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Definitely - I meant that even if the amount of uv emitted dropped by 50% after a year, it would still be a lot for a tank that size. I hadn’t checked pricing for replacement bulbs but was pleased how cheap they are.
I’ve heard that after a year it’s a good idea to replace as the uv will drop. That said - 36 watts is so overkill that I might give it a while longer. It’s $22 for 2 replacement tubes though, so not too bad.
I had wondered / worried about that. My plants seem fine, a year in, and I add fertilizer every couple of weeks (very lean). That said, I’m not growing anything too fancy - just a lot of anubias and a few buce and some rotala.
Could be true (dependency on UV) but who knows. What is definitely true is that the only way to actually ID fish TB is an autopsy with culture based test, i.e. totally impractical. PCR testing of environmental samples is too sensitive, i.e. you get a lot of false positives as these bugs are...
Wanted to share an update on my experiment in extreme UV. I was struggling with a high degree of unexplained fish mortality in my 60 gallon. I’d lost a pair of cacatuoides, and then a pair of borellii, each over the course of 6-12 months. The Borellii had spawned and all but one of the fry...
Agree - I probably should have said "the state of fish medicine available to the hobbyist is not great". The goal for most of us should be to avoid the illness in the first place. But in the case of mycobacterium, even multi-million dollar facilities (e.g. Zebrafish R&D) have not been able to...
Other than Ich, for which the meds pretty clearly work, I have never been able to cure anything with any other approach than big water changes. The state of fish medicine is not very advanced.
Looking at journal articles - seems like 30-80% of ornamental fish tested carry mycobacterium (microbiology test). I’m sure there’s quite a bit of variation between the strains and outcomes in your tank but my takeaway is that you can’t avoid it entirely.
Hi Mac, thanks for the thoughts. I think I will send a fish for autopsy next time if I can find someone who does this. It’s a pretty involved procedure - they have to culture the bacterium on agar and test for staining. For now I’m hoping that Diane Walstad is correct and running a UV 24/7...
I’ve had a disappointing run as well, Don. My first apistos were LFS store bought as adults and line bred orange flash, ie they very well could have died of “old age” but my second pair were juvenile borellii pantanal (ie should be closer to WT) from a good source. The male made it 6 months, the...
Well that is a bummer to hear. On the other hand, all of my fish have eventually died! I do know that darkened head pigmentation can be associated with mycobacterial infection, which I have had concerns about in the past. What was the correlation in timing between appearance of the coloration...