"Swimming With The Fishes" and article from the

[Danno]

My Grandmother (Very nice lady. Gotta love grandparents! ) found a article about a certain bacteria in fish tank and was worried about it. Personally I think if you just wash your hands that plenty of insurace. Here is the article:

There may be something else living in your fish tank besides denizen of the deep-bacteria called mycobackterium which loves the relatively still and warm waters of fish tanks.

That's not a problem for the fish. But it can become one for you when you dunk your hands in the water (as when you're cleaning the tank) and an open sore or cut comes in contact with the bacteria

Doctors at the Dartmouth-Hitchcok Medical Center in Lebanon, New Hampsire, wrote about the increasing number of these infections in a recent issue of the medical journal Clinical Infectious Diseases. They can useally be treated with antibiotics but sometimes require surgical removal of the iinfected tissue. Prevention is simple: if you have an open sore or cut on your hand, or a skin disorder such as psoriasis, make sure you ware waterproof gloves when cleaning the tank

- Better Homes & Gardens December 2004 BHG.com

Personally I think this is Bologna!


What do you all think about this?

 

[modernhamlet]

It's not bologna, it's just completely overblown because it makes good news. The odds of catching this from a fishtank are probably somewhere between being hit by a car and getting that 1000g tank you've been wanting...

 

[fufanu360]

i hope it is just bologna, i cut my finger yesterday really bad.. then i had to do a water change hope i dont get it

 

[k2snowboards88]

Well, i didn't bother to read the whole thread(sorry) but i used ot have 4 tiger barbs. They harassed the other fish in the tank all the time. Then i got 4 more tiger barbs. Now that i have 8, they all seem to stick with each other, and they don't really harass other fish at all anymore.

 

[Opcn]

apperently you didn't bother to read any of the thread K2

I read that article to and I got the feeling that I should worry about any infection on my hands, then I realised that no bacteria is going to scare me away from fish and that gloves are no fun.

 

[Shark_Lover]

.....not sooooo sure about this.....

 

[bluefire]

well i can tell u that its really easy to get an infected cut from the fish tank because yesterday i cut my finger(not bad, it didn't even break the skin) and then i did a pwc and now its infected already, just a warning to everyone.

 

[freddyk]

Once again media chooses a market to try to instil fear into.

 

[fishdudein]

Life is all one big risk...

There are so many noxious gases in the air we breathe, there are so many potentially devastating forms of bacteria in the food we eat, there are so many chemical additives and/or creepy crawlies living in the water we drink.........probably shouldn't really be breathing the air, eating the food, or drinking the water. Just to be safe.

After all that, you could get hit by a truck right outside your front door, anyway. And the media would love it.

 

[Danno]

Maybe the only way someone could catch this infection is if they only clean thier anks anually and water changes anually (poor fish if they do... )

 

[NinjaSmurf]

Um, I have like like six open cuts on just one hand and have stuck them in my tank a'plenty today, and haven't washed (silly forgetful busy me), so maybe I'll get it. If I do I do I'll let you guys know, okay? Hasen't happened before and I was careless then too....



P.S. Must kill popups!!! Ten of the nasty things came up just while I was writing this! (Okay, now it's nineteen, no, twenty!) Twenty two!!!!

 

[gale]

There've never been popups on this site for me. Maybe you should download and run adaware or spybot or something.

Anyway, my hands dry and crack and bleed in the winter all the time so I can't really avoid cuts. So far I haven't had problems but I have thought about getting some fishkeepers gloves because I sometimes have trouble rinsing all the soap off my hands, even using our cold tap which is not soft water. I do tend to wash my hands a lot though and for sure after having them in the fish water.

 

[Morrgan]

The bacteria exist. Mycobacterium in water cause fish tuberculosis. Sadly, this is a more common disease than people think, and probably the cause of many deaths that have happened for so-called "unknown" reasons.

However, if you keep the water in your tank clean, the fish healthy and that there are no cuts on your hands, the risk is small. Still, I constantly have cuts on my hands and put them in the tank nevertheless, and I haven't had anything happen for over 10 years. I do wash my hands after putting them in tank water though.