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Koi Herpes Virus


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#61 bigjohnnofish

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Posted 13 May 2016 - 01:58 AM

after talking to some well educated people inthe fish industry this afternoon - they know who they are - i can see another problem which perhaps is going to totally wipe out everything in the river system which is already under stress.... in a tank scenario - which i know is totally different to a pond and also different to larger waterways as a river -> but what happens when one fish dies in your tank - it pollutes the water at an alarming rate and then we know what happens if you dont catch it time - domino effect - you lose all the fish in the tank to pollution of dead fish.... now pond scenario is similar but takes more time for this to happen... same idea applied to a river system.... or is it - the murray river system is so polluted in areas already it wouldnt take much to tip water pollution over the edge with dead carp happening everywhere and it would snowball and kill all your natives as well... have a totally dead river system... wont have to worry that virus kills only 90% of infected carp as the rest will die from severe water pollution.... and i know its suggested dead carp will be removed as quickly as possible... but with an estimated 80% bio mass of carp in the river who the hell is going to be able to clean that many carp up all at once... not all dead fish float... some sink... some will be caught up in the numerous river snags that exist... imagine the stench and further disease/bacterial/fungal infections polluted water will contribute to.... it wouldnt be out of the question to see everything dead in the river not so long after releasing this virus... 

 

one other question perhaps syd might be able to help with... whats the sustainability of the virus once it hits salt water? assuming the virus will travel the length of the river and exist into the ocean eventually.... 

 

there doesnt seem to be any end point of this virus also... so it will be forever in the water.... if they could give the virus a life cycle or a half life then it will peter out in time and disappear and prob wouldnt be so daunting to everybody in the aquarium trade and aquaculture business...  

 

releasing this virus could well be a huge mistake that our kids will be able to see with advancement in science and technology in years to come... release date is in 2018 at this point but im sure theres going to be huge anger and concern directed towards the government departments involved...  the people releasing this virus have nothing financially to concern themselves with - they still get paid but could potentially destroy the incomes of a huge industry australia wide...  and when you start to mess with peoples livelihoods there will be trouble...



#62 sydad

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Posted 14 May 2016 - 04:26 PM

@ Johnno

 

Your question about the "sustainability" of the CyHV-3 virus in salt-water is meaningless. Bear in mind that cyprinid fishes in general, and certainly carp, are strictly fresh-water fishes. Taking this fact together with the fact that the virus has only a short infective life in any water, and the added fact that the virus is species specific (and there appears to have been a LOT of study on this topic), and ponderings about what happens to it in salt-water become of no relevence.

 

I think that I am repeating myself here, but no-one expects the virus to eliminate carp, but rather to reduce populations to non-problematic levels. And of course the virus will persist in surviving populations of carp that become individually immune. This fact will ensure that if populations increase excessively, then the stress factor will result in activation of the virus among non-immune populations. This will almost certainly occur long before current carp numbers are seen, and so an ongoing control mechanism is ensured.

 

One final point: yes, there will almost certainly be some pollution problems, but they are unlikely to be catastrophic. If you return to my earlier post about carp in flood-plain waters, there were vast numbers of carp dying as the waters dried up, and yes the stench was 'orrible locally, but the dead carp served to fertilise the low lying land, and I'm told that revegetation was spectacular. Nature has a way of balancing things, and seldom do we see the disastrous consequences predicted by some.

 

I'm over this discussion unless someone introduces some genuine facts that point towards logical reasons for continuing.

 

Syd.



#63 bigjohnnofish

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Posted 15 May 2016 - 01:08 AM

 and ponderings about what happens to it in salt-water become of no relevence.

 

 

 

unless of course the virus mutates in the un forseen future...  if this happens and things get radically out of control i guess we'll know about it... 

 

are there plans to release it anywhere other than in the murray river system? 



#64 sydad

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Posted 16 May 2016 - 12:31 AM

 

unless of course the virus mutates in the un forseen future...  if this happens and things get radically out of control i guess we'll know about it... 

 

are there plans to release it anywhere other than in the murray river system? 

