Re:
tyrophagus said:
I work with antibiotics. My colleagues and I get the blame when diseases become resistant to antibiotics. Hobbyists treating their tanks to clear algae is the type of reason why they remain on prescription in the uk. Most people don't understand the ramifications of inappropriate use.
As a Biologist, I know the run down there, we address this in Microbiology class and I make a big deal over infectious diseases every year.
AIDS and waiting till we have a super cocktail so the damn thing does not gain resistance.........but save a few and extend lives a little bit today, or cure it 4 years from now?
Tough choice.
I have a nice exam question, "Name all the ways to make antibiotics ineffective?"
There are about 13 or so different answers, in the USA, we do all 13
They get credit for 6 or more right answers.
So where does all this water end up containing the antibiotics. In the sewer and then the local river or groundwater.
Well, environmental fate is always interesting, but bacteria can still break down most anything IME. EM does not last forever.
Endocrine disruptors are a lot more of interest to me and wreck a lot more havoc on aquatic ecosystems. These are far intense for small amounts added. EM etc, all these anti biotics heading into open systems loaded with.......what? Bacteria, they come into contact with. Does the EM just a keep on going and on on and on?
No........it's not going to do that, it will bond with substrates and get broken down.
Same with ED's, but not nearly as fast and they target higher trophic levels specifically.
In humans the erythromycin estolate salt has been implicated in causing cholestatic hepatitis. Probably not a problem if your arm gets wet with antibiotic water but hey it's your call.
I know that there are industries that abuse antibiotics in vast quantities, primarily making meat for us to eat. Just because others abuse antibiotics does NOT make it ok for us to do the same.
This is about risk, pure and simple. So what are the risk might I inquire?
What are the risk involved if 50-200 aquarist a year use this?
Give me some numbers.
In the large scale of things, simply me not suggesting a GFI circuit breaker would be irresponsible as well, that could be a made a rallying point if you want to discuss risk to the hobbyists and by this method I suggest, I am pragmatic about this, not draconian. Or the suggestion to do a water change, wastes water after all.........but we all do this type of stuff daily.
I prefer to know why the alga grows to begin with, then prevention works far better and requires no "cure". Some folks have not been able to fix the GDA any other way. This is a management tool for them. folks ALREADY do this for BGA, and I've long made the argument ot do a blackout + KNO3 dosing......but that method works.........GDA is much more pesky for many........BGA, unlike GDA, is something we can induce and know generally why it blooms in out aquariums. Until someone figures out why GDA blooms in the planted tank, we have limited tools and approaches.
Since we do not know what induced GDA, we lack the knowledge base to approach it that way.
As I stated initially, I do not have any issues with GDA, but I realize many folks hate it and cannot get rid of it for whatever unknown reason.
If you wanna carry that banner, bully for you, but I'm just not that hardcore about it, there are larger management issues there that are far more threatening(food supply, usage by patients). We could say there's a threat by our simply keeping aquarium fish that poses to the environment, and exposure to Hep C since the rational" Every little bit you can do to help" applies, why not just have no one keep plants or fish in the hobby???
Same with keeping these aquatic weeds, which hobbyist spread and often ends up in natural ecosystems.
there's a risk there too. I deal with that risk professionally.
We are more pragmatic and rationalize things a bit more, accept some risk........otherwise none of us would even be here discussing fish, plants etc...........
This poses a tiny tiny risk.