Australian Interview with Dr. G. Bassleer (Biofish Food) with Blake's Aquatics, 13th June 2024

Okay, I think we're live. So g', day, everybody. G', day, legends. Thanks for joining me for a special live stream this evening with Dr. Gerald Baslea. Thanks for joining me.

Hello, Blake. Nice meeting you from a long distance. I'm from Belgium now, it's here, 12 o' clock noon time.

Perfect. Yeah. It's really an honor and I have to say thanks for being so generous with your time in the lead up, I've done a fair bit of research into you and I've seen so many great resources and other live streams, which has been really great. So, yeah, thanks for being generous for your time with myself and with others, and I think that's really great.

Well, thanks for the invitation because I know these kind of live streams or interviews or communications are worthwhile to spread a message that sometimes the hobbyists are dealing with questions and issues they can't solve. And that's. I like this way. And I'm happy you invite me so I can contribute to the hobbyist in Australia.

Yeah, let's provide some background for people who perhaps aren't familiar with you yet. And I'd recommend if you're not, well, get more familiar because over 40 years of experience with fish diseases and biology. And can you just let us know a little bit about how you got here today? That'd be great.

Okay, thanks for the question, Blake. And. Well, I have a special history because I graduated as a master in biology in 1977 in Belgium, and I was specialized in behavior of animals and also in behavior of fish. In that time it was on cichlids, the trophy of cichlids from Lake Tanganyika, because they had a special behavior. Although I was not a fish hobbyist, but I had the opportunity to start working at a wholesale facility in Antwerp who had an advertisement put out, we are looking for a biologist. Okay, I'm a biologist. And to be honest, to find in those days a job as a biologist was very difficult. Usually you end up in the, in the pharma industry to be a representative or an agent to sell products to pharmacies or to doctors. That's the main job, or maybe work in a laboratory. But I, I went to that place that was Akoria, Antwerp. He was one of the major importers in Europe in the 70s. And he said, Gerald, you're biologist number 13 who comes here. And to be honest, you come here and I'm sure you know nothing about fish diseases. I said, no, we learn nothing about that. Even we don't know anything about aquarium fish keeping. We don't learn it as biologists. That's a hobby and I'm not familiar with it. Say, what are you coming to do down here? Say, well, I'm looking for a job. I want to make money. I want to start. I want to start a family. I want to have children. I want to. Well, in the 70s it was normal. You start working, you get married very young, and you just start, well, everything, you know, the house, the children, the dog, the cat. Well, and he said, well, you know, nothing. How are you going to work for me? Say, well, I'm a biologist, and as biologists, we are trained to examine, to investigate, and I know how to use a microscope. So I. I went. The first thing I did, I went to the library to look for books. What books are available on fish keeping? And I could hardly find anything. That was terrible. That was. Yeah, maybe on trout and selman, I could find some old books. That's it. So I. After a couple of weeks, I asked, well, the Corey Antwerp, the owner, how is it? Are you still looking for a biologist? You know, he said, you're the only biologist to call back. So what do you mean? Well, it seems you have more interest than the others. I say, yes, I'm a biologist. It's for me, challenging to. To take something up I don't know about. And I like animals and maybe I like fish and try it out. Say, well, you can start working for me. Yes, you start, but you're gonna have to challenge my wife because she's treating the fish and I hope you do better than she does. I say, well. Say, okay, well, I know nothing. Say, well, give me a couple of months. I will study about it, what I have to do. And the first thing I learned, I picked up a small book in the hobby industry is from Dr. Schubert. He's German, and he wrote a very small book in the 60s, beginning 70s, in German and Dutch on fish diseases. Very small book. And those days I only could write a letter to him. So I communicated my letter, said, Dr. Schubert, can you help me? I'm a young biologist. I do this. I want to work in the industry. He said, wow. He wrote a letter back. He says, wow, you're the first biologist who works in the industry. Please come to visit me. I want to learn from you over this, and I share with you my findings. So I was a couple of days at his hometown. I stayed at university. He paid for everything for me. He trained me how to diagnose fish diseases, what I have to do. And the only thing he Told me, says Gerald, use a microscope. You can look at the fish. They might have white spots, they might have red wounds. But a microscope tells you what you don't see with the naked eye. And you can identify most of the diseases, most of them. And that's the first thing I did. I start examining, looking for the diseases and finding multiple diseases. And I did the challenge with the wife of the owner to see who was the best in treating fish. So I got an aisle and she got another aisle, and we were competing to see how is the mortality and the survival rate. Well, after three days, his wife was throwing out of the fish house.

Well, you must have done that.

I have one long distance ahead. I had hardly any losses. And he was convinced that he need to have a biologist with a microscope who detects diseases, which we are missing with, with her eyes. See, I have, I even use glasses to see it better. But even that doesn't work, admittedly.

I need glasses and never wear them. So I'm even worse.

So that's how I arrived in the industry. And then I also started studying. You can see it on my website. And I went to study in, in Scotland, in Venezuela, in America. I went to different professors to, to get more professional, to get more exchange of information and details. And, and the best thing was, was trial and error, trial and error. Like any hobbyist has. Any hobbyist, and I'm sure all your listeners, they did some trials and they made errors. The important thing is learn from it and get better. That's. That's how I made it.

So with that, obviously through your studies, you've been familiar with microscopes, but you know, a general fish keeper, a hobbyist myself, who's not so familiar. Is it still something that you'd recommend learning to do? And how do you get started? You know, like if, what, do I just scoop up some water and put it under a microscope or do I have to, you know, scrape something off the fish or what to do? And then I assume when I'm looking through the lens, I see some squiggly lines, some dots, maybe something moving around. But how do I actually know what any of that means and if it's good or bad?

Yeah, but that question. Thank you for asking that, because this is something everybody is puzzled with. You know, how, how do I do that? Because there's no real schooling or teaching around these days and the microscope is only the first thing I say. You have to be interested in it.

Yeah.

And I know some hobbyists, even I know one hobbyist who contacted Me this week has three goldfish and bought a very expensive microscope to find out if there was a problem that she could check on the fish, what was going on. And just by taking skin scrapings, just scraping some mucus from the fish, and taking some gentle scrapings from the guilt tissue, you can identify about 90% of fish diseases because you have to examine on the fish, not in the water.

Okay.

You have to take some tissue from the fish, usually some slime, some coating and. And that collects usually bacteria. Mostly it's parasites we can identify. And if a fish is badly sick, well, then you can take some pathological tissues. That's what I do, of course, in my profession. And. Well, and it's practice. It's practicing. It's like learning how to ride a bike. That's the same thing as using a microscope. And, and, and for those who want to learn it, I have a YouTube channel with my name on it. And there I have a lot of videos how I examine fish and, and videos on cases of fish diseases I encountered in the last three, four years. I made little videos of it on diseases of guppies or discus or corydoras or cyprinets. Your kind of thing. Yes, I have a specific channel on diseases of cyprinets, so. And there you can see what kind of tissues I examined or what. How diseases look like. You know it. And that's something. Yes. Which is not easy, but you have to find by looking at my channel or. And by trial and error, it's.

Yeah. Yes, I do see there are a few of my moderators in the chat, so I'm sure multiple resources will come up during this discussion. So if you can feel free to drop any links down below. Your website as well has so many free resources available, videos, links, even ebooks and pamphlets and things like that. So definitely worth a look as well, if you are that way inclined, actually physically taking that sample. Um, Are you just doing that with like, I don't know what we call them, paddle pop sticks. I don't know, like a little. What do you call those, Like a wooden stick or like a scalpel or something?

