Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi,
I was told that if you smoke and then put your hand in the tank that fish can die....Is this true???? if they do die, what do they die of and what would the fish look like????

Hmmm... Sounds like a load of bull to me. I used to smoke and maintained an aquarium for years and I never had fish die after putting my hand in.

I was wondering, because someone told me that and I smoke, and it's been a worry. I try to keep my hands washed but things happen quickly and at times I know I have put my hands in the tank. I know that tobacco can be bad for tomatoes but I'm not growing tomatoes in my AP....I hope someone can confirm it either way. are there any smokers who have a system and have no problems?

I don't know whether this is possible or not but there are some studies with Nicotene and it's effect on Fish.

http://epubs.icar.org.in/ejournal/index.php/IJF/article/download/12138/5908

Hopefully I got that link correct.

Also found that Tobacco waste (nicotene) is used as a pond sterilizer in Taiwan and kills fish as well as invertibrates.

Apparently your average cigarette only contains 1 mg of nicotene. It looks like the LC50 (The concentration it takes to kill half of the fish (L is for Lethal, C is for concentration and 50 is the percent)) is around 2 mg/L (ppm) or up to about 5 or 6.

While it's not good to smoke around your plants because of the Tobacco Mosaic Virus, I think you'd have to smoke an awful lot to to get to the levels where it would kill the fish because only a small part of the nicotene from each cigarette would make it to the tank.

Thanks....
I should just quit a stay with the good stuff only.

Just smoke the tobacco that you can grow yourself in the Ap system! That would limit things and at least it would be organic

good idea...

I worked with a couple of guys who were dedicated fishermen, the type that catch, kiss and throw back.

They said the first thing they did when fishing was to rub their hands in the mud at the edge of the river bank to remove any toxins and smell of tobacco from their hands before baiting up.

They reckon that fish don't like bait handled by a smoker.

lol

That makes me laugh. Gross story but true - A relative who chewed tobacco would spit on his crickets before tossing the line out. He caught twice as many sunfish as anyone else. I don't know where he learned his technique because his father smoked pipes

The levels of false information and rumours surrounding aquaponics is astounding. No, it will not kill your fish.

Thanks for the info...I won't be so paranoid now about it.