this disease infected every species of cyprinid I had in 6 different
tanks. The only cyprinids I have that were not infected were the fish I
collected in florida (flag fish and heterandria formosa) and a couple
mummichogs I have from Georgia.
I know that you are not advocating releasing fish back into the wild,
but I just have to say that I have been amazed at how quickly this has
spread throughout my fish room. It spread easily to adjacent tanks
either from my kids putting their hands in the water or just spray from
the surface agitation. This happened to occur at a time when I was not
netting fish or messing around with them really - I was too busy at
work, so I wasn't doing much in the fish room. I just came home one day
to sick fish.
Once a tank had one sick fish, all the similar species became infected
quickly.
I don't know what would have happened if I had released any fish into
the creek in my back yard, and frankly, I don't want to know.
I would rather euthanize any fish that I collect and decide not to keep
rather than risk introducing something unpleasant into my local
ecosystem.
I have always pretty much had this in the back of my head when I
collect, but recent events have solidified the thought.
Every time I put a fish into my bucket to take it home, I am committing
to keep it in a tank until it dies or I give it away or I kill it.
Makes me want to be more like Casper every day. Except for the
sculpins.
Geoff Kimber
Lexington,KY
On Thu, 2003-09-18 at 00:30, Moontanman_at_aol.com wrote:
> In a message dated 9/17/03 8:33:29 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
> gkimber2_at_alltel.net writes:
>
> > So long story short, if I had released anything after the outbreak
> > started, I would have introduced a rather virulent virus that might have
> > had a significant impact on the fish in my area.
> >
> Maybe, but then again confinement in an aquarium has been shown to promote
> this infection which is very rare in the wild. Also temperature might have been
> a barrier to spreading in the wild. Some disease we see in aquaria are almost
> unknown in the wild, I don't release fish either but don't rush to make a
> judgment from one case in one tank.
>
> Moon
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