Yeah, well, the first thing, simple you can use, you know. Yeah. In a microscope, you usually have glass plates and you have cover slips. Yeah, even the COVID slip, which is very, you know, you know, from a microscopy, it has a tiny. Well, I take some. I can show you.

While he's doing that also. Oh, sorry.

Like these are, you know, those kind of little glass plates, you know, that's the coffer slip.

Okay.

And that's a little glass plate you. You take out, you know, and. And one.

Yeah. Squish it between the two things. Right? Yes.

And that you have the fish, you know, and you take a scraping from the skin.

Right. Okay.

And then. And then you put it on a. On a glass plate with some water from the aquarium here. And that you examine.

Okay.

And that you examine. And you can take that from the gills if it's a big fish. Normally, usually I diagnose fish which are dying, which are. And you have an accordion with 100 fish, let's say 100 danio or cyprinets, and one is dying. You should take that one out because he's showing and he's talking to you with his body language. I'm feeling bad. I'm suffering. I might have red. Red lesions. Take me out so you can save my 99 friends, which are left over in the aquarium.

Yeah.

The longer you wait, the worse it can get with disease. Because this one fish should be sacrificed for examination. If you have a microscope and just by taking that. That scraping and put it on a glass plate and taking some guilt tissue where the fish is dead, you take it out. And that really, I tell you that that's. That can tell you what kind of medications you use. Otherwise, you're guessing. Otherwise you continue to be guessing. Except for certain diseases which are noticeable, like a white spot disease or sometimes oodinium or velvet disease that you sometimes can notice with the naked eye. But still, I prefer to use a microscope because it's my. It's my hobby and it's my profession.

Yeah, that makes sense. And. And you know, you use the tools that you're accustomed to using, right? So. Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense.

Of course, you can also use a scalpel. I have a dissection material. I have a whole test kit I can show you because what you need is, like, a whole test. I know people like to see the material that I'm using.

Ah, fancy.

See, this is what I use. I have scissors and a scalpel. A large scissor is for a big fish. A small scissor, you know, it's for small fish cutting off the. The material. So that's the. That's my. My toolkit. I travel with the work, of course, with my microscope.

Okay. Okay, good to know.

And.

And speaking of resources, you. You released a book as well, with a lot of photos of diseases and what to look for. So that could be another good research if you are. Yes.

And I have one book which has a DVD rom well that's old fashioned product these days. But in that DV drop there are videos and there are videos on how the parasite looks like in the microscope and that's you need to learn to identify so once you've seen it, you recognize it next time when you use your microscope. And I also have this available on my ebooks with videos in it. So I have different choices for the the hobbyist or the professional to look at some published materials next to my YouTube channel of course.

Cam from the Fish rooms. A big fan says best book in the business.

So nice to hear that. Thanks.

It's probably a good time to mention as well I am periodically keeping an eye on the chat so feel free to put questions in there if you'd like me to ask them. I have a bunch of questions of my own but but I certainly have some from people that commented on you know the short video that I did previewing of introing today's discussion. So yeah, feel free to drop in the comments whatever you have been itching to know. But I think, I think it's interesting because you seem to have your own unique way of doing things. For example, we touched on you know, biology leading into fish diseases leading into fish keeping yourself and maybe we can talk about that a little bit later. But by the same token we get to this that I've been, I've been trying the food box by fish food and of course we have to discuss that today. And, and from what I understand you sort of again most people just like oh, I need something to give my fish, I'll create a fish food. Well, not most people, but the people that do that. But you I think is this true? You thought fish diseases, how do we stop these diseases without just dumping medication in the tank will create a good food that will help ward off those sorts of things. Things. Right. So that's something unique as well I thought.

Yeah, yeah. Thanks for Blake. Blake for bringing that up because in the time in the 90s I started my own fish house in Belgium. And if you have a fish house and in 1000 taquaria Tropical fish imported from all over the world to specialize to distribute to the pet shops in mostly in Belgium and France. And the only thing you want to do as a, as a businessman in that those days I was a biologist and I became a businessman is to make money to make a living.

It helps.

It helps. And you only make a living on healthy fish. All the fish that died, there's a big loss, it's a big loss of net Profit. And I seen companies going broke. They had the largest I've seen in Florida, the largest fish farmers I ever seen in my life. And I told the manager or the owner of the farm, how you gonna manage that farm? Yes, I, I go look around the farm every day. He said, what do you mean yes? I walk around and at the end of the day I've seen all the tanks. I say, I mean, you go only once a day and then you might have seen it all. Yes, well, he was broke within two years because you need time to look. Where are the problems and how can you prevent that the fish get sick? And that my only goal if you have running a business with fish, is that you want to maximize your sales with healthy fish without complaints and that you don't have any losses because a fish is a valuable product. And these days we should be concerned about the well being of the fish. We learned that from the 70s now to 80 years, 20, 24, that well being of an animal is getting more important. And that was always my concern. Started as a biologist. Yes, you trade in fish, you keep fish and you give people a job with the fish. I had 15 people working for me and I told all my staff, those fish you have to keep alive because they pay for your salary. And if you keep them alive, you give them a good life, they have a good well being. So you have a good combination. You make a salary of a fish which is healthy and happy. And that came up with my, the idea for me, how can I do it? And I learned good food was for me the prevention of diseases. That was the main goal is preventing treatments, preventing use of medications. It's a high cost. If a fish is sick, it's sitting there maybe for a week. And every day the aquarium cost me three to four euros at expenses of heating water, staff. So all those costs I could cut was giving me a better profit and but at the same time a healthier fish. And that's why I start studying fish food. I never did that before I started in the 90s to look for, well, what kind of food or what kind of additional products you can add to the food that gives a good benefit to the health of the fish and prevent that it becomes sick. That was about the main issues that I was concentrated on.

Yeah, yeah, it's a great point because, you know, if not to commoditize fish or anything, but if your business was selling, you know, anything like these sharpies, but you had 10 of them dropping off the floor, melting into a puddle every day, you wouldn't just keep going with that, would you? So you'd look into ways to stop that happening. And so both fish loss is expensive. Fish medication is also expensive. And you're going to have a more vibrant, more lively product at the end of the day that people will be happier with. So it does make a lot of sense. There are ingredients like with the, with the fish, the food box in particular, in case people aren't aware, because I, I wasn't until Johan from dip aquatics Australia.com sent me these. So there's four foods in the box. One is, I might not point to the exact one because I'm doing it backwards, but there's a garlic, a chlorella, an acai and a regular. Is that the terminology? Yeah, regular. So even with the other stuff that is in, in the box, there's more resources again about which foods to feed. When. How do you, how do you find all these ingredients? You know, to get to acai, did you have to try, you know, every berry in the world or. Because I don't imagine acai are falling into every water way in the world. So how, how do you know what's actually going to be good for the fish?

