UsernameObscured t1_izf6cpv wrote on December 8, 2022 at 5:41 PM

Aquatic species definitely have their own issues. Even looking at a small subset like aquariums, one sick fish can wipe the entire thing out. Unfortunately, though, any medications we can use in that hobby tend to be broad spectrum, and many of the diseases are also poorly understood. There are a few that if your tank gets it, best nuke the whole thing from orbit, because you’re not getting rid of it easily.

These diseases do exist in the wild as well, obviously- but aquariums are an easily visible example.

buckaroob88 t1_izgcza9 wrote on December 8, 2022 at 10:20 PM

Especially with salt water tanks. Maybe not as much recently with people breeding fish and growing corals in captivity, but it used to be everything came from the ocean so bringing in new diseases were always a threat.

yea_nah448 t1_izgzfhj wrote on December 9, 2022 at 1:05 AM

That's quite interesting, the biggest struggle I've had while keeping saltwater fish/tanks is the introduction of pests or undesired organisms. I've found they are carried in anything from live rock to coral itself and even pre-mixed salt water.

I've had considerably fewer problems with disease in my saltwater tanks than freshwater and had attributed it to the salinity of the water being a harsher/more hostile environment for parasites, fungal and bacterial infections to propagate and take hold of another organism.

That said, all my corals and fish are captive bred/grown which would likely contribute to the lower frequence of disease in my anecdotal experience.

EmilyU1F984 t1_izi5r6r wrote on December 9, 2022 at 7:32 AM

It depends. A salt water tank away from the ocean is very unlikely to find accidental contamination from you, your home, etc that‘s compatible with it.

Cause it would be fresh water species you‘d be introducing through unwashed hands etc.

But: it used to be that virtually anything to do with salt water tanks was wild caught/collected. So any time you bought a new thing for your tank, there was a massive risk of contamination.

While fresh water stuff was usually bred in captivity, with much more focus on keeping the tanks clean. Don‘t want your breeding fish/shrimp etc to just die.

So new fish were likely far removed from the wild, and only carrying the more common parasites of captivity.

Rather than introducing lethal bacteria etc that were freshly picked up from the sea.

Since there‘s also much more salt water breeding now, the risk has kinda gone down.

Plus massive operations can test for viral/bacterial DNA in their tanks and quarantine stuff.

But it you were to just take water from a random pond or a random tide pool, the risk of introducing something bad would be about the same on average.

But any random fresh water bacteria/viruses etc likely wouldn‘t survive the halinity of a salt water tank. So a ‚seperated from sea‘ salt water tank would be harder to accidentally contaminate by using say rain water from your backyard tank.