinced its at least one highly suspicious culprit, but i do agree with some other arguments too. It's such a mystery still which i find odd.

I also read carbon removes vitamins, and trace irons, and other minerals from the tank water too which could be a combo factor as well :-??
 
#15 · (Edited)
After that article i'm almost convinced its at least one highly suspicious culprit, but i do agree with some other arguments too. It's such a mystery still which i find odd.
Yes I read that article.
[/I]It would be interesting to see pathology comparisons between FW and SW cases.
It's a bit like the substrate and barbel erosion issue with Corydoras.
[/COLOR]
 
#20 · (Edited)
I never use fine sand and all my corys are fine. It is likely that everyday wear and tear on substrate combined with questionable water qualities leads to problems.

Experiments have been done keeping corydoras on glass fragments substrate with out issue. I've seen substrate in Venezuelan Orinoco streams that will scrape your hands and feet raw. I've seen issues come up on planetcatfish where even with beautiful sand, guys corys are suffering fin and barbel erosion.

Fixing either one will likely reduce the issue.

Wild corys in Columbia, note the not so smooth substrate.
 

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