Dan H Posted July 8, 2015 Share Posted July 8, 2015 http://www.takepart.com/article/2015/07/08/plastic-bags-are-killing-fish-not-way-you-might-think?cmpid=tp-fb So if the bags are bad, how to transport fish? And wouldn't aquaculture fish be just as at risk as they are almost certainly in bags too. Perhaps not as long? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emu1sive Posted July 8, 2015 Share Posted July 8, 2015 163 ppbillion. If you read closely especially this paragraph: "edeath rates, as well as the speed of mortality, varied according to which companies manufactured the bag. Sixty percent of the fish stored in one manufacturers bags routinely died in less than 48 hours." It is written to give the impression that the cause is the bags however the author was careful to not state anything specific. Correlation does not equal causation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LarryD Posted July 9, 2015 Share Posted July 9, 2015 My guess is that the aquacultured stuff does not stay in the bag long enough, I don't like how the author does not really cite anything. I mean he mentions the journal that the paper is printed but not the issue or anything and then he talks about the director of the haereticus Enviromental laboratory it is for something not really pertaining to the science being discussed. This guy would have failed one of my classes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emu1sive Posted July 9, 2015 Share Posted July 9, 2015 I just read the study and they include graphs of mortality rate vs days and mortality rate vs concentrations however NO CONTROL GROUP Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emu1sive Posted July 9, 2015 Share Posted July 9, 2015 Any college professor or high school teacher would slap an F on that study. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emu1sive Posted July 9, 2015 Share Posted July 9, 2015 Hahaha thank you Larry!!! What do you teach? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LarryD Posted July 9, 2015 Share Posted July 9, 2015 I always hate articles like this, they take something and drum it up a bunch but don't back it up. While I am not saying it is not possible that the bags are playing a factor in some of the deaths I feel that without a more thorough study it would be impossible to differentiate between deaths caused by the bag and deaths caused by other factors like stress. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LarryD Posted July 9, 2015 Share Posted July 9, 2015 Hahaha thank you Larry!!! What do you teach? I once taught at some engineering camps but I was referring to classes I took, proper and thorough citation was a huge part of the technical writing I had to do in school. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bogdan Posted July 9, 2015 Share Posted July 9, 2015 My guess is that the aquacultured stuff does not stay in the bag long enough, I don't like how the author does not really cite anything. I mean he mentions the journal that the paper is printed but not the issue or anything and then he talks about the director of the haereticus Enviromental laboratory it is for something not really pertaining to the science being discussed. This guy would have failed one of my classes. Dear Teacher, Please keep up with the advances in "on line" publishing. If you "point and click" on the journal mentioned in text it will take you directly to the article. For that reason old fasioned references are not necessary anymore. I wouldn't consider you to be my student Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reburn Posted July 9, 2015 Share Posted July 9, 2015 This article smacks of "the aquarium trade is evil". The article says in gist, platsic bags bad, some manufactures are better then others. The aquarium trade should push for alternatives even though there is no other alternative. We should develop one. Oh by the way there are millions of plastic bags in the oceans. These may be unsafe too, were not sure. The author has proven his ability to recite anything he reads poorly but has displayed 0 critical thinking abilities. The science is bad. What is the control? Where did they get the fish? How long were they alive prior to rebagging? Where the fish WC or "cultured" as they say? Did they transport all cultured fish in glass back to their stress free aquarium? How many fish did they use for this study? What was the manufacturer of the bags? Are they bags commonly used in the industry? Are the bags tied off? Were they bagged with pure oxygen? Did they test the pollutant levels prior to and after the test? What were the ammonia levels in the bags? Did they have a necropsy done on the fish to determine cause of death? Did they have a veterinarian on staff? Yes I clicked 3 times to get to the study that is in a book that hasn't even been published yet. However you can buy into the propaganda for $42 and read the article. Again the scienece is bad. Maybe there is something there maybe there isn't. A full study with an untainted control group would be needed for a correct experiment and study. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan H Posted July 9, 2015 Author Share Posted July 9, 2015 I glad to see everyone is pretty much on the FAIL boat here. Interesting to note the author writes for Scientific American. That's kinda scary. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bogdan Posted July 9, 2015 Share Posted July 9, 2015 Didn't know we have researchers publishing in scientific journals. Please find attached as a pdf this "poor science" article. Would love to read some of yours science papers nonylphenol.pdf Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan H Posted July 9, 2015 Author Share Posted July 9, 2015 Soooooo..... Bags are bad. Or at least certain bags made by certain manufacturers... Thanks for the document Bogdan! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bogdan Posted July 9, 2015 Share Posted July 9, 2015 No problem, sorry for the little sarcastic tone but I am a paranoid toxicologist. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ShawnKoto Posted July 9, 2015 Share Posted July 9, 2015 Yeah, looks like certain bags are bad. The Takepart article is pretty dramatic at times like when he gets into "miniature death traps." But he does calm down later in the article and say that certain bags are way worse. Regardless if the Takepart author is a little ridiculous, The Chemosphere study seems legit and pretty damning for that specific PE2 bag who we will never know the manufacturer of. ... Other ones... Not so much. "FDA food-grade polyethylene bags from a different manufacturer than the PE2 bags, showed no significant mortality and significantly less aquatic NP than the PE2 bags." Next time I go to AquaDome I will ask Hunter if his bags or the bags oh his fish suppliers leak significant NP into sea water... He will have no idea just like everyone else, throw the fish in a bag like always, and I will be a happy camper. Now, if I was a supplier I would be really interested in getting my bags tested. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Timfish Posted July 9, 2015 Share Posted July 9, 2015 Read a study a few years ago that gave a pretty horrible picture of how microscopic plastic particles from our washers was killing off microbial life in aquatic ecosystems but i don't hear about anybody critisizing all those who use them. That plastics leach endocrine disrupters has been known for decades. Can we make a better plastic bag? Yes and we should but it probably means more expensive bags and economics still rules. Totally ignored is the aquarium trade gives many of the island nations around the world with few naturals resources a means to sustainably boost their economy instead of living on subsistance fishing and having to use live rock and corals, aka limestone. harvested from reefs as a source of building material. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neon Reefer Posted July 9, 2015 Share Posted July 9, 2015 "This study highlights that some plastics, labeled as food-safe, can be highly toxic to aquatic animals" Makes me wonder about the food grade plastic buckets we use to store water in and the other many uses we find in our aquaria. Taken from the abstract on : 2Migration of nonylphenol from food-grade plastic is toxic to the coral reef fish species Pseudochromis fridmani Heather J. Hamlin a, Kathleen Marciano a, Craig A. Downs b,⇑ a Aquaculture Research Institute, School of Marine Sciences, University of Maine, Orono, ME 04469, USA b Haereticus Environmental Laboratory, PO BOX 92, Clifford, VA 24533, USA h i015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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