Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

The bloody fish taht I bought from the fish farm have given my clown loaches ich. It is pretty bad - I have been away 3 days. Can't see any on the jade perch, but I expect they will have it as a couple have been flashing for a week or so.

I inted to try and treat with salt, as any medication will make the fish unsuitable for later eating.

How much salt should I use.

I may end up taking the clownies out and treating them seperatelly with a commercial medication, but will still need to treat the jades and the aquarium itself (it is 200l).

HELP.

VB, the clowns are always the first to get it as they have no scales as such and present a "soft" taget for the parasite to burrow into.

Will post some info asap.

use salt in conjuction with temperature. i had my tank up at 29C and the loaches were still ok. the temperature speeds up the life cycle of the ich to about 2 - 3 days which is impostant, as they are only "killable" during their free swimming stage.

Being a novice fish keeper I didn't recognise the significance of the white spots on some of the Tilapia that I picked up last week.

Anyways they began snuffing off from about wednesday and by Sat morning I'd lost at least 50.

Began treating with salt on Sat morn at about 3 parts per thousand. Does anyone know if this is correct? I have seen levels of up to 5 ppt recommended.

Anyopne have personal experience of what I could expect? Am I likely to lose them all? Should I bother to save them or just clean up the tank and start fresh?

Thanks

Mike (mass murderer)

Mike this may be worth a read!

http://www.perthcichlid.com/pcs/modules ... =whitespot

I don't know about your kind of fish, but Australian Natives can tolerate 1 cup of salt per 100 ltrs of water....That's right ONE cup per 100 Ltrs.
I just dosed my 8 Jade Perch that I have in a 150 ltr aquarium to that density and they loved it.

Muzza

Mike - 3 ppt should do the trick. Increase the temp to 28 or 29 degrees. This will speed up the life cycle of the ich to help kill them off with the salt.

Thanks VB. Will maintain the salt level but don't think I'll manage the temp too easily.

Do some research on salt tolerance of tilapia Mike. If it is high, might be worth increasing the dose a bit just to be sure to get it all. Ich has been known to live at up to 5ppt.

VB is right on...Tilapia can tolerate the high salinity, so don't hold back. If you need to raise temp but not much heating power, try to insulate your tank as best possible and run low flow outlet immediately over the tube heater so all water is slowly and eventually channeled over heater until tank temp starts rising. I was able to heat 500 gallons with a 200 Watt glass heater by stuffing it up the pvc pipe where it flows into the tank.

Thanks for the info guys. Unfortunately it looks like I will be losing all the fish. Water stinks despite total change over in the last three days (3 x 33%) and the only live fish are pretty much lying on the bottom of the tank covered in what looks like cotton wool ghillie suits.

I will probably drain the tank tonight, put the rest of the fish outta their misery and then sterilise the system with bleach for a restart sometime next month when new fish are availabl. BUMMER

Cheap school fees though since the fish are dirt cheap.

Later

Mike

Sounds like fungus rather than ich mike. Bad luck mate.

What a bummer ...

I found O.Mossambicus tilapia to be VERY resilient to disease.

Maybe we can do a yahoo chat sometime and compare notes?

Bet ya got some amazing varieties and hybrids over there!

Wow, sorry for your loss mate...

if it is a fungus then make sure to steralise stuff like nets and buckets as well.

Ich itself won't survive more than a week at 29C with no host. Life cycle at this temp is about 24 - 48 hrs, and the seven days give coverage for straglers.

But thats just ich. if you're not suire what youve got, then i guess steralize it.

but then you'll have to cycle all over aggain

Sorry for the bit of bad luck Mike. Reminds me to keep a close eye on my brood as well.