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I found thish while surfing the web- http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=7on_your_side&id=4241842
-Is there a need for concern? Or do thse people just have aquariums that they never clean and the bacteria builds up?

I'd file this under "mountain out of a molehill".

While it is true that certain species of Salmonella could live in the gastrointestinal tract of fishes, and theoretically be passed on to humans, I'd say that the risks were low. Especially if the aquarium is well maintained, and subject to regular water changes/gravel vacs, so that the fishes don't get chance to indulge in too much picking at their own dung at the bottom. Let's face it, if Salmonella in the aquarium was a serious medical emergency, capable of transmitting serious disease to humans, it would have been identified as such long before now, given the eagerness with which medical science set about trying to exterminate bacteria left, right and centre from the 1940s onwards. Plus, your average Corydoras wouldn't live long if they were swimming around in a soup of life threatening bacteria multiplying en masse from fish dung.

The simple fact of the matter is that with the water change and gravel vac regime I implement on the Panda Fun Palace, the water in that aquarium is probably a lot safer to drink than the water available to all too many unfortunate people in the Third World, who would give their right arms for water that clean. They face hazards such as malaria mosquitoes, trypanosomes, schistosomiasis, river blindness and who knows what else from festering ditches that are, in some cases, the only source of water for several miles, and they'd probably wet themselves laughing at the idea that an aquarium in a Western nation, regularly serviced with highly cleansed, bacteriologically clean water poses a threat to health. Your average Ethiopian could show you a serious water hazard with ease, one that would make even a poorly maintained aquarium look like soda water in a lead crystal glass in comparison.

Provided you stick to basic hygeine rules, and your tap water is subject to decent processing by the water company, you've precious little to worry about. I wonder how many of the journalists working on that piece, getting all heated up about a risk that's probably in the less than 1 chance in a million incidence range, lit up cigarettes while tapping away at the keyboard?


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

If that were the case I think all those people who work in the aquarium trade would be pretty sick most of the time by now. I think you would be in far more danger from all the chemical additives in our food that they dont tell us about.

Have a look in [link=My Profile] http://www.fishprofiles.com/forums/member.aspx?id=1935[/link] for my tank info

Look here for my
Betta 11Gal Desktop & Placidity 5ft Community Tank Photos

Keith

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Compare it to handling raw chicken or any other meat and your chance of getting salmonella from a fish tank are pretty darn low. Barely worth mentioning. There are some illnesses you can get from your tank and washing your hands afterward is a good idea but the odds of getting something are so low most don't follow that. Despite lack of hand washing, sucking on gravel vacs with your mouth, and occasionally using cups, bowls, etc or spilling water on counters that will later contain food very few(1 in a few million?) actually get sick with anything. The tank water is definitely better than the well water at my mom's house and I'd probably drink it before I used our tapwater. I always get a really bad stomach ache if I drink the tapwater. Instead I use RO or distilled water in the tanks, for drinking, and most cooking.

The bacteria mentioned to be present in the tanks is "Salmonella" and belongs to the same class as that responsible for typhoid. Most of us are vaccinated against it in childhood and our bodies have immunity strong enough to resist this less potent type.
So cheer up and carry on with your fishy activities

Salmonella in its various forms is an almost omnipresent bacteria. Most things that you eat and drink will contain salmonella to some degree, and your chances of not ingesting salmonella at some stage during a typical week are almost nil.What is important is the strain of bacteria, (some are much more dangerous than others)and the amount of it present. Most food safety agencies only kick off when salmonella reaches a certain level.

Salmonella is the big bad wolf of the media, if you knew how much of it is out there, and how much you ingest regularly youd cease to worry about it fairly quickly.Your continued immunity to it actually depends on regular ingestion anyway.

There is a difference between a detectable level of salmonella and a harmful one.

If you wanted to worry about a disease transmittable from fish, id go for fish TB, I know a few people who have been very sick as a result of that particular infection. Thankfully its not particularly common.

Cals comment about keyboards made me giggle. I remember reading some health and safety reports a while back, and the bacterial results of you average office keyboard were amazing. Then there were the helpdesk earpieces, yechh!If you knew what I know, you'd never share a keyboard lol.Funny how most companies are a bit quiet about that...

Oh, just about anything that is regularly touched by human fingers is a potential vector for all kinds of microbes. Coins are a particular favourite - they've been implicated in the transmission of influenza viruses for years. Doesn't stop people handling money though.

Mind you, if the H5N1 influenza strain becomes a pandemic, you'll see an accompanying outbreak of people boiling their loose change.

Fish TB can be a problem, though as LHG has said, a rare one. Given the number of people who have TB shots for the human TB disease, which provides at least some protection against all members of the Genus Mycobacterium, it should not be an issue for those who are vaccinated, unless they are immunocompromised in some other way (HIV, use of drugs to prevent transplant rejection etc). One reason why the doctors prefer prevention to cure with these bacteria is because they are difficult to kill with antibiotics - penicillin and erythromycin don't work on TB, because the cell walls of Mycobacterium species contain a host of different cell wall proteins (this is also the reason why the Gram's stain test doesn't work with them - you need the Ziehl-Neelson test or a special flourescein test for them in a histology lab) and so the only anitbiotics that work against them are Streptomycin family antibiotics and oddities such as Isoniazid or Dapsone.

Incidentally, if you have a TB shot, it should - I emphasise should - provide some protection not only against fish TB (your antibodies will recognise the same cell wall protein family) but something else that's a real nasty from the Genus - Mycobacterium hanseni, better known as Leprosy. Which is just as well, because Leprosy bacteria are a PIG to culture in the lab.

Basic hygeine usually knocks the incidence of a lot of Mycobacterium species on the head though. Apart from the introduction of Streptomycin (which I have a special interest in because my brother was the first person in the UK to receive it for tuberculosis back in 1949) the establishment of decent levels of home hygeine in the Western world eradicated much of the source of infection of TB. Decent levels of aquarium hygeine should also keep fish TB at bay except for old and weakened fishes - again, prevention being better than cure because curing fish TB involves obtaining Isoniazid and Dapsone, which are pretty expensive, and only really an option for people who are trying to save a valuable breeding Discus or marine fish - a £40 course of Isoniazid to save a Zebra Danio costing 50p is laudable on humanitarian/ethical grounds, but few of us are in the position to bestow such largesse.


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

Hi,
The way most of the bacteria gets into the human body
transported by the hands or through breaks in the skin.
Changing water with a syphon is one thing, but doing a
massive overhaul or uprooting of plants and having your
hands in the resultant mess with open cuts is asking
for an infection that (rarely) could become serious.
SO, for precautions...
Wash your hands before eating, and if you have open
cuts, put off the aquarium maintenance till they heal.

Frank


-->>> The Confidence of Amateurs, is the Envy of Professionals <<<--

Ah, just as i thought. I get water in my mouth all of the time when starting the siphon and I am salmonela free.

clownloachfan, you are not the only one to taste the dirty water at each siphoning......
well, get an antibacterial mouthwash as a safety precaution and use it everytime u taste salmonella infested water

Oh yes ... I've had the odd mouthful of Panda Cory poo during a water change and gravel vac op ... doesn't seem to have done me any harm, but then I was toughened against Salmonella by spending three years of life as a student in Bradford, which is the curry capital of Europe.

Believe me, if you've spent three years experiencing the rich flora and fauna that emanate from a typical curry house in a student sector of town, you become immune to all manner of things


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002