Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Others out there have had fungus and white spots on your fish, that you have cured by adding salt. How long did it take befor the fungus disapeared and what was your salt levels? My fish still have white spots and are dying at 10 or so a day. I started at 3ppt three weeks ago and over the last two weeks I have steadly increased it to 9ppt. The fish are still feeding but still dying. The dead ones look OK except for areas on their surface devoid of scales and pigmintation I guess where the fungus has attacked.

It was a while ago for me but...
when I looked at a dead fish out of water the fungus didn't look too bad,
placed back in the water, the fungus re-appears
The treatment was also while I was away 3PPT (lolling about in Exmouth ) 3 weeks no food ( bugger all)
then they were fine.
The biggest trout I grew was over a Kilo presumably unaffected by ammo spikes & nitrate spikes
in the begining.
...followed by fungus
Lost a few more, and then they were fine, pretty well straight away

BB, is the fungus still spreading, or been stable for a while?

If its still spreading, I think you have no option but to do a total water change. Harsh, but there is obviously something very bad in your water.

Hmm seems it

Has cleared up a bit on my gold fish but has remained the same on the cod, silvers and catties. Not many catties and silvers left now.

It's strange to have such a long running episode of it.

Can you post up exactly what materials etc you have used in the system? It sounds like something in the water causing the fungus, rather than just a bacteria.

that to OB

Also are you sure about the volume of water in your water body?
FT Sump & GBs.

At the time it started I had put in 50 new cod from a differant supplier and I had started using a new GB of perlite (since got rid of it and put in clay balls) and noticed uneaten food in bottom of FT. The PH went from 7.0 to 7.8, no nitrates / nitrites and ammonia very low. I have a permanent air pump running. The total water in by system is 9000Lts. I have put in 200 silvers, 100 catties, 100 cod and 22 gold fish. I have a fungus problem to be sure but I'm wondering If the newies brought something else in? If this is the case then I will have to watch them die and start all over again.

Forgot to add that the water is rain water and the other GB are scoria.

What about running the water through a UV Sterilizer. The bacteria on the gb media should be okay.

New roof.?

Your fish are at pretty heavy load rates... About 20 ltr per fish
How many have gone elsewhere? = remaining fish

Yeah, not a new roof, or tank, recently painted, new gutters or anything? No metals in your AP pipework?

creative1 wrote
Your fish are at pretty heavy load rates... About 20 ltr per fish
How many have gone elsewhere? = remaining fish

At guestimate 10% left.
Nothing has changed except for what I have already mentioned.

Dufflight wrote
What about running the water through a UV Sterilizer. The bacteria on the gb media should be okay.

I have been doing a bit of research into the UV sterilizing and I think it is worth pursueing especially through winter. My FT is in a hot house and the lazer light that I have used blocks out 99% UV. For this reason it would probably pay to add a bit of UV direct to the FT every now and again. The inline UV sterilizers using type "c" globes seem to be an excellant way to reduce unwanted bugs in the water. I'm waiting for more info back from suppliers. I would like to put one in the return line from the sump to FT but it would have to cope with intermittant flows.

C1 by this you mean they were all fed bugger all for three weeks?
Does starving cause the disease to die by lowering the nutrients in the water ??????

I would have thought that under nourished animals are more prone to disease.

No, the benifits of way better water quality from no crapping fish, outways a few weeks without food.