Dr Fairfield responded, "Those are the two main problems that I am aware of also, but one must realize that water is the common carrier of all the diseases on the planet, so it is not out of the question that we could conceivably contract any number of diseases from our aquariums or when out collecting."

He further observed that we are at much greater risk of catching illnesses from our dogs, cats and birds. He welcomed the idea of considering the possibility of zoonotic illnesses at that round table, which will be now ... 25 days away. He also noted that the gentleman who will share a roundtable forum with him, Dave Franco, might be interested in throwing this around and have significant things to say. Dave has collected fish on a couple of continents, run a pet shop, managed a wholesale operation and been a skilled fish breeder for many years.

I'm off to e-mail Dave. Thank you for the additional topic for the workshop. Planting a question like this with presenters ahead of time does allow them to reflect on it, ask around and maybe do a little research of their own.

Sometime, maybe I'll get to the new Beta (not Betta) version of Google Scholar to look for that. Be my guest as well. :) Not everything found there is available to private individuals and one may have to settle for an abstract sometimes (and sometimes that is a blessing). One may be lucky enough to have a university library where they can use a computer and the university may subscribe to more of the journal services used by the journals searched by Google Scholar.

I would not just treat this as a segment of a roundtable discussion though. I do think that it is important that we are careful around fish, for the safety of both us and our fish. That is of importance to all of us at Guppylog.

I imagine we stand a greater chance of being hurt in an automobile accident (not a wish for anyone here) that by something around the fish. Bet we don't give up driving...though there are certain times of the day around here when certain places, just owing to congestion and construction, where we should give up driving.