Well, a lot of studies have been done in aquaculture industry for food fish. So I have a lot of contacts, I do a lot of reading and research. Particularly the people who are, are breeding fish, are keeping fish in like in poor countries. Because a lot of fish farming goes on in poor countries. They cannot buy antibiotics, it's too expensive. They cannot lose fish. So a lot goes back to the old way of Chinese herbal medicine is using the herbs from nature like garlic. Garlic is a healthy product or other products. And now you mentioned the acai, which is a berry that grows in a palm tree at the Amazon. And I did three excursion trips, expeditions in the Amazon. I did two of them with the University of Amazonas to study fish and to talk with fishermen. And we came one day across a certain part of the river where a fisherman was collecting ruminose and cardinal tetras in splendid colors. And we asked them at the guy, he said, how come you have better colored fish and healthier fish than your other fishermen which are on other part, fishing on other parts of the river. He said, well, says dive into the water, look into the water and see what happens. And that will tell you. We go into the water and we saw that the fish were eating little berries, acai berries, red berries. And the acai gives some power to the fish, strength, you know, helps immunity, gives Particularly gives fantastic red and blue colors. So that it's a combination, it's a healthy. It's a fruit. Like eating fruit for humans is healthy. We know fruits are a good benefit for our human health, but I didn't expect that a fish would eat fruit. That's what for us. So I start testing putting fruit powder from the acai berry into the fish food. And we did some testing. We had amazing results. Nobody had done it in the aquarium industry, but the fish know it from nature. So you're trying to learn from fish in nature how they live, how they eat, and they teach you a lesson you can put in practice in for the aquarium hobby. And that's how the acai came into our. Dr. Bislair buy fish food products?

Yeah, yeah. It's interesting. There's so many. So many ingredients. Like thyme was one garlic, grapefruit seed, extra grapefruit seed extract. I didn't say that. And lepacho, I wanted to ask about. You have two foods. Lepacho is one, and the other one is matrine. And those ones are recommended for if a fish. Matrine if it has white spot, or lepacho, if it had. If it's showing signs of hole in the head, I believe hexamina. What are those? Pre. Are those medicated foods or are they. They have ingredients that in particular help with resistance to those kind of things.

Okay, thanks. Question, Blake, Because a lot of people think we're putting medications in the food. Well, they are not medications.

No.

When those fish have white spot or they have spiral nucleus, examine infections, particularly with the lapacho, you still have to use a medication because the medication kills the parasite. That's. What's the meaning of it. The fish food helps the fish to repair, helps the fish to fight off, but not to mitigate. Because when a fish is treated with medication against white spot, for example, well, you kill the white spot, but the white spot made little wounds and lesions. Or the white spot can come back later on on the fish. And the fish feet are meant that the fish survives better, repairs much faster, cures much easier. And the mattering is particularly to make a kind of repellent in the mucus. It changes a little bit the content of the mucus. So the parasite like white spot. We also suspect, or we had some testing against oedinium, or velvet disease. The parasites don't like to come on the fish anymore. And the lapacho is an old product used by the old Amazon Indians to control parasitic infections in the gut. So it's a Kind of herbal medication, although it's something that just makes that the parasite don't. Likes to be there. That's it. If you create an environment in the fish, like in the gut with Lapacho, that the parasite doesn't like to be there. Well it automatically the parasite is gone. It's, it's. And at the same time the patcho cures the fish and we're adding in some immunostimulants to repair the gut system. And these all together helps the fish to repair and to cure because the fish must cure itself next to wherever you add in the medicine. And that sometimes goes wrong when people just adding a medicine and they see well my fish, I treated it with ick. And still he, he doesn't do well, he dies well. It means that the fish was properly treated but not taken care of. That he could take care of his repair his body and his, taken up his vitamins and minerals, all different things. Because the fish must take that personal action and you can help with that. And that's why the food came into action in my planning, in my.

That makes sense. So you can still feed those foods even if the fish aren't sick and the intention is to feed them in conjunction with medicine. Kind of like chicken noodle soup or a nice, something nice and hearty if you've got the flu, kind of.

I know some breeders and people in the industry use my fish feed as a prevention, particularly the fish like angelfish or discus that are susceptible to the hexameter or spiral nucleus parasites and then secondary the hole in the head disease. They use it as a prevention, as a 10 day fish food treatment. You can say it's not a treatment, it's just a care way of helping the fish to, well, to defend themselves. That's the main thing. And that's why I explained that I have on my website also an indication on, on the leaflet what kind of food you can use for what kind of problem and for how long. So I have a special leaflet on that available in, in four languages on my website.

Yeah, yeah, it's a good point. I, I do have a couple of questions here. I noticed there is one in the range that contains CBD which you know, even humans take for sort of relaxation purposes. And I imagine it's similar with the fish kind of. Have you had any backlash? I know it's probably more commonplace now, but have people been a bit funny about, about that? I, I guess you see it more and more with dogs and cats as well. I guess. But Just how's the reception been to that and how has the research and. And yeah, can you just elaborate on how that came to be?

Well, the CBD is one of the last new produced fish food organized by the company in Germany. Because I'm not producing myself anymore. They take over some, some good ideas they learn from dog and cat industry. Yes, it's an industrial product and the cbd, some studies have been done on that in fish. I believe it was tilapia cichlids that it calmed down the fish during aggressive stages or after moving the fish for one tank to another or after a disease. So to give the fish a more, how can I say, relaxed feeling. Is that what I can say about the CBD product? And that seems to be a help from. For this kind of situation. Particularly when you introduce, when you have keeping cichlids and you introduce a new cichlid to a nice established tank and sometimes aggression occurs. Yes, your cichlids, that's typical for that fish. And before they establish a kind of living together in a good community. The CBD for example could help to overcome those aggressive issues.

Yeah, that makes sense. And I guess the important distinction is that CBD doesn't equal thc. So there's no need to put any Bob Marley on in the fish room.

While you feed that out in the room. The fish might be like it.

I tell you, I think my female Epistogramma honslo could do with a bit of that. Sometimes she's. She gets a bit nasty sometimes but.

That means she is healthy. That's a good sign.

So there's some really good chat. So thanks so much for getting that. I'll cover a few more of those before they go too far down. So Anthony was wondering how can we purchase your book in Australia? I'm an animal and vet bioscience student who is confused about what I should do after uni. I think I have found a possible calling. Well yeah, that's kind of go towards the jobs I guess might be the recommendation. But correct me if I'm wrong, your books are also available as ebooks or not. Some of them are also you can.

See it on my website. I have different links to that where you can purchase the books and they are also available as ebooks. Yes.

Yeah. So definitely check out the Dr. Basle website. I'll drop it in the comments or the description after this. Regardless, Richie has mentioned he's never seen a fish that won't eat your fish food. It's amazing. Even picky discus. Yeah, and very, very small thing. But I love the little spoon that comes with. Just makes things so handier. But one thing I was going to talk about is in, in the information you mentioned that that granules are your preferred food substance to feed you know, over flakes, pellets that are probably maybe a bit more common than. Than granules. So can you, can you run us through what in particular you like about granules? Not that I disagree or, or agree. I. I just am interested to hear in your experience why?

Well, the granulates you have to look at the way food is processed. I don't say flake foods are bad. No, the problem is with flake foods they float. So who is going to eat the flake food? The one who's getting it first. And sometimes the flake food flake floats right away back into the filter or the overflow, anything. Well, it can sink. Of course the disadvantage with flake foods, what I see is they have to be going through very hot process of production and losing some quality of food. And with the granulate food we know you can choose the granulate size. So you have different sizes of fish food that fits certain kind of fish. Some fish like to eat very small granulates and some fish like to play with large granulates of fish like particularly the cichlids, you know, the cyprinets, they like small granulate food. The medium size they particularly will like. And the advantages of the granulate. The way food is produced into a granulate is in the experience of. Of all aquaculture, aquaculture of fish is the. The biggest where the money goes to for investment. And they find out through research and investment that producing a granular food is the best way to produce quality in the food and to adding on the essential, how can I say, nutrients also the vitamins and the minerals and to put it in a compact product that is very well digested. So if you see the result of feeding with Dr. Besley and biofish food, for example, you will see the fish have very little waste because it's maximized consumed and absorbed by the fish. And with the granulates we had the advantage that after the make production of the granulate it cools down and then we adding on the nutri commence the garlic, the lapacho, the thyme or the matrix, you can call it all those products after the production because during the production you cannot put it on because it would destroy the beneficial elements of those nutrition. So that's why we adding them on. That's why you can see it sometimes in your Hands or floating in the tank. Particularly the herbal. You can see the herbs sometimes attached and floating into the water, but the fish love it. You be surprised of the fish go for those little flaky herbals that still float next to the ones which are still attached to the granulate. So that combination, a perfect little ball of food which has all the balanced ingredients and then adding on the nutrigamets. It's what I liked in the practice of fish feeding for ornamental fish.

