Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I found a dead Silver Perch fingerling in the SLO couple of days ago, he'd found his way up through one of the 6mm slots in the SLO.

Last night I added 72 litres of salted top up water to the sump and there wasn't a lot of salt it, probably only 2 handfuls because the system was already salted at about 2.0ppt - 2.5ppt so I didn't want to add too much more.

Checking the salt reading this morning and it was right on 3ppt, if ithe fish do have Ich should I salt up anymore?

I've uploaded a small video to YouTube to see if anyone can tell me if it is Ich or not?

It was very hard to see down in the fish tank so it's not the greatest video but it does show the fish scratching.

http://youtu.be/gq4vBdojTYk


Any advice would be appreciated

Joe

Can't see enough from the video. If you can get a picture of the fish this might be easier to identify the cause of death. Did you observe any physical signs that could of been a result of disease or parasites on the dead fish? or on any of your other fish?

Almost forgot! Some signs for ICH (Ichthyophthirius multifilis) :

Signs:
white spots around fins and gills

Behavioral Changes:
fish "flashing" (scratch against bottom)
hide in corners
twitching fins

Control: Prevention (once in, difficult to treat)
You must treat the water not the fish
Formalin: ~250 ppm
Malachite green: 1.25 ppm daily for 30 mins
Remove fish, raise temp to 90 degrees F

Now, I obviously am jumping the gun as we don't have a clue what happened to the fish. It could of been anything, I need more information.

Hi 1EyedTuna,

Thanks for the prompt reply.

The dead fish in SLO was not diseased I think he was forced up into the pipe when I increased the water flow into the fish tank, he appeared too be crushed and doesn't show any sign of disease.

The fish are rubbing themselves between the two SLO vertical pipes, it's a new SLO and has only been in place a couple of days so it maybe just a novelty to the fish.

We have had a very cold night last night and today has been cold, so they aren't enjoying the water temperature at the moment.

It's been an overcast day and is getting quite dark out there at the moment, tomorrow when there's more light I'll try to get a better video or a photo.

Thanks for your time.

Joe

3 parts is good for itch if you can increase a bit with out effecting your plants then do it. Silvers handle the cold better than Jades, just keep a good eye on them.

Thanks CC,

I have another 72 litres of salted water that I run an air stone in for a day or two to lose the fluoride and help keep the salt dissolved, so I'll pour that into the sump this morning.

That should take it up to just a little over 3ppt.

Thanks Guys.

Ich is actually not difficult to treat, you can do it without any chemicals of any kind if you have the space and tanks to do it right.
First, here is some basic information about it:
The life cycle of the protozoa (Ich) involves several stages of development and catching it at the end of the cycle will speed up the treatment process. The protozoa attach themselves to the fish and will start to feed on the skin and tissues of the fish, as they work their way into the body the fishes natural defence is to try to form a barrier around the protozoa and block it off but unfortunately this has the effect of making it harder for any medication to be effective. The protozoa will encapsulate themselves in a cyst and continue to grow and feed but the cysts walls are impenetrable to any treatment that you try. Eventually these cysts will burst and the protozoa will fall to the substrate and these will then multiply into thousands of units ready to attack other fish in the aquarium. They rely on temperature to replicate, warmer temperatures will speed up the process, lower temperatures will slow it right down. The protozoa at this stage are known as “tomites” and these will now start to swim around the tank looking for fish to latch onto but they will also attach themselves to plants and décor in the aquarium. It is at this stage that any treatment will be at its most effective. The tomites only have 48 hours to find a fish to attach to, after this time they will die off. Once they have attached, the whole process will start again and cysts will form on the fish feeding on the skin and tissues.

"It has been found that Ich does not infect new fish at 85°F (Johnson, 1976), stops reproducing at 86°F (Dr. Nick St. Erne, DVM, pers. comm.), and dies at 89.5° (Meyer, 1984)"
Some fish can tolerate the higher temps, such as the tropical varieties like tilapia, other do not and you could kill them trying this method.
There is another alternative for those fish:
If you have extra tanks or containers you can move the fish to, do so twice a day, rinse out the previous container and have it ready for the fish to go back if you do not have enough tanks.
However if you have enough to keep moving them to new tanks for 4 days, you can safely return them back to the original tank as the ones infecting the fish should all be dead as well as the ones in the original tank.
Hope this helps anyone who sees it.

Kheroot thank you for that information.

I don't have any other tanks except for the sump and it's then still using thesame water.

The temperature currently in the fish tank is 17.9C = 64.22F so the temperature is down and we are expecting much cooler days for most of next week.

So far today I have only seen 1 Catfish rubbing himself between the pipes so he might even be doing that as playing and not actually scratching, I don't know?

Since I added the salt last night there doesn't seam to be any of others rubbing themselves, but I'll need to keep watching too make sure that is the case, but it looks like it might have improved on yesterday.

I am adding a few more handfuls of salt in some top up water that's been sitting overnight so that should help a little.

Thanks for taking the time to reply.

Joe

Silvers will be ok at your temperature. Both my Jades and Silvers handled 13 c last winter. Would not want any colder for the Jades but the Silvers will handle a bit lower.

You don't need separate tanks to treat Ich, which my trout mysteriously began to suffer from just after I got them, and I'd never kept any fish previously. Have a read and see the pics from here in my system thread:
viewtopic.php?f=18&t=16345&start=105#p398279

Raising salinity to 3ppt for a few weeks fixed it, and wasn't a problem for the chard and cruciferous vegies etc I had growing at the time.

Thanks Gunagulla, I've just had a quick look at your thread and I'll study it further.

I can't see any spots as such it was their behavior that I thought may have been a sign of Ich, but today I've filmed a bit more today and maybe it's more playing than rubbing.

I'll keep a close eye on them for the next few days and see what happens, it looks like it's one or two Catfish only squeezing themselves between the pipes.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KB4VlonXxAU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwW3sY1x ... e=youtu.be

Thanks for the reply

Joe

Gunagulla, I didn't say you needed extra tanks to treat Ich, it was one alternative I suggested, it does work though as I have used it.
Salt, temperature and separation from the parasite all work, some fish are not salt tolerant, and some can't take the high temps, so having other alternatives can help at times.

Your fish are not rubbing from ICH. From what I can see that is all normal behavior. You don't really want to remove your fish and put them into another tank to treat them. The Parasite is in the water. You can only treat ICH at a certain life stage and that is before they find there host. Just leave them in the tank.

Another thing that can assist with treatment (if they even have anything, which I am not convinced) is to do large water changes in your tank on a daily basis for a few days at a time.

Thanks 1EyedTuna

Are you sure about that? Everything I've read says that fluoride doesn't offgass.