Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

It started innocently enough, had some catfish that were doing just fine or so I thought. I had some large ones and some fingerlings.

Noticed first that the fingerlings started dying. I made some drastic changes and pulled the fingerlings out of the tank and put them in a fish tank. I had 20, and all but one has since died.

I had 8 that were about two feet long and now they have started dying, I have lost all but two.

Everything is pretty much the same, the big change was in the PH. I recently moved and the PH at my new place is much higher than it was at the old place. I am running between 8.2 and 8.4 on the PH. The Ammonia, nitrites are not bad and the nitrates never really got above 20ppm.

The fish seem to have much more mucus on them than I have ever seen, it is not ich, but it is very thick and you can see it in clumps on the fish.

Anyway, I guess I am looking for any insight into what I might do to save the two I have left. I am setting up another tank to put them in to get them out of the main tank at the moment, but how should I treat. I will try and send any other informaiton to you I can for any help one can provide.

Does it look like a cotton wool type mucus? A picture will help.

And lowering Ph is easy, just treat your top up water with Hydrochloric acid (pool acid).

Have you salted the system at all? (plain salt, not table salt, or any type of salt with additives).

Yes, it does look like a cotton wool type of mucus. I would have thought it was fungus had I not caught one of them and checked them out.

I have not tried anything with salt as of yet, I have heard about putting salt in the tank and doing a salt bath. Read about it on here even, but I am not clear on what really the process would be as there seems to be a lot of discussion about it.