And my sort of non scientific opinion on that is I think it's a good idea to have the varying sizes that you get with the granule. But with pellets sometimes you just want a little extra nibble of whatever you're eating. But if you only have pellets that are this size compared to your mouth and you have to eat another one every single time, then it's no wonder that we see quite a lot of bloat and indigestion going on these days. So you know, sometimes you just need a little, a little extra nibble, a little afternoon snack.

So we see the cases particularly with the fancy goldfish, you know that eating flake foods that they turn upside down because they digest or they take up a lot of air. They take a lot of air because they're at the surface eating those flakes. And, and those fancy goldfish have a deformed swim bladder in that they can't control the extra air they have been taken up. That gives them that upside down swimming behavior. But it can also happen with ornamental fish, not that often, but particularly fish with having a problem internally. And I, I see. Well, I don't say flake foods are bad, but if there is something better, I would say you go for the granulates.

I was. That's a good point. And, and it leads into another thing I was going to ask because I noticed that the larger the granule size gets, it's designed to sink faster. Correct. And, and I like that because often a lot of small fish, they, they will prefer and feed mid water but then it does stop the larger fish from doing that gulping action, which is pretty unnatural when you think that a large fish is most likely not going to be too fast about predation and things like that. And apart from birds. Right. So they're going to stay down the bottom of the water and be the boss down there. So why would they come and learn how to eat properly off the surface?

Yeah, normally we teach our fish to eat at the surface because of the aquarium. That's the, the puff effect. You know, the, the puff of effect that even if you come to the aquarium, the fish come to the surface. Of course, that's where the food enters. And normally in nature food doesn't enter from the surface. Food is inside the water, it's floating into the water. So the fish search all day in the water and if you have granulates, particularly the small ones that float into the water and they sink slowly. So the fish getting used to something that is natural, that is common and eating at the surface, hardly any fish. Well, there's a few exceptions like the butterfly pantadon of Africa, which is orthodox. There are some exceptions, but the exceptions prove the rule that the food is normally somewhere floating in the water or laying on the bottom. If you go swimming with fish in the ocean, look in the ocean or in the rivers, fish permanently look at, at the bottom and, or on between the plants or on this on the rocks for food that's perfectly all day long. Like cows grace in the farmland. That's fish grace onto their well habitat where they're living from.

That is a good segue as well because any, any of the Dr. Basler range of biofish food can be fed to either marine or freshwater fish. Correct. Was there ever any like in the beginning, did you have a different range for marine and a different range for freshwater or you know, just often you see with fish foods that they, they create a separate distinction in those two things.

No, no, because the fish needs a basic ingredient. That's the proteins. Yeah, they need, they need the proteins to lift the profile. And, and the good digestible proteins and the proteins which are in our Dr. Basler by food are for marine fish like we like to eat marine fish. We all prefer marine to eat marine fish above freshwater fish. Why it tastes better. It has a better quality food inside it in most of them. Not. Not all of them. Most of them. And, and just for the marine fish you better add some extra algae. And that's why we made the, the chlorella for instance is, is the one which is mostly used for the marine fish. It's because they eat a lot of algae and nature most of the marine fish. But anyway it's, it's doesn't make a choice. It's like a mankind living where else all over in the world. We also always have nearly the same kind of mixture of food we need to have. And it's the same for fish also also doesn't matter where they live.

That makes sense. Okay, I've got a question here from Bob. Can you ask of Course, Bob is a massive corydora man. He pretty much exclusively lives for corys, so he's wondering about your recommendation in particular for corys, what would you feed? And, and actually, if I can piggyback off that question, Bob, I'm sure you won't mind. With the range of fish foods, is the intention to alternate, you know, one per day or is that, you know, should you go like double the amount of garlic versus chlorella or it's 1, 1, 1. Or how, how's. How's the best schedule for those sorts of things?

Well, there is never a perfect rule. The only thing I, I give is advice. When fish have certain problems, are you. To prevent that you feed a certain food like garlic, that you feed only the garlic during 10 days. So the fish take up a lot of garlic because the garlic, you need to make its positive action for the fish. And that's why we, we made that food box. Is the idea that you, you could alternate like the regular is you can feed all day, doesn't matter, but then you want to give the acai. Well, you might alternate with acai because it gives some extra color. But when you talk about the garlic, you want to give it like a garlic treatment. I don't like to call it the treatment, but it's like a garlic potential helping the fish in overcoming particularly our corydora cats, which are commonly having worm infections or bacterial problems. They like to eat at the bottom of the aquarium. Where are most of the bacteria and the parasites? At the bottom of the aquarium. That's why corydoras are so susceptible, because they can easily come in contact with those possible pathogens. And that's why, for example, we recommend like garlic for, for coridora catfish. But we like to have a recommendation of the mix of foods because we like to have different feed every day. We don't want to eat every day McDonald's or any other hamburger. Maybe you can trust me a year ago, perhaps, but you can eat. But always we recommend. We all do. We are mankind. We like to have a diversity. And every day you want to have a different meal in the morning, in the evening, it's the same for the fish. So if you alternate, the fish will be more happier to have a different taste, different flavor. And that's why the food box came into the picture. So people get to know, well, use different feet. Don't stay always with the same. Give the fish some pleasure in life.

Yeah, yeah, that's. I'm really happy with that because I was just alternating the four. But, but that makes sense. It probably is best to go, you know, for example, regular chlorella acai. Regular chlorella acai and then garlic. Garlic, Garlic, garlic, Garlic. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I have on my, on my website the leaflet which tells me. Yeah when you feed garlic, how long you should use it or for what purpose, you know. And yeah, I also have on that PDF on my website also selling for corridora, cats or catfish. What would be the three or four most recommendable, for example? It's just recommendable, you know, it's not always perfect. That's, that's the thing. Perfect is very difficult. Depends on the kind of corridora also true.

Well, he does have a pretty nice collection of Corey, so. Okay, let me just check quickly. Andre saying he's fed aloe and chlorella to battle scarred fish and they've healed within a week. So that's great. Janik uses acai and garlic. All his fish love it. Perfect. Cool. And Richie said I got lucky perhaps, but I advise. I was advised a few years ago to apply a honey based gel to the discus for hole in the head and it worked. Any medical evidence why that worked or just luck? I don't know. Would you have any opinion on what maybe just a bit of a sort of a band aid and elastic. Elastic.

You know, honey has some essential products which could be helpful and particularly it could have helped, you know, the repair of the microflora, the gut flora, so the fish build up its immunity. Because honey is a very healthy food for mankind and some people might have had success with fish. Unfortunately we cannot put it in a biofish food. It would, it would make the bishop bad within two, three months. So it would not be possible. But look, that is an experience from somebody who tried it and that's worthwhile to look at it, not to disregard it and to look at as another opportunity in that case that it helped. That's all we want. We want to have result. And see, science is never settled. We will always continue to learn as long as we're open to discuss it and to put it in practice. And that will teach us eventually that maybe the people looking here at the opportunity that this hobbyist used the honey, some people might have tried it also and had say, well, why not? Yes, I cannot disagree.

