Re: [Killietalk] Interconnected tanks; diseases

["Ken" <ken_combs at sbcglobal.net>]

...oh and I'd like to chime in on the disease thing...
I've had a few diseases spread amongst my tanks...but seemed every time, the
disease or whatever, always confined itself to very closely related
species...

For example: My chromaphysoemions were totally unfazed during one outbreak
of "gill disease"...and I also once had some type of internal parasite that
never outwardly bothered the fundolopanchax, or epiplatys...

I'm also of the opinion, a bigger concern is disease from new
arrivals...I've seen it where a new "Stressed" fish succumbed to diseases in
my tanks and visa-versa...my fish shortly died when exposed to someone
else's environment...I think fish local to your fishroom build up immunities
to local diseases; more or less

...and except for a few nematode/parasites/gill flukes, et...I'm also from
the school of thought, healthy fish with regular H2O changes are normally
pretty resistant

KC

-----Original Message-----
From: killietalk-bounces at aka_org [mailto:killietalk-bounces at aka_org] On
Behalf Of Miguel Figueiredo
Sent: Thursday, November 22, 2007 10:55 AM
To: killifish discussion list
Subject: [Killietalk] Interconnected tanks

Hello,

I'm studying a possible setup for several levels of small tanks,
interconnected.

The water would flow from the top, crossing several levels of tanks,
to the sump, where it would be pumped again to the top.

Benefits: to change the water easily, good oxygenation, a single
filter, and so on.

The most obvious problem are the diseases: they would spread to the
whole system.

Diseases are a concern but I'm much more worried about hybridization.

Spermatozoids adore water... even among human beings there are cases
of pregnancies occurring by sharing the same water medium where sperm
had been washed out or ejaculated.

What would happen on a system of interconnected tanks, where killies,
several times a day, produce sperm? I've heard that spermatozoids can
live days in water.

Changes of wrong egg fertilization might be small. Let's say changes
are 1:100 or even 1:1000... on such a system it is common to collect
100 eggs a week. After an year we might find a few unusual "mutations"
in our young fish. These "mutations" although wouldn't even show up in
females: in some genera, females are almost equal.

We would be corrupting a species, without knowing.

Is this really a danger? Are the chances of undesired fertilization
too low? What do you think?

My second idea was to have separate flows from the top to each tank
and then to the sump. Water returning to the top would cross an UV
light. This would also prevent some diseases but I not sure UVs make
good contraceptive choices. :)

I guess that the best option, when keeping species that can cross, is
to continue using separated tanks.


Miguel
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