The white scum on your fish is almost certainly from the chemicals used by
Sydney Water to treat our drinking water with, rather than from any parasite.
Personally I run all of my water through a reverse osmosis filter before
using it in my fish tanks to eliminate risk- and I think that considering
the cocktail of chemicals used in our water supply you'd have to be mad not
to at least treat your tap water with a product like Extra Power Water
Purifier or Chlormon.
The chlorine isn't the problem- it's simple to remove by aeration. The
chloramines, flourine, and heavy metals such as the alum they have been
dosing up on recently are much more of a danger.
It is just not worth taking the risk of what the water authorities may be
adding to the water- and remember that they very rarely notify us when they
begin adding different things to our water (anyone who was keeping fish in
Sydney about 15 years ago will remember that- those that were using one of
only about 3 high quality water purifiers did not lose fish- thousands of
others did.)
Starting with good quality water is the key to healthy fishkeeping.
Well, that's my lecture for today;-)
Regards,
Jennifer.
At 14:51 31/08/98 +0000, you wrote:
>Dear List,
> Does anybody know if the Sydney water crisis (flagellates and
>bacteria) would be harmful to fish. I did a water change on one tank
>just before the latest outbreak was announced and one of my fish has
>suddenly developed a white scum on its skin.
>
>Any thoughts.
>
>Matthew
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