I'm interested now. We sort of touched on it earlier about your, your journey through and establishing your fish house. And I'm interested in, to know what spaces you, you fell into in particular. Do you still keep any? Now I know that you've sort of Downsized a little bit and you're often traveling. So what's your hobby look like now?

Well, my, my hobby is I'm a fish doctor. So I have the lucky thing. I just was last week in Sweden and on because I had opportunity. My, my son lives and works in Sweden. He is engaged with a Swedish girl. And so a big company in Sweden, which is the largest imported in whole Scandinavia, said Gerald, please train our staff. We want to be more professional in fish keeping. We want to use more the microscope. So I went there for two days and I had the opportunity to see 4,000 aquaria. So that gives me the chance to have only one aquarium which is now getting a little bit algae growing on the tank. And those fish are the ones which I collected from my laboratory which were always involved in getting the taste of new kind of fish food. But I, I'm breeding guppies. They're breeding automatically. I have cordials, I have algae eaters, I have ruminose. I have some Daniel Piatti in it. Yes, they're a little bit aggressive. You know, they like to eat on the tails of my guppies. Well, but it's a mix of fish because I'm too much gone. I'm six months a year I'm not here. So there's an automatic feeder standing on it. Of course they're getting biofish food.

Well, well, when the, when the fish house was at peak power, did you find your. Yeah, because obviously you had the, the thirst for knowledge. You can tell that you've got a bit of a thirst for knowledge and you like to go on problem solving. And did you find yourself going through rabbit holes with the hobby? Like did you go, oh, I've just newly discovered corys now. And I'm going to go and keep 1000 different types of corys or I really like live bearers or whatever it is. Did you, did you have that journey when you were picking up the hobby?

Yeah, well, usually I was never a hobbyist and I came in and fell in love with it by keeping the fish myself and to see what I would keep. The thing I learned is listening to my customers in that time, what was interesting for them and that teached me lessons what kind of fish I would bring into my fish house. And. And then you sometimes come around very rare corridoras. I remember in the, in the 80s, I think it was 80s, we received the first Corridor Barbatos the Barbados. Well, now it has a different name. Doesn't call corridor anymore. Don't ask me how to pronounce. The new names because. And changing all those names of those fish. Well, hard to keep up at the. So the Barbatos was at the time very new, but I love it because of species specific color, particularly the big ones, you know, they had some black inside and, and then of course that's. You want to keep yourself because then you see something special coming up and that you, you, you fell in love with that kind of fish because you, you see it and that's why a hobbyist. What does a hobbyist do? Is he going to read a book to find out what fishy likes? No. When he sees it.

Yeah.

And he sees it swimming in a pet shop or with a friend or on your YouTube channel. Maybe he sees sharpness is a wow, I want to have this. And that's how it usually works. It's, it's falling in love with something you like.

Well, well, that's why I was interested because you know, most people find, find the hobby going to a pet shop and there might be eight different. Especially if you go to a big box store or like one of the sort of bricks and you know, the cat, dog and fish are over in the corner. Those kind of stores. There's not many to choose from, but I guess you were already exposed to so many different types and you, you kind of had it again a little bit upside down to how most people do. So I was wondering, you know, were you taken to color, taken to things that are unique or. Yeah. Oh, that's what I, that's the reason I was asking.

Yeah, it's, it's a kind of, of, of mix because you have so many different kind of. How can I say as a businessman, I had to buy all different kinds because for, to fill in all the different tastes and everything. If you see in Asia, you know, like in China, people like to keep very big, long, large monster fish. Yeah, I'm sure in Australia there are hobbyists who like to keep large monster fish or snakeheads, Polypterus, you know, large Chiclets, you know, talk, talk about it. That's a, there's so many choices we have in the market. And that's, it's your, it's your personal taste that would fill in.

And, and part of me, I, I was wondering as well if, you know, people say, oh, these fish are so sensitive. Discus, German blue rams. They're probably the two most common ones. And I was wondering if, if part of you was like, oh, everybody, everybody has a lot of problems with those two fish. Those are the fish that I'm gonna go get and I'm gonna figure it out and make it easy for everybody else. That's what I thought you might do.

Yeah, that's part of it. Yeah. Sometimes challenging to get the fish in which others cannot keep alive or other ones have a difficulty to bring in. And I remember in the 90s I specialized in wild fish from the Amazon or from Asia or from Africa, because a regular pet shop who was receiving fish trend shipping, you know, in boxes, closed boxes, and they put it in the tanks, they had difficulties to keep those alive. So if you specialize in that, people come to you say, wow, you can keep it alive and give it healthy to me. And that's, yes, certainly a challenge that we took up to get a big part of the market.

Yeah. It's interesting. Brendan is asking what are the best practices to prevent disease outbreaks and some common misconceptions about diseases and their treatments. And, and this, I think leads into one of your philosophies, which I certainly agree with, which is, you know, preventative medication. And I, I don't believe in that at all. And I don't believe that you do.

No, no. A medication is to kill a parasite. And when there is no parasite or you don't know why you're going to put a medication. And that goes quite often wrong, particularly on keeping people keeping discus. You just mentioned discus that people treat every month, you know, for, for seven days with metronidazole or against spiral nucleus or eczema, or they're putting fluke medications in it for a couple of days every month.

Yeah.

Is there a fluke? Well, you know my thinking, I have a holistic view. You always have to ask, where does the parasite come from? Why is it there? Why does it become an infection? Because in nature there are always pathogens, there are always microbes. But you have to look, why does the fish get diseased? And that's why. To answer that question, folks, first of all, you have to check if all the conditions are good, how you keep the fish. Did you do a water check? Did you do water maintenance and a filter maintenance? That doesn't mean you have to do a lot of water changes. Some people hardly do any water changes because they have a good biological filtration. They have a lot of plants that avoids a lot of water change because that controls the healthy system. But do you do a maintenance of the biological filter? What kind of food are you giving? And. And I see a lot of problems happening where people are feeding live or frozen food that you're Adding pathogens to the fish in the frozen and live food. There's a risk of feeding pathogens or microbes, which is a risk for fish. So you have to look all together. My fish is getting sick. Why always ask yourself the question, why does he get sick? What goes wrong here? Maybe a new fish introduced within the head current time and brought in a disease. It's possible, yes. So for certain people I recommend particularly the discus people or people have large beautiful community tank and they want to introduce in you fish. Better keep it in quarantine for about seven to 14 days in the same type of water which you have in your home tank before you introduce it. Or you buy it from a reliable aquarium shop which had it in quarantine. And you can see the fish has been eating. He didn't develop any diseases. He had it also for at least one week or 40 days. So that's all important preventative ways that you can avoid these problems. But the main thing is always ask yourself the question, the question, why do the disease attacks my fish and gets to my fish? What could have been the cause? And then you. 50% of the cases, you don't need to add a medication. Really not. You're just changing your way of working or thinking.

And one thing, it's just fresh in my mind because I was helping someone on the weekend with this, their partner who usually has it's their aquariums. It was feeling a bit, is going through some health battles. So she was performing the maintenance on the tanks and I said, oh, just have a look at all the fish first, see if any of them are swimming a bit strange or anything like that. And she mentioned that one of the discus did have a bit of a white dorsal fin. So I said look, just to be on the safe side, don't, don't do that tank first, do that tank last. Because if you put the hose in that tank and then you move that hose to every other tank, well, you might spread it around. But if, at least if you do it last, you can allow the hose to dry and hopefully, you know, it's a bit low risk then. So that, that's just a perspective that I have from the weekend, just things like that, you know.

