[RML] Mycobacteria/Disinfecting Tanks

blueredorganic (blueredorganic at yahoo.com)
Sun, 19 Jun 2005 11:47:11 -0000

Thanks Peter for the link. It had some useful tidbits.
There was lots of talk about disinfecting tanks, gravel, etc with
chlorox, ethanol, and other chemicals.

However, all Mycobacteria are quite heat sensitive. One scientific
study (Appl. Envir. Microbiol. Vol. 58: pp 1869-1873. 1992. "Heat
Susceptibility of Aquatic Mycobacteria") shows that 90% of M. marinum
are killed within 1 min at 60C. M. fortuitum, which is more heat-
resistant, takes 4 minutes at 60C.

Since Mycobacteria don't produce spores, you can easily kill them
with hot water (akin to "milk pasteurization" to kill the
Mycobacteria that cause human tuberculosis).

So I sterilize filter material with very hot water.

I would like to update my article in a month or two with more
information and scientific references. The egg sterilization thingy
needs some more investigation. :-)

Diana

--- In r_m_l at yahoogroups.com, Peter Unmack <peter.lists at u...> wrote:
> G'day folks
>
> I just happened to see this one while browsing around the ANGFA vic
page.
> http://users.bigpond.net.au/paul.byham/angfavic/vicnews.htm The
most
> recent newsletter has a detailed article on TB that looks pretty
good. I
> presume the first part of the article is contained in the previous
> newsletter, but I didn't check.
>
> Cheers
> Peter