FEEDING RAW SHRIMP
Feeding raw shrimp, like the feeding of ANY raw or live foods,  is not recommended due to the possibility of there being pathogens.
 
 

For a long time, formaldehyde has been one of the chemicals used on fishing and shrimping boats to knock down pathogens and preserve the fish and shrimp until the boats could get into shore, especially in hot weather when contamination of sea food with pathogens is more likely to occur.  Merck has published the technique for determining formaldehyde concentration in fish products.  It is possible that residual formaldehyde occurs in farmed food fish as formaldehyde is (according to Noga as of 1996) an approved treatment for food fish (much like we do in our tanks).  I do not know if it is used in farmed shrimp operations.

Jo Ann was given this information by "shrimpers" she knows.  "If the shrimp tastes like iodine, dont eat it cause those guys who are out shrimping for a week at a time use powdered formaldehyde (Formaldehyde sodium bisulfite?) on their catch to keep it from going bad."

Formaldehyde is COH2  or methanal.  It is a very simple but reactive molecule, a lot like oxygen radicals.

By comparison, the typical fish food most everyone feeds fish (including fish farmers) is heat processed to destroy pathogens.  Raw fresh seafood of any kind is not recommended for Goldfish.  Raw fresh, frozen or freeze dried food is not recommended because it does not kill the pathogens.  That includes blood worms and tubifex.

Seafood poisoning    "WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- Seafood is the biggest cause of food
poisoning in the United States, having caused 237 outbreaks since 1990,  a consumer group said on Monday. "

SUSHI "from a safety stand point, sushi isn't always so good. Raw fish and seafood can be dangerous causing diseases like hepatitis and harboring all sorts of organisms such as parasites that can cause intestinal problems."

Undercooked seafood   "But at least professional chefs can tell a good cut of fish from a bad one. That isn't necessarily true of grocery clerks, Internet employees and other food handlers who are also selling more and more sushi and raw fish to the public. Adding to the worries is the fact that the fish industry is  widely viewed as poorly regulated. While the U.S. Food and Drug Administration established broad seafood safety guidelines in 1997 for food handlers, a government report last month found that half of those surveyed are ignoring the recommendations. That's bad news considering that New York, which has one of the country's most active monitoring
programs, reports fish recalls jumped 45% from 1997 to 2000."
 
 

ROMET B AND ANTIBIOTIC RESISTANCE
http://biology.usgs.gov/news/97-009.htm means if your salmon have aeromonas, there is a 50% chance Romet B wont do them any good.

However, salmonida is RARELY seen in Goldfish, whereas sobria,  hydrophila and jandaei are.  Upping the temperature to 84oF kills aeromonas (one reason Jo Ann suggests increasing the temp), EXCEPT with jandaei, which is heat activated.  The good news is jandaei has not yet been isolated from Chinese goldfish and koi.  It has been found (rarely) in Japanese koi.  So part of quarantine for Japanese fish is running the temp up to see if they get sick under controlled conditions and then treating them if they show signs of aeromonas infection.

ACTUALLY, "salmonicida is frequently resistant to multiple drugs including sulphonamides, tetracycline, amoxicillin, trimethoprim- sulfadimethoxine and quinolones (3_7)"
Oxolinic acid is a quinolone
Kanamycin is a animoglycoside (like Streptomycin)

For a discussion of the mechanisms of antibiotic resistance, go here.

Antibiotics do not kill every single last bacteria, they kill most and weaken the rest so that the host's immune system kills the rest.  Do not count on the antibiotic to kill off every bacteria.  The immune system of the fish (or human) is REQUIRED to overcome bacterial infections.  So providing pristine water conditions and good food are essential for fighting infections.
 

JO ANN and INGRID ARE THE SAME PERSON
NO.. we aren't.  Jo Ann is THE GOLDFISH GURU.  She is the one imports and sells fancy Goldfish.  I  teach interdisciplinary science at Marquette University (that is how I ended up in the physics dept.) I dont import fish, sell fish, sell food or even get a cut of Jo Ann's "take".  Sniff.  As anybody been to my home will testify, I dont get free fish either.  My tanks are not full of Jo Ann's beautiful fish.  I CANT AFFORD THEM!!!
 
 

DROPSY IS ALWAYS FATAL!!
In the past, this was true.  Until Jo Ann, The Goldfish Guru developed a treatment.  It is not enough to say "dropsy is not a disease, it is caused by X, Y, Z" like that somehow means it cannot be treated and just let the fish die.
IT CAN BE TREATED AND CURED!!!

Here is a picture of a fish that has dropsy.  It doesn't have "a little" dropsy, it is very dropsied and has blisters. It was treated and cured and the scales did not come down on the fish for about 10 days.  The fish was kept in treatment for about a month.  A COMPLETE discussion of causes and treatment is here.

For the life of me, I cannot understand why people continue to repeat the myth that "DROPSY IS ALWAYS FATAL" when there is a treatment that has worked for many, many people. It wont cure 100% of dropsied fish.  But the earlier and more aggressively the dropsy is treated, the better the outlook for a complete cure.  At the very least dropsy is NO LONGER 100% FATAL.

PUREGOLD IS A PUBLIC LIST
Puregold is not a public list.  It is private, started by me (Ingrid) Sunday, May 17 1998.
It is not hosted by Marquette University where I work.  I do pay the costs of the list, altho I consider the costs to be a pittance.   The list is NOT moderated.  That is, messages do not come to me for approval before going to the list.  I am the list manager and approve or disapprove requests for subscription.  As list manager, I also decide if topics are getting too far off topic, taking up too much bandwidth, and I enforce a no flame/no hostility policy.  There is a link to the list policies on the sub page for those who care to view them.