Yeah, maybe it's taken biosecurity that it's like in the hospital, you don't get a syringe from your patient next to you. You got another syringe hopefully.

Yeah, yeah. And, and yeah, with the nets, if.

You have nets, use one net to a tank or put it in a disinfection bucket or the best way is, is washing it under hot water.

Yeah, I'm just gonna stay.

Yeah.

How many people scoop the duckweed from every single tank on duckweed day?

The net is the worst spreader of fish diseases. When you have several things. Yes, it is.

Even if you don't have lids on your tanks and you scoop the duckweed out of one tank and then, well, I bang it on the bucket to get the duckweed out. Water's splashing everywhere. So if you don't have a lid, it's very possible that some of that water's in your other tanks. Anyway.

It's a risk, but, but still, you have to think, you know, how many pathogens are have or microbes have an opportunity to cause an infection on the fish in those few droplets. And it all has to do. We learned that from the recent COVID 19 experience. If you have good immunity and you, you do, you take care of yourself and you take care of your fish and they're strong and healthy, they can fight off the few microbes. Only when there is a few are spreading around and there are always going to be microbes and a few drops. It's not a big risk, except when the fish are in a risky condition with a pure immunity system. A lack of vitamins, a lack of essential nutrients. Then of course the microbe can, or the pathogen can take over, well, the health of the fish. It can become an invasive invading parasite or bacteria. And it all has to do how the fish is. Except when there's a lot of pathogens introduced, you know, and a large amount of white spot disease introduced by new introduced fish. Yes. Even the healthy fish might have more risk to show some white spots. Yes. That all has to do with the quantity of contact you have. Yes.

In, in your experience, is there the same amount of risk or greater risk in one of these? If we're talking about some water getting from tank to tank or actual contact, like an infected fish going tank to tank if you take one out and put it in, or even something like, I think about de worming and the substrate. Like if you took a scoop of substrate, put it in tank to tank. In your opinion, in your experience, does one of those three practices have more risk than others or pretty similar? What, what do you think about that?

Well, the largest risk is with a fish net. When you catch a sick fish, you have the contact of the slime and the skin or possible sick fish in the net, and then you go with the same net to catch other fish you got again. That direct contact of the slime, the skin with the net with possible a bunch of patterns. So you introduce it inside the mucus of the fish. So that is the largest risk is a fishnet catching sick fish from different tanks and go around and catching also healthy fish well in contact with the slime. That potential carries the pathogens. That's the largest, you know, in the substrate. Well, usually in the substrate there are aerobic and anaerobic bacteria that is eats the pathogens. Except worm eggs. Worm eggs can survive those aerobic or anaerobic bacteria which are part of biological filter which is a new substrate. So a parasite can hardly survive there. Also in the water there is a small content of pathogens in the water. It's small. The main content of pathogens is on the fish or inside the fish. That that's the main thing you have to worry about. And that's why nets the fishnet plays the the most important role.

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Andre was asking as well about Backdoor Sprint. I've actually used it too. There's. I put it in the. Well if people have seen the video of the sort of planted tower that I recently did, that tank I started up with Backdoor Sprint. Can you tell us about how that came to be and how it differs from other instant cycle in a bottle kind of products?

Well, back to strength is a product from aquarium Munster. And they received it after some research was done at the university. I think it was in Switzerland where what they find out that if you keep a kind of freeze dried bacteria in a capsule and you add it to a solution with a nutrient. Well, bacteria need food. And as soon as you give good food to those bacteria, they start to grow and explode in quantities. And that what happens when you use it a bacteria sprint. You screw it open, the bacteria form, fall into that content. You shake it while you use some. You open the bottle. After a couple of minutes you hear the gas produced by the bacteria. So it's a complete directly active bacterial content you add to the water. But the bacteria needs food. So if you put it in the aquarium without any food, well, the bacteria have not such a nice time. They need food to have a good time. So you have to introduce to the car and put a few fish. So to keep that culture of bacteria going and growing, it still needs time. You cannot put a bacteria sprint in a tank of 1000 liters with 1000 fish. It will not do the job immediately. It might take a couple of weeks before that culture of bacteria grows efficiently. And A lot of people think all those magic filter starters, you know, I just put it in and it will work. No, these are live organisms who need to adapt to the system which you're introduced. So in the beginning, you introduce it slowly and take your time. Don't over haste to put too many fish. So let the bacteria adapt to the quantity of fish. That's how it should be. So at the beginning, you put bacteria and then you slowly increase the quantity of fish, or the bacteria learn to consume that quantity of waste. That's all what it is. It's a teaching tool. And the best way I. I would still want aquariums to sell back to spring. But the best way to start an aquarium, when you have different aquarium, like you are standing in the back there, Blake, you take just some sponge or some filter material and put it in the new tank. You transplanting a heart. And the heart is. That's the best bacteria. There's hardly any disease in there in that filter because the bacteria eats the pathogens. The pathogen only survives on the fish, except worm eggs, because they're in an egg. But the bacteria usually devour all the pathogens, like white spots or costa, or even live worms. They cannot survive in that filter. They have to survive on the fish. So that little sponge of that part is a perfect way to start in the best and a very fast way to introduce billions of bacteria in your new biological filter.

That's good to know. I hadn't really thought about that. So I was wondering, you know, all this stuff about cross contamination and nets, you know, does it go out the window if you're starting every aquarium with the squeeze of. Of sponge? I can't remember what Eric Bodrock calls it. Sponge gunk or something he met. He had a funny name for it, anyway.

Well, of course, you don't take a sponsor out of a quarter which has diseased fish. That's.

That's.

Of course, you avoid all risks. You take it out of a healthy tank, a part of the sponge or you cut off a part of your biological filter can also be ceramic balls or plastic balls, anything, Anything. What has your original biological filter that's been working. You're making great bacteria in the back there permanently every day you have it swimming.

Well, I haven't got any fish in there yet, so I don't know if it works or not yet. But I can tell you, you definitely feel like James Bond when you're breaking the thing open, shaking it up.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's an experience in itself.

Yeah, that's what people like to have that really hands on tool.

Makes you feel like you've accomplished something. Especially if you've got to wait a few weeks anyway.

Yeah, yeah.

Anthony is wondering about diseases such as columnaris. Very tricky one to, to diagnose, to treat prior to medicated quarantine. I was losing many fish from shops due to columnaris. I feel the medication is excessive but had worked. Any tips?

Well, columnaris is a typical tropical bacteria which likes warm water. And particularly this is a problem in summer when it's too hot in the pet shops or in the home accordion, particularly you live in warmer areas. The bacteria loves temperatures above 24 degrees. So if you cool down the aquarium to 22, 23, it cuts the growth of the bacteria. It will not grow anymore. It will still sit on the fish, but it will not become a more invasive infection. It will become, it will stay an infection. And that's the time when you can add on salt. Salt, 3 to 5 grams per liter, is a very good way of in freshwater aquaria to control columnaries outbreaks. Cooling water and salt you can use as an immediate tool to control the explosion of columnaris. Because the columnaries, and that's why it's so devastating, goes very fast. Within 24 hours, 48 hours, all the fish are wiped out. But if you do a water change with some cooler water and adding salt, it stops that explosion of bacteria. And at that moment you can use an antibacterial product and the pet shops has some antibacterial products or an antibiotic if you can get from a veterinarian because it's a bacteria, you have to use a product to kill it. The salt doesn't kill it, the cold water doesn't kill it. You need to apply a medication to kill, kill it. So that's the main thing you, you really have to be concerned about to do that.