 

 As indicated elsewhere in this thread, the virus in question is a DNA  virus that belongs to the herpes virus group. These viruses, particularly when species specific, are known to be relatively stable, inasmuch as they depend on their host genetic characteristics to replicate. So as long as the carp are carp, the virus is extremely unlikely to change in any significant way as a result of infecting them.

 

One other thing that may be relevant. The virus in question is a recent ( or relatively so) "discovery", , and, by all accounts, possesses an unusual size and structure. All papers I have accessed on this virus emphasize that it's phylogenetic origin is unknown, and being of a suspicious nature I am inclined to believe that it may be to some extent, a laboratory modification or construct, and if this is so, it may be even less likely to "mutate".

 

I have no knowledge of any proposed release other than in the MDB, but that does not maen that other areas are not being considered.

 

Syd.



#65 bigjohnnofish

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Posted 17 May 2016 - 01:55 AM

we did talk about vaccine against this virus - and i ended up finding this after following a few israeli sites - seeing they were the first to document the virus in 1998 i thought it was worth following up.... this may interest you syd :)

 

https://www.bard-isu...cal.aspx?fid=55



#66 Den

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Posted 05 June 2016 - 06:24 PM

Here's a quote from the article below; 

 

“It seems some marine scientists have decided to use the bleaching event to highlight their personal political beliefs and lobby for increased funding in an election year,”

 

http://www.theaustra...b12ab255256774b



#67 chrishaigh82

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Posted 05 June 2016 - 09:32 PM

I lived in the riverland, south australia for a decade on a water front block with our own jetty out into the murray river in renmark.  Sounds nice but property is cheap :) 
 
On any day we could throw a line in with or with out bait and be instantly snapped by carp which was great for my kids however really they have taken over.  When I would swim infront of our home it was muddy (from the carp) and you could feel them swarming under you as you swam.  An embarrassment was when one of our back waters was opened and a friend in the UK had it on his news of australians catching carp swarming with pitch forks.
 
75120.JPG
 
carp-in-Lake-Bonney.-Leigh-Thwaites.jpg   http://www.finterest...outh-australia/
 
2061171.jpg  http://www.seabreeze...getting-top-up/

 

 

I seriously hope this doesn't affect our aquaria fish however Murray has been killed not just by poor water management but by fish who stir up sediment and kill breeding opportunity for local fish.  They've spent 100's of millions installing breeding runs and swarming channels over the locks however the issue still remains the introduced species is out competing our murray cod and other locals.


Edited by chrishaigh82, 05 June 2016 - 09:35 PM.


#68 Westie

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Posted 05 June 2016 - 11:08 PM

Hey Renmark! I've been there. I couldn't believe how many rabbits come out at night as well. The Renmark hotel was good for a cheap feed too.

#69 chrishaigh82

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Posted 06 June 2016 - 11:07 AM

Hey Renmark! I've been there. I couldn't believe how many rabbits come out at night as well. The Renmark hotel was good for a cheap feed too.

 

You could eat out 7 days a week for a parmy and chips for under $10 :)  That may be a SA thing.  



#70 keleherr

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Posted 04 July 2016 - 11:56 PM

According to various media articles circulating, the virus can be spread by fish merely brushing past each other, and the virus can survive suspended in the water for several days without a host waiting to infect, so you are looking at your entire waterways filled with a fish herpes virus permanently! sounds so attractive, and what could possibly go wrong?

 

My problems with this proposed solution;

 

1. Firstly they admit it wont even work! they already know the fish will become resistant and their own studies show it wont eradicate them.

 

2. Various studies have shown(example link below) the disappearance of natives and the explosion of carp population is mainly due to human habit destruction, damns, water diversion, clearing, farming, mining, agriculture are the main causes of the problem, so they are not tackling the core of the problem.

 

3. Viruses can mutate - what long term studies can prove it wont mutate in 10 to 50 years to attack other fish or other animals, birds, people? When it reaches its peak saturation and you have virus rich waters, and reduced number of carp hosts, can a mutation jump to new hosts? Did you ever hear of swine flu or bird flu? viruses jumping hosts is not a new thing, maybe our government is jealous of these other countries having dangerous viruses skipping from animals to people, I guess a new fish flu epidemic could put us Aussies on the map!

