“UFD” is literally killing the hobby…

[Magnum Man32 146]

“unexplained fish death” seems to be a real problem we all suffer from… some fish species seem like survivors, but with most there is a high initial death rate, but surviving fish may live on for years… it isn’t just newbie mistakes, or not matching fish’s preferred parameters… it happens to the most anal, experienced fish keepers, as well as new fish keepers… me, personally, I have fish I bought the normal recommended size group, only to have all die except 1 or 2, and those live for several years after their conspecifics have all died…

it’s hard to start kids or new people into the hobby with the death and persistence that is required to get a long term functioning tank… the old story of parents going out and buying a new gold fish to replace the dead one, while the kids are in school, to spare their children…

someone should figure out how to cure “UFD”

persistence is sometimes a bad trait… I’ve been trying lately to get a breeding colony of sail fin mollys going, and my death toll is 20-25 fish… while similar fish seem to be thriving in the same tank… it surely must be the mollys… how many must die, to find a few who will survive long enough to breed???

here are two of my examples of “UFD” a rummy nose, and cardinal tetra forced to hang out together, as all their previous friends have all died… yet they each continued to live on, for at least a year, going on two, after the rest all slowly but surely died…

often this is noticed with fish that have been in the hobby for a long time , like the two above… not sure if the genetics have been played out, over all the years or if it’s a side effect of some of the hormones used to force breeding in fish being cultivated on farms, or some sort of evil planned obsolescence, to increase sales, or something else, but if we could figure it out, I’m sure the hobby would rebound nicely…

 

[Innesfan30 14]

In my experience, most of the reported so-called unexplained fish deaths can be traced back to deteriorated water conditions or newly imported fish from Asian fish farms.

 

[gwand31 147]

As I posted in the past I loose about 10% of new fish during quarantine. But my subsequent losses are much less. You seem to have an extraordinarily high mortality rate or your data is skewed because you have many more fish than me.

 

[TwoTankAmin26]

A lot of what might get called UFD is merely the lack of knowledge on the part of the fish keeper. ANd even when one has the knowledge, they may lack the ability to do the post mortem.

A number of years ago when the NEC was still running their fish weekend event they offered a limited pre- enrollment slots for a seminar on diagnosing fish diseases etc. I was going to be a vendor which normally means I do not attend the presentations etc. as long as the vendor room is open. But I signed up for this seminar. To my dismay it was cancelled because not enough people signed up.

One of the main reasons my exploration into opening an LFS came back with a DO Not Do This! was the fact that I would need to have a person on staff who was familiar with diagnosing and treating the sort of things that care likely to come in with new fish, especially from the wild. I would have had to make a real effort to learn to do it myself. I can learn anything given enough time and help when it is needed.

As for imported fish, I was very lucky in this. When Rachel O'Leary was running full bore, I did some things wit.for her in terms of importing. She had been doing this for a number of years and had learned which Asian suppliers to avoid and which ones to go to for specific species. She also shopped in the Americas and had access to Glaser. All of this she did before I started to get minimally involved. The only consideration was that one must buy minimal quantities. Usually this was 50-100 fish for less expensive thing and the min. number went down as the price for fish went up.

So, when I got imported fish soon after they landed in New York City where I picked up the order from the tansshipper, they came in pretty healthy. I still quarantined them for a few months, but I almost never had to treat them for anything and I do not think I lost any.

On the other side of the coin. I bough very very few fish retail. Early on I bough from a local pet store with a fish dept. I also bought on Aquabid during my first 5 years of keeping fish. I had mixed results and had my first case of ich from a local pet store. I also have top notch LFS about 25 minutes away. I have bought a few things there and used to bring them my LF BN for store credit. I skipped Q. when I got their fish and never lost one nor brought a disease into my tanks from them. They are also one of the most expensive LFS I have visited or shopped at. To wqwork there one has to take a written test on their knowedge of fish etc.

Finally, I have bought a lot of my fish directly from breeders or from people whom I knew got what they were selling to me from those breeders. My fish club has been a great source for buying healthy fish usually bred by the seller.

What all of the above is doing is showiong that what it takes for us not to have UFDs is to learn from whom to buy what. This takes making the effort to do so.

 

[gimme30]

You buy a lot of fish @Magnum Man, I have to wonder if that doesn't have something to do with it. Kinda like boot camp, where you get thrown together with seemingly healthy people from all over the country but everyone winds up getting sick. Maybe really long quarantines would make a difference?

 

[TwoTankAmin26]

I can concur on the numbers aspect. I would be willing to bet I have had somewhere over 2000 fish have lived in or passed through my tanks in the past 25+ years. This includes a fair number that I purchased mostly to resell them. But, for the most part I had an ulterior motive here. I wanted some for myself and this was the least expensive way to get them.

However, the greatest share of all the fish which have been through my tanks were born there. Some were unplanned spawns, but most intentionally spawned were the plecos. And there were a number of losses, mostly due to mistakes I made.

I am happy to be able to say that I am not great at diagnosing diseases, parasites etc. I do know a bit and have managed to treat some successfully and others not so.

I think the the most important skill anyone who keep fish needs to master is patience. at least 90% of the decisions we make should probably waited longer to be sure we were right to act then. Where this is most evident is in acquiring new fish and in in treating apparently sick fish. Of course there are a few cases where quick action is really needed.