I think it's important as well to, to hear your recommendation for salt because often you hear salt being recommended from people like myself, you know, your backyard person who's just bought some fish one day and then, you know, I don't really have any sort of basis in science. It's just kind of fish room experience or, or what have you. So it's good to hear that there is also a scientific basis for salt as a, as a treatment or a therapeutic benefit.

Well, Blake, your experience is little science. Don't disregard that because what works for you is your science. It's your home science science and, and that's what counts. Many hobbyists have their own tricks and ways of how to take care of fish, how to cure. And, and like we heard about adding honey to the food. Hey, those are the things we need to, to, to, to have a result with our fish. And, and there are many ways to do it. And salt is, is one of them. When it's used properly on the right moment. Yes. Not as a permanent, but anyway, that's what you learn through your practice and that really, I learned my profession during practice.

Yeah. On that. Do you have a, a, you know, do you have a, an opinion towards marine salt or, you know, pool salt, table salt, rock salt? And is it, is salt a salt or should it also have those other minerals and things in it?

Yeah, it depends on how long and how much you have to use. The more salt you use and the longer you have to use it for certain reasons or treatments, then you use marine salt, particularly going in five, more than five grams per liter, and you want to extend it to maybe to control velvet disease or like the cyprinets can be a problem. Then you better use marine salt because if you use a lot of salt in the water, like sodium chloride, which is regular table salt, and you're adding a lot, it can change, shift the ph. Shift the pH from 7.58 suddenly to 4.4.5. And the fish gets crazy, gets the die because of acidification. And that's because it's not buffering the water, the sodium chloride. That's why you have to use marine salt when you use large quantities for longer time. And, and for smaller amounts, you can just use stable salt.

Okay. All right. Good one. Atkins Nature Aquarium says his arm is the worst offender for cross contamination. Have you considered getting additional arms? It might be an option. Can you, can you please ask if I should be worried about feeding from the same food container of dry food and, and the risk of transferring pathogens that way? And how can I still offer variety without frozen? And I'll throw in live foods as well. So I have a thought on this.

Repeat that question. I. Yeah, because the same food container.

What.

What does that mean?

Yeah, I was thinking about that one while we were having a chat. This is from Bonnie, by the way. And I think Bonnie itch. There should be nothing being cross contaminated unless you're dipping your fingers in the water and then putting those fingers back into more fish food and then into water again. But if your fingers are dry every time, they're not coming into contact with your other aquarium, so it should be okay. Do you agree with that?

Yeah. Even that little Bit of water would be a problem to be a common infection of the fish. The only thing about that little bit of water for your fingers though, it spoils your food.

You want to keep it dry.

Yes, you have to keep your food dry. That's why we had to the biofish food, the little spoon to avoid that kind of contact and, and to dose to make a kind of dosage way you can dose the food. But the thing, what is mainly the problem is the, the feeding of frozen or live food which is a risk of feeding pathogens to the fish. Yes, it is a fact. Even frozen food can have bacteria which are pathogenic because frozen food does not kill bacteria. Freezing does not kill bacteria.

It's true. I personally we probably differ on this and I think that's okay as well. But I like to feed live foods and I kind of accept that risk mainly for things like the feeding response. Like if I've got brand new baby CPD's they might not know what a, what a prepared food looks like but they know, they sure know what a little worm looks like if I feed them some microorganisms or something like that.

If you're just concerned about the quality you have as live food, that's it. If you don't know, you take a risk. If you know your quality, you know how to control it.

Yeah, yeah, but, but there's certainly a lot of variety within the range of fish food and we've talked about some of the different ingredients and all those sorts of things. So I think this particular line of fish food is a rare one in that exclusively feeding one brand or line of fish food in this instance still provides a whole lot of variety than you'll get if you pick up you know, bulk fish food flake bulk fish food pellet and bulk fish food sinking wafer. You know you going to get a lot of probably fillers and, and generic fish meal is going to be what's, what you're going to get in all three of those things. So I went, you don't have to comment on that but that's my opinion on why I think this is such a unique thing. And I'm not just saying that because you're in the room with me. So Gill's fish room was asking about growth inhibiting hormones when growing out fry. I'm not sure about the context of that one. But can you ask about growth inhibiting hormones when growing up fry. I don't, I don't know anything about that.

Where are the hormones coming from or how are they applied to the fry. Well, I'm not a breeder, so as farmer or I've been a trailer in fish and a biologist, but I've not so much been involved in the breeding of fish. So that might be a very specific issue. I don't know what, what the meaning of the question is.

Yeah. Craig's catfish cave says that he'd like to try the fish food but it's not available in Tari. You can actually buy it online and I do have to thank Johan Rue for putting us in contact today. So he is the importer for, for Dr. Basler fish food in Australia and you can buy it. Look at this. Look what I've pre prepared earlier. It's like the news. He's gonna give 25 off orders for the next 48 hours on his website if you use the code DRP. So I'll let that run for the remainder of the stream. And I am conscious that we've gone for an hour and 20 minutes nearly. So I'll try not to take up too much of your time. But it's, it's absolutely been. Been gold. So I'll, I'll try and get some last questions if that's okay and, and we'll wrap up shortly. The honey was directly applied to the wound. Oh yeah. That was one thing I was wondering about. What's your philosophy about medicating food versus medicating water? I mean obviously you have a lot of experience with disease and food, so I think there's no better person to ask that question.

It all depends on the disease, on the pathogen. If it's a pathogen that distributes through the water to other fish, then you know, we have to treat the water.

Yeah.

Particularly white spot and Odinium are a difficult, typical thing that it. You have to kill the district the larval stage of the parasite which is transmitting to other fish. So you have to put it in the water. In my experience that feeding fish food with a medication, you never know how much medicine the fish will take up. If the fish is very sick, he will hardly eat. So you will hardly have any medication. Well, coming to him, you know. And that's why in, in general, in the industry and aquaculture, particularly in ornamental fish industry, people are treating the water because most of the diseases are distributed through the water and most of the medications used are absorbed by this through the skin and the gills of the fish and taken up and they can control also internal problems. The ideal combination is to put some medication like for instance metronidazole or prazicamtel for worms or metronidol parasites spironucleus hexameter into the water and into the food. So you have a double action. The problem with mixing those medications into the food that sometimes the fish do not like it. Like metronidazole, if you put it in the food, fish do not like to touch the food. It has a bitter taste. So we always recommend, while combining them, for example, with garlic or use the bivalent food garlic and adding on in that granulated food, mixing on top of it, the metronidazole, the fish will more likely eat it than if not. So it depends on the disease. But in our practice, particularly pet shop or a wholesaler or importer, we use medicating of the water. Yeah, because the pathogens are in the water are on usually most of the diseases. Eventually what the fish die from is the gill damage we don't see. But usually when the fish is a parasite, parasitical bacterial infection at the end, it's like the gills that are broken or damaged or eaten away by bacteria. And you can compare it with humans. Why did most of the people die from COVID 19? Because of lung infections, pneumonia a secondary bacterial infections which came after a viral infection. That's why they need to have as soon as possible a good antibiotic to control the bacterial infection in the lungs. And the same counts for the fish. That's where usually the fish will suffer from and die from is the bacterial infections in the gills that occur after a parasitic disease or during a bacterial infection they have. So that's why if you put it in the water, you also treat the gills, which you cannot see. And that's why it's so commonly practiced in our ornamental fish industry.

Yeah, it's good confirmation because I always thought that there's just too much variability when you're medicating the fish food especially. I mean, it's all well and good if there's one fish in the tank, but if you have 10 fish in the tank, how do you guarantee that each one of those is going to eat the same amount of each thing? Or are you going to just have one big bully just eating it all up or, you know, and then maybe.

