Preventing Secondary Infection

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Trouser Cough

Aimara
MFK Member
Nov 7, 2022
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My guess is that most of the posters here have multiple tanks and I'm in that same boat. I've looked at the nets I dip in one tank and then another and have several times thought that those things are the perfect pathogen vector.

Do any of you regularly sanitize your nets and if so, how?
 
For certain bacterial diseases, such as Columnaris, once I've used things like nets, tubing, or whatever on that tank, they are never used on another, unless they are totally sanitized in a bleach solution.
And if the fish in a Columnaris tank kick the bucket, I sanitize the entire tank and everything that touched its water, with bleach (including substrate and filter media).
I know this might seem a bit too anal, but some of these bacterial disease are quite resilient, and can sit inert, in a dry smudge of mud for months.
I'm not quite as anal when it comes to simple diseases like ick that are easily cured, but others I get serious about because they can infect an entire fish room.
 
I keep my smaller nets sitting in a bucket of weak betadine solution, which I change about weekly. This was SOP at a fish store I worked at when I was a kid, although I am pretty sure it was bleach back then. Until recently I took the net out of the bucket, flicked off the excess moisture and then went to work with it. Having recently installed a small laundry tub in my basement, I now quickly rinse the net off to remove all betadine residue, but I know that's not necessary.

I've always got a couple of larger landing nets as well; they usually are carefully dried out between uses, easy to do since I don't have a lot of big fish. Back when I did, I would use the betadine solution but in one of those long, wide and shallow plastic storage bins intended to slide under a bed. A couple inches of solution would cover the whole net, but would only use up a few gallons of solution.

All my outdoor ponds and tanks have their own dedicated nets, so they don't get disinfected, just kept separately by each pond.

A warning: one of my friends bought, on my recommendation, one of those terrific rubber-coated landing nets that are very easy on fish scales and slime. He forgetfully left the almost-new net soaking in bleach solution overnight...and the next day it was a brittle, deteriorating mass that fell apart practically under its own weight. Don't know if that's still a concern (this happened years ago) but I have carefully avoided exposing that type of net to chemicals since then.
 
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About how weak we talking here?

It's far from an exact measurement; I use about a half cup per gallon of water, or maybe a touch stronger. Some backpackers even use this stuff to disinfect water from "feral" sources to make it safe for drinking; that dosage is 4 drops per litre, and it tastes horrible. It's an iodine compound, so...

It's quite possibly about as effective for its intended purpose as some of the goofy snake oil treatments like Melafix; i.e. utterly useless, but makes the aquarist feel like he's done something worthwhile. :)
 
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