 

4. Viruses can lay dormant without effecting a host and activate at any time to cause problems in the future - what study can guarantee its safety with humans and other species over long term?

 

5. Various viruses have been linked to cancers, this is still a fairly new discovery to science so we should not be messing with viruses while we still know bugger all about them.

 

There is no possible way they can have a study that guarantee's its safety 100%, I think there will be a strong movement against this virus release once people understand the risks and the fact its a plan that seems set for failure.

 

http://www.pestsmart...s_of_Carpv1.pdf

This isn’t a stab at you den, wheeled and dealed with you in the past and think you’re a good bloke, you have just summed up all the against arguments.

 

1. Mature individuals yes but their offspring will continue to be hit on the head. It won’t remove them but will lower numbers enough to make a difference.

 

2. 100% agree with you there but the high number of carp will make it impossible for any remediation to be effective.

 

3/4. The virus has persisted globally for around 30 years, replicated trillions upon trillions of times yet has not mutated enough to affect any other species of animal around the globe, even its closest relatives like the goldfish.  Isn’t that proof/study enough it won’t jump species, to salt water or order?

CyHV-3 also becomes dormant at 28 °C and completely shuts down at 30 °C. The human body temp it 37 °C so its proteins would likely disassociate at that temp. For it to survive within a warm blooded animal it would need a completely new set of genes and a whole new structure which is not possible by mutation alone. In the 30 years or so it has persisted people have still eaten carp carrying the virus and it still hasn’t become zoonotic.

 

3. Swine and bird flu are a completely different kettle of fish. Influenza is RNA based and there are tons of strains because of its ability to reassort its self and with other strains. They are essentially all the same thing influenza A, with different  cell surface antigens / proteins on the surface - hemagglutinin and neuraminidase. There 18 types of hemagglutinin and 11 neuraminidase giving you close to 200 combinations then each one of these combinations can have a variety of strains with different pathogenic profiles which all have the ability to chop and change with each other.

 

5. Cancer is a bunch of cells that have had their genes that regulate replication screwed with. Viruses have to be extremely specific to do this, in short they need the right genes and sequences to insert the right bit of code in the right place, CyHV-3 doesn’t have any of these and it can’t persist in the human body. 

 

At the risk of sounding like a knob but to prove I'm not talking out my ass my background is BSc Molecular Biology, BSc Biomedical science and work in freshwater fish research.

 

 

Syd your living in a fantasy world if you don't believe money and your employers objectives doesn't effect the science. If your getting paid to prove a certain theory that's what you will work on, if you go off on a tangent you will risk being fired, money can direct science, its a pretty simple fact of life that everyone knows, doesnt matter which job you are in, you do what your boss wants, science is no different.

 

Anyway I hope somehow we can stop this from happening, science already tells us in 10 years time we will still have the same carp problem, but it will be with virus infected carp, so its a complete waste of time and money.

In “research” you don’t just get money or get told to prove/disprove something you have to have an idea/theory/belief, make a proposal then apply for funding. Technicians just gather the data and might not care about the outcome but people leading the project/working together on something generally have common ground. People don't just get paid and told what to do they generally believe it but is science flawed/corrupt(money wise)? Yes but so is politics, religion, corporate, charities and everything else. Not saying it makes it right it’s just the way the world is.



#71 Buccal

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Posted 05 July 2016 - 02:44 AM

You make some good points,,, but I certainly still don't want it here.

#72 Delapool

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Posted 05 July 2016 - 08:08 AM

From memory there was an anti-viral remedy? If not, is there anything that could be used?

I see temperature was mentioned above and was curious. Recently I have seen melafix and metronidazole marketed/mentioned as having anti-viral properties but very little hard information. Sorry, as a little off-topic.

#73 Den

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Posted 09 July 2016 - 01:02 AM

This isn’t a stab at you den, wheeled and dealed with you in the past and think you’re a good bloke, you have just summed up all the against arguments.

 

1. Mature individuals yes but their offspring will continue to be hit on the head. It won’t remove them but will lower numbers enough to make a difference.

