Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I agree Murray - best thing is to dose them with salt in a hospital tank as soon as they are bought - as a preventative measure (ie regardless of whether you know they have Ich. Will save a lot of heartache in the longrun.

agreed, and always try and match new home (hospital tank) to fish bag temp as close as you can.

generally this is done by doing the floating bag thing, but as an example when i got my catfish the bag was at 23C and the tank at 27C. i filled a bucket with 23C water at the same PH and transfered the fish from the bad to the bucket with an air stone, then set it on the floor (it was a HOT day) and let the temp rise VERY gradually.

Fish are often fine at an aquarium or a hatchery, then all of a sudden develop diseased shortly after being put into a new home. I believe it the the combined shipment, temperature and possible PH stressed that weaken them.

SO, if you plant on having a hospital tank on line i'd set the temp of this to the temp of the shipment water, the gradually over the course of their quarantine raise the temp (heater?) to the temp of their final home.

Don't get me wrong, this isnt the be all and end all, just probably the LEAST stressful way if you have the time and facilities.

Steve

Well, had the fish for a week and no deaths to report. Yet
The little fish come up to the surface like a pack of pirhanas and gobble up the flakes I put out for the comets, who don't get a look in.
Already the Jades are coming a range of sizes - some are probably less than 30mm and some are over 50mm after one week.

So far so good.

Good to hear Jamie.

Saw some silvers going mad over blood worm cubes yesterday. Very entertaining. (off topic LOL) Good one Jamie. Coming together nicely

Bad News.

VB - I think you would have won your $100.
When my little pirhanas (Jade Perch) come up to feed I can see some white spots on a few of the larger ones. One particulary large (50mm) and slower moving one has a white "spot" on its side that sticks out about 1mm.

Question - does anyone know what happens out in nature? White spot itself must have a predator that keeps it within manageable limits naturally.
Maybe I should go down to the local creek and get a few litres of water that may have a sample of the small critters that may feed on white spot larvae?
Lots of maybe's there.

Our systems are not natural ecosystems because we are missing the full range of creek micro-wildlife.

How lethal is Ich?

As you can probably tell I am reluctant to "salt" up the system. I'll then presumably have to replace 1,000's of litres of water for the veggies sake.
Which ain't a good practise in draught-ridden Queensland.

Obviously going forward I will have a quarantine tank for new fish.

But I want to avoid doing anything if possible - even if it means the partial loss of my fish stock (within limits). If fish survive Ich in the wild without intervention there must be a way to make that happen in a re-cycle system?

btw - One fish dead. Found a small fish skeleton in a grow-bed. Obviously found a way into the pump

Sorry Jamie, other than raising temps to around 80 (F) degrees or so to shorten the life cycle and a salt dose I'm at a loss for information, Any chance you could do a bit of salt slowly watching the effect on your plants and fish. Never heard of Ich just going away by itself. Best of luck

not aware of any predators.

ONLY RAISE TEMP IF YOU ALSO HEAVILY ADD SALT.

Jamie, your other course of action is to net all the fish and place them in quarantine with heavy salt addition. 2 weeks at 29C will do it nicely. Also, as ICH can not live with out a fish host, the fishless period in yuor main tank will take care of any ich in its short "hostless" life cycle period.

Steve

Thanks GotFish
Yes - I like the idea of slowly adding salt. Just read an article that said addition of around 3ppt (?) is a good preventative - so I'll do that.
Cheers
Jamie

MMM, read Steves post J, makes more sence to isolate to a smaller tank if you can then you won't be salting your main tank at all so now worries about affecting your plants, other then a loss of fish poo for a short time.

Great idea, but I have no chance getting the fish out of my 10,000 litre pool
- Without draining the whole thing of course.

You live and learn. Mostly the hard way

Good point, You would need a casting net for your little backyard ocean!

jamie, 3ppt is enough to effect a cure, and VB was still able to grow plants ok. trick is to add itin ONE HIT as the cure relies on the inablility for ICH to quickly regulate changes in osmotic pressures (salinity inside a cell VS outside water.

Also reduce feed by at least half, ich often rears it head when water quality id bad and fish are stressed.
1ppt = 1kg per 1000 lt so ou're looking at 30kg salt

Steve

Steve,
How do you actually apply the salt?
If I just dump it its going to be massively salty in a small area.
Do you mix it with water first and then slowly distribute the water?
I just bought a 20kg bag.
Shops are now shut

Cheers
Jamie

Jamie, I mixed all my salt (all 750g of it) into some warm water to dissolve it, then added a bit into a few buckets and then filled the buckets up with water to further dilute it. The salt water you will be adding will be VERY salty but to reduce shock to fish, dilute it as much as possible.

One way you could do it is to take a bucket of water out of your tank, dissolve (Make sure it is dissolved) a bit of the salt and then add it back in. 250-500 g in 9-10 litres at a time should be ok. Most estuary fish are used to sudden changes in salinity.