Reef Frontiers - Giving Fish a Bath

So what can you do to have a pest free fish?

Unfortunately, the cleaner fish you see in this video are not compatible for closed systems such as our aquariums. Even after they consume all of the parasites attached to the fish in our aquariums, they will continue to clean the fish, removing the mucous coating that fish need. -Lee Birch 2010

But we do have other options! Cleaner shrimps are one way to enjoy watching this task being performed safely in our aquariums.

http://www.reeffrontiers.com/photos_...all_shrimp.jpg Enter the Cleaner Shrimp, a brave little critter that makes a living by setting up a natural car wash (To the tune "At the car wash, yea"). Normally they will setup up in an area of our aquarium and fish will line up to have them remove parasites from every little crack and crevis on them. They will also work the rock, and take easily to most kinds of foods fed to the aquarium.

And if your to lazy to brush your own teeth, they can do a good job on that to!!

On a serious note though, most of the fish that we put into our aquariums have taken a long journey that has left them at best in a "Weakened State". This leaves them stressed and susceptable to a variety of diseases and parasites that can quickly travel from one fish, to an entire aquarium in no time at all.
One of the benefits of being aquarium keepers is we have the power to treat incoming fish for parasites and all types of illnesses. You can learn how to do this easily right here on our forum in our marine fish sub forum: ]="Marine Fish with Lee Birch"

Lee birch has compiled a wonderful section on how to treat our fish from the day we first purchase them. He donates alot of his free time to educating our members on fish care, and helps them through preventative methods and treatments.
Stop into his forum and take a look at all the wonderful information Lee has compliled or just drop in and say hello.

Frankie
special kudos to mojo for helping me put this together and learning the new software!

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5 Comments

Scooterman - 01-03-2011, 11:31 AM

That is just too Cool!
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Frankie - 01-04-2011, 08:41 PM

I agree Scott, I get a lot of pleasure watching and keeping cleaner shrimp.

I found the Video very intriguing. It is a lot of work those biologist do to see results. I found it pretty horrifying what he was talking about with the Isopods. Gives me the willies!
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