That bully is not sick, it's the other ones are sick and he's taking up all the food and he doesn't need it. Exactly.

So I agree with that. I do have a question here from Craig about Pumpkin. In your, in your experiments and your travels, did you have any experience with Pumpkin as a natural wormer? He's Asking about specifically about deworming but I'm also interested in it as a enhancement for color during due to the karat nodes. I presume are going to be helpful to bring out reds and yellows and stuff like that.

You, you mentioned that the pumpkin seed extract to get some comments on that.

Of course. Yeah.

Well, pumpkin seed extract is. Is known for in aquaculture to be used for into the food to make it more difficult for the worms to stay in the gut. So it helps to expel, how can I say to helps to expel the guts, the parasites from the gut, particularly the worms. And there are some I have in my website you can find references or scientific studies on biofish food and you can look up there on pumpkin seed extract, what experiments and what science has been published on that subject. So I have a specific chapter in my biofish food topic. There is some studies references that you can look up and there you can find some more details on for example pumpkin seed extract, why it has been used and how it has been used. That's how I also collect my information. What I can I use on tropical fish because it has been tested, has been used in aquaculture. I do not invent the wheel.

True. Yeah, it's, it's. It's one of those things that I think is ever involving, right. Like people are continually fine tuning and getting better and better at these kind of things. Along that, along that line, are you seeing that diseases and pathogens are changing? You know, kind of, kind of like every year there's a different influenza that's got a slightly different tweak. Is it the same with fish in an aquarium or is it pretty much the same?

Well, one of the problems we are facing, we also know by mankind is the excessive use of antibiotics that creates a risk of having bacterial strains that are resistant to that treatment. And due to certain practices which are not well performed in certain paths, certain breeders, they are cultivating fish with resistant pathogens, particularly resistant bacteria. And that is a serious problem which we face as import or as pet shop. Whereas hobbyists that certain bacteria well can have a difficulty to become controlled by the current antibiotics available. That is a problem. And the second problem is breeding of fish. Well, it's, it's. It's more and more going on in our industry. It's also risk of breeding diseases. So certain breeders, they breed certain fish but also certain diseases. So it's important for the importer of the petrol to learn to detect watch breeder supplies me which kind of problem and so he. You can handle the problem or you can avoid buying that fish with that problem. So that. That is something we learn in our industry we should be aware of and from nature. We know from nature that certain periods of the year that like the corydora cats, the wild corydora cats come in with more worms in certain seasons, certain river systems, because there is more food available with larvae of worms, more risk. So there's also a seasonal change in diseases we should be aware of. But it depends on the origin, the river, the kind of fish. It's not a real fact. It's always January or always March. No, it can change depending on many reasons. What kind of food at that moment the fish has to eat and how bad that food is. Because he has no choice in nature. He cannot select. He eats what he can get. It's a survival.

Interesting. I like this one as well, from Andrew. Can you feed too much garlic to aquarium fish? Is there such a thing as too much of any of these great ingredients?

I never heard about it. But to mention about too much feeding in general, People feeding too much, that's a problem. People are feeding so much that automates have big bellies. Forget it. You make an obese fish.

Yeah.

You know what obese means for health. You're creating a big risk for bacterial infections. Very big risk.

Yeah.

So try to feed as much as the fish eat within a couple of minutes. That's it. Two times a day. That's my recommendation. In the morning and me will watch your fish because. Because the fish fish talks to you by his body language and his colors. He sells to you. So watch your fish during the feeding and after the feeding. And if all the fish are coming to eat or not, that's the first sign to see if some problem appears. And feed it twice. And also feed it in the early evening, not in the late evening. In the early evening. And try to watch your fish during eating and after eating. The fish will tell you if they're healthy. It's a really important five minutes a day you need to spend as hobbyists.

Yeah. And I think especially if you keep unheated aquariums or, you know, in. In here there is an element of seasonality. It's definitely cooler over some over winter and warmer over summer. And I do notice that they demand a different amount of fish food in the. In the summer versus the winter. And you know, even I've started incorporating a fair few days of no feeding, like one or once or twice a week and haven't seen any ill effects. You know, obviously not for fry and small Fish. But yeah, yeah.

But for adult films it's recommended to stop to just eat. No feeding one day a week, no feeding. You'd be surprised. I've seen people not feeding their fish at all and fish doing well because the fish eat permanently. Through the absorption through the gills, it collects floating nutrients in the water. You'd be surprised how much is still left over after feeding and still floating into the water. They're continually taken up.

Yeah. And personally I think that it helps to keep the aquarium cleaner too because, you know, they do sort of clean the filter a little bit when they get a bit hungry and you know, go and break things down further and further to what they might have otherwise. If you've got the conveyor belt of Big Macs coming in.

Yeah. But the highest mortality I see in a hobby is people are overfeeding the fish and of course also overfeeding the filter. And the fridge cannot handle it. And there's a lot of excess debris on the, on the substrate or in the filter. It accumulates the problems. And that's why I see a lot of problems appearing of too much food given to the fish.

I saw that the code is apparently not working. It might not be valid for a little while. I'll have a chat to Johan after this. I can see him working the keyboard. He's onto it. So hold tight on that one. But let me just see. I'll just pick perhaps one last question and then we'll see how we go. I should have been, I've been pretty good with pre preparing the questions as we go, but I want to answer.

On the garlic because the question was also overfeeding garlic to the fish.

You know.

Yeah. I've not had any, no idea that any negative comments came when somebody add too much garlic to the fish or giving that as a problem. I, I, I don't know. Even for mankind. Is there a limit in eating garlic? I have no idea.

I'm not sure. Perhaps just don't, perhaps just don't feed it to vampire Tetris. That's a terrible dad joke. This is a good one. So we were talking before about the growth inhibiting hormone and we weren't really sure. So gills provided a bit more context here in that some species are hypothesized to produce growth inhibiting hormone, hence why you have problems. If you add small discus to a tank with adult discus, does it change how they, how their growth patterns are happening? Is that, is that something that you've come across before or no?

No, I have not been a farmer or a breeder in that direction. So I heard about it, that's all. That it might be having an influence on a population in an aquarium. But I have personally no experience. I have to say. I'm sorry, I cannot answer that question.

That's okay. Well, yeah, we've gone one and a half hours. Can't thank you enough for your time. And it's. It's been really great. We've pretty much had steadily 50 people in here live the entire time. So very captivating stuff. And I'm sure that everybody is, you know, really thankful for, for that, and I certainly am. So I've been trying out the biofish food for quite a while now and I really like it and, and it's great to see stuff like this coming into the. The country and it's been great to understand a bit more about yourself and what went into producing what we have here today, but also your experience as a biologist and, and that sort of journey too. So thanks so much. I appreciate your time so much.

Thank you, Blake. And I appreciate your time of helping the hobby to be more successful. And is there any important questions coming in the next coming days? I'm trying. Willing to answer through maybe through YouTube or what else or through messenger to. To help out that peoples are. Get rid of their headaches.

Perfect. I appreciate that. I'll. I'll drop the links down below. So, yeah, perhaps if people are watching the replay over the next few days, put your comments down there and we'll try and get them answered. Alternatively, you have your own channel and website, which I'll have linked in a pinned comment down there. And as well as that, again, big thank you to Johan for providing me with the food to try out before connecting us and making today happen. So big thanks to DP aquatics.com as well. And yes, yeah, just great all around. So thanks everyone. Catch you on the next one and thanks for watching.

Thank you. Bye bye.