IMPORTANT STUDY - PLEASE READ - Relationship Between Activated Carbon & HLLE

[Spartan]

I'll be honest and say that I've been skeptical of the carbon cause. Ive always thought it was viral. But seeing this does make me wonder, and I might have to eat my words from another recent thread. This type of experiment is so empiric though, you still have to hesitate to accept it as complete proof. I think that for next experiment you'd want to try introducing an acutely ill HLLE fish into a non carbon system of fish and see if any of the others developed the illness. I'm not sure how they controlled for preexisting illness other than deliberately trying not to prevent cross contamination. It's also too bad they didn't do any tissue testing. I also wonder what the microscopy actually showed, but that will probably be inthe journal article itself.
But for now it does give pause to adding carbon.

 

[tmz]

I think the level of dust from the unrinsed lignite is atypical for gac use. Since gac attracts organics, I think any dust in the slime coat could feed some microbe(s) that might be the actual cause.
I deicided to keep running rox 8( nearly dust free) after I first read the study. My fish are still HHLE free.

 

[Gary Majchrzak]

I've seen multiple cases firsthand where HLLE is attributable to carbon fines