Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

There is no swollen or hemorrhaging of the eyes ?

Trying to send new pics of face.

can you get one of the inside of the mouth ?

not working with pics try again

I'll try to get one inside the mouth...

Well it looks to me like a bacterial disease. I would have to do an actual autopsy to confirm and look at some samples under a microscope but obviously I cant do this.

It may be one of these:

Streptococcus

and

Enteric Red Mouth Disease (Yersinia ruckeri)

Do you have any suggestions on what actions I might take now and how I got this???
Will it spread to all the fish???

I looked into the enteric red mouth and think that may be it. It started to occur when I increased my density and started feeding more. I was wondering if you knew of a treatment that was aquaponics safe or If I just should thin the density and harvest some bigger fish and look into better water quality, which I thought was good but must not be...

I think it could be these as well:

Edwardsiella ictaluri
Edwardsiella septicema

Treatment for a lot of these different bacterial diseases is oxytetracycline

I would be performing large water changes...

I am unsure of what exactly they have like I said so treatment is not very easy to determine. If you don't have a lot of fish and they really do keep dieing off and appear to truly be infected. It might be one of those times you just cull them clean out your system and start from scratch. But that is very drastic. I am not 100% sure on the diagnoses obviously, I need more information.

Hi, Thanks for any info I got.... I considered the post and believe I had a bacterial INFECTION and I had some larger fish eating smaller ones. Everything seemed to occur when I added some 1" fish to the system. I harvested 24 large fish and increased the air flow into the system. I believe I had my system overstocked and was over feeding them... After only a few days I have seen no bad fish and the water is super clear. I also noted my PH reading are very stable at 7.0 ph and moves none from day to day when it would fluctuate from 6.5 top 7.0 over night at times when I had the fish deaths. Over all I lost about 15 small fish to that disease but have noticed the AP system has recovered quicly and so have the fish.....Thanks again...

I am sure that an infected fish was brought in with your last batch of fingerlings. I am glad to hear it is clearing up for you!

Yes maybe that's true, but I think I did it with over stocking and feeding. I have bought from a reputable fishery and only one place since I started. I did see a few mice earlier in the winter that where around the system, I killed them and haven't had anymore, perhaps they brought something into the system or maybe I did?? Not sure, but it's been 4 days since I saw any sick or infected fish. All the larger ones I harvested 24 where all good no signs of anything on them or in them.

Well been about 6 days and I did find one dead fish and took another out that didn't look good. but I am feeling good about overcoming the problem. I read a lot of threads here and decided to add some salt to the systems as a preventive measure and to help any remaining ones to survive...

I was thinking about the fish shipments, I had a previous shipment of about 100 tilapia, when the package arrived it looked like it went through a tornado, there where dead fish parts and looked really bad, I put the good ones in the tank and didn't salt or treat them, Do you think that that is where the sickness came from??? I figured they weren't sick just a rough shipment but read on here that could cause a disease... any thoughts???

the "diseases" that fish get are usually present in the water, the fish just become more susceptible to them when they are stressed.. like when shipped, or when water quality gets bad
i would salt to 3ppt unless you have cukes or strawberries in your gb. then go with 1ppt
i give new fish introduced into my ap system a saltwater dip - seawater strenth, about 35ppt, this kills most external
parasites and the salt helps the fish with it's "slime coat"
lots of folks regularly run their systems at 1ppt

I have read that about the salt, I just added a little but not sure how much to add to get to 1ppt. I added 1 cup of salt .6 lb. to 5 gallons and then added 2 1/2 gallons to each of my systems they both have about 500-600 gallons of water in the entire system....I'm sure that's not enough. I posted the question and am waiting for a reply from one of you experts....