Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

This is a picture from an acquaintance. Have any of you seen anything like this? What is it? How do you treat? And what should he do for the remaining fish?

i do not see a picture.

brian

Really? That's weird, because I do. I probably have some privacy setting on the picture I don't know about. Here it is again.

I can see the picture now. I am not familiar with that but it looks like a fungus. I cannot see the eyes in the picture are they sunken?

ref: https://srac.tamu.edu/index.cfm/event/g ... sheet/170/

The specific fungus would be out of season but it's only one in a family.


Can you give some background on the water chemistry and history? temperature, Ammonia, Ph and nitrites? Have you made any significant changes recently? I assume this is aquaponics.. Is the fish and system new or has he been established for some time?


I have had catfish skin damage from adding too much chlroinated water to my system (on accident). Fish also are more susceptible to disease when they are stressed by temperature, handling and/or water quality.



Hopefully someone with more of an aquaculture background will chime in with a specific identification.

brian

Ok, here's what he said:

The eyes did not look odd or sunken, everything from the dorsal fin north looked good. I checked my levels and the ph was a little high and the water hardness was elevated. The temp I try to keep at 76 and the system has been up and running for a little over two months. I have had issues with keeping cats alive but my carp lives well. I do keep two tanks beside each other and one is the fish and the other is a stock tank so if I need extra water than I just transfer, so there shouldn't be any issues with chlorine.

Welcome to the AP Madness.

As to getting in the tank, no problem, but tell them to clean off the dirt and grime first, cause your gonna eat the stuff grown in there. I get in my tank ever once in a while to work on it. Remember that every thing that you put in stays in but the water which only evaporates then you put some back. No oil or sunscreen or anything you don't want to eat.

Oh that looks like fungus on the fish. Do you put salt in the tank? That will kill the fungus. You want to treat fish problems with NON IODIZED salt. raise the level to 3 ppm. I think that is 3 kg/100 litters. But check with others to make sure of the formula.

By the way go to the home page here and find and download the FREE EBook "IBC'S of Aquaponics". It has lots of info you will need to run your system. It is a really good reference book for our systems. The principals are all the same, Tanks of fish and grow beds of plants. Makes lots to eat. Good Luck in your efforts.

Thanks, Don! And we did download that book! That's where we got the instructions for our little IBC system! It's been going OK, so far. We lost fish to ammonia and then nitrite and then Ich, but everything seems to be stabilizing now.

It's going well enough that we're looking at making a larger, outdoor system next year if we can swing it. Looking at all kinds of plans!

You mean 3ppt which is 3kg per 1000 litres.

I dont think salt helps catfish they have a different skin than other fish. In addition to normal water chemistry it also occurs to me that you should consider possible toxicity with something the system was made out of. Check out helomech's system thread where his fish were dying and it was the rock he was using as substrate. i showed that picture to the guys over at pond boss forum and a reliable contributor that i trust said the following.

brian




"That fish is too far gone to treat with anything. Most likely an Aeromonas infection as in A. hydrophilis. (Similar to the flesh eating bacteria of humans.) Can't tell for sure but it also looks like there is a secondary infection along with it.

Something is stressing the fish to get such a severe infection from a ubiquitous bacteria. (Present but causes no problems with fish that aren't stressed, thus no compromise to the immune system.) Mostly likely water quality, oxygen issues, or all of the above.

And no, salt may not effective with catfish as they don't tolerate salt at levels other fish species have no problems with, according to my fish health text books. Actually any fish that far gone salt would not help much anyway.

From what I have been told and from my experience most disease problems in fish are due to operator error as in too