 

2. 100% agree with you there but the high number of carp will make it impossible for any remediation to be effective.

 

3/4. The virus has persisted globally for around 30 years, replicated trillions upon trillions of times yet has not mutated enough to affect any other species of animal around the globe, even its closest relatives like the goldfish.  Isn’t that proof/study enough it won’t jump species, to salt water or order?

CyHV-3 also becomes dormant at 28 °C and completely shuts down at 30 °C. The human body temp it 37 °C so its proteins would likely disassociate at that temp. For it to survive within a warm blooded animal it would need a completely new set of genes and a whole new structure which is not possible by mutation alone. In the 30 years or so it has persisted people have still eaten carp carrying the virus and it still hasn’t become zoonotic.

 

3. Swine and bird flu are a completely different kettle of fish. Influenza is RNA based and there are tons of strains because of its ability to reassort its self and with other strains. They are essentially all the same thing influenza A, with different  cell surface antigens / proteins on the surface - hemagglutinin and neuraminidase. There 18 types of hemagglutinin and 11 neuraminidase giving you close to 200 combinations then each one of these combinations can have a variety of strains with different pathogenic profiles which all have the ability to chop and change with each other.

 

5. Cancer is a bunch of cells that have had their genes that regulate replication screwed with. Viruses have to be extremely specific to do this, in short they need the right genes and sequences to insert the right bit of code in the right place, CyHV-3 doesn’t have any of these and it can’t persist in the human body. 

 

 

No offense James, Im not sure if you are disagreeing with me? because what you wrote supports most of my points;

 

1. What you said basically affirms what I said, it wont eradicate them, your making a guess that the numbers will remain impacted over time, but some scientists are arguing that you will remove the young carp which have become an important food source for some natives and by just leaving adult carp you could make the problem even worse for native fish. So even if you lower carp numbers this way you could decimate whats left of some native species, not just my opinion, there are scientists out there saying the same thing.

 

2. No point removing carp if your still going to allow chemicals and livestock destroy the waterways, natives cant recover in damaged waterways with or without carp present.

 

3. With your credentials I dont have to tell you that 30 years is a tiny window for an evolution study, and how many people are seriously looking at it? and look at those temp ranges, you will be looking at a stinking, rotting, polluted river nightmare every year or so, as numbers build up, with massive die offs as seasonal temps fluctuate, that could be super expensive to clean up every year and also completely ruin the rivers for people and all the native fish, its not just me thinking this, I have heard chatter about this by concerned scientists in the media.

 

4. There is a heap of herpes viruses being found lately, I just heard 2 new reports lately, one about sea turtles with a herpes strain, I dont want another herpes strain released here in our water thanks.

 

Cheers
Den :)


Edited by Den, 09 July 2016 - 01:07 AM.


#74 Buccal

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Posted 10 July 2016 - 06:02 AM

Why do authorities take gambles and risks like this, and brand themselves as the only ones that can possibly know best because they are in the field or are in some way a scienctist and studied it.
Nearly all the garbage are hypothesis's which are educated guesses done by knowledgable in the fields,, what gives them the right to risk our hobbies and environments and thinking it's ok to do so, because they have furthered knowledge than the general population.
When I see, and just like the fancy jargon used as some is in this thread attached with furthered knowledge, it's all educated guessing still,,, even though mini tests have taken place, it doesn't make it so, and still at great risk,,, we all know oz authorities does give two shizzzes about the ornamental industry in oz,,,,, look at the mentality of the greyhound sport control,,, get, 10-15% people doing the wrong thing,,, no one can be bothered governing, so just put a end to it,,, typical oz,, everyone is so strung out by cost of living versus income, everyone now only looks after themselves.

The statements that Den had made are cold hard facts of the scientists can't possibly determine the outcome or we'd have them signing contracts before they started treatment. No way they'd do that lol, I think we all know why. Lol.
People that truly enjoy the love of life, have a love for the admiration and passion of natures gifts and our domesticated natures gifts,,,,,,,,
Increasing forever is a lack of understanding by authorities that don't have any idea about living lovely lives full of admiration and passion for living domesticated pets,,, these people only care about profit, greed and big noting themselves in the corporate world,,,,,,,,,,,,, these people will slowly take away what we have, the very things that gives us all reason to smile everyday for, and be happy in life, the proper way...... Just look at the faces of the people that effect us like this, and you'll stew hard.

Profit and cost cutting is going to be a very big thing in the coming years of oz,, this means they'll always take the cheapest easiest way out that does not favor any hobbiest, absolutely disgusting when the trade contributes to oz, tax, trade and all the bills associated, then it gets booted in the bum when it comes to "decisions for the fishos".

Where's the mass amounts of herring and tailor that use to be in our waters ??,, if there was a introduced species at the same time,, would they be blaming that ????
Human activity has destroyed the lands and waters to a degree,, there's a good reason why our native stocks have depleted,, pollution and ecosystem disruption from overfishing causing imbalances,,, it's now a new landscape for our fishes to re-adapt to, while some will do better some will do worse.
Where the prawns in the swan river go ?? Again environmental.

We have changed the landscape and ecosystems balances that much with intense all kinds off pressures,, that the only thing that can long term comfortably survive is carp,,, the ecosystems has re-adapted to this, and yes species may become lost or endangered for it, but it's 2016 and it's already the future we have already damaged it all,,, I'm not saying do nothing,,, but don't make these drastic changes that disrupts everything and saying we have to do this before its to late,,,, lol, it's 2016, how long have we been disregarding the life around us,,, I'm not going to support all this government control garbage while they are still ripping out bush land that takes homes away the black parrots homes,, seeing their numbers drop with the rest of the bush life.
Corporate greed ruins everything,,, we/us have to pay for it after they been, damaged and gone...... With hurt and cost...

Edited by Buccal, 10 July 2016 - 06:10 AM.


#75 malawiman85

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Posted 10 July 2016 - 01:28 PM

"...everyone now only looks after themselves."

Like guys that own expensive koi arguing against the use of the virus... thats stuffing hilarious!

Edited by malawiman85, 10 July 2016 - 01:29 PM.


#76 malawiman85

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Posted 10 July 2016 - 01:43 PM

"The statements that Den had made are cold hard facts of the scientists can't possibly determine the outcome or we'd have them signing contracts before they started treatment."

No they're not cold hard facts. What qualifies you to determine the facts as cold and hard?

Scientists signing contracts...
Thats dumb! Im sure the advice I offer as a consultant is right but I still have professional indemnity insurance in case shit goes to shit.
How bout you Buccal, you're a professional, you got insurance in case you fairy up, or are you covered by your clients insurance? How can any professional guarantee anything? All care and no responsibility taken - every tradies favourite saying, right?

#77 Buccal

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Posted 10 July 2016 - 08:02 PM

Well we are talking nature here, and messing it up,,, the human error is much more catastrophic on our water ways compared to something that happens on site,,,, sure rehabilitate shore lines and the rest of the stuff they do,,, but I'll never agree to releasing viruses like that. Especially being a lover of koi,, it may be hard to make its way into ornamental koi,, but once it does/if it gets in, it's finished.

FYI, a building indemnity insurance is always covered by the client which covers things going wrong with house after handover and lead up to,,,,, I have a personal public liability insurance..... I'm 41 and been a carpenter since I left school,,, havnt stuffed up one thing to date, since I've been a tradesman.

#78 Den

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Posted 10 July 2016 - 10:08 PM

The thing that should scare people the most is that as water temps fluctuate your going to get carp breeding in mass numbers with seasonal mass die offs every year or so, some scientists have already been talking about this, this is not only going to be an ongoing expense, you also have to calculate how that decaying pollution is going to effect native fish and other animals species and people too.



#79 bigjohnnofish

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Posted 13 July 2016 - 01:58 AM

never even thought about that but now you pointed it out thats gonna be water pollution basically hitting all at once and in big volume... no thank you... think there is more than enough evidence and theory to abort this koi pox :)



#80 Buccal

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Posted 13 July 2016 - 03:08 AM

Yes,,, a poxy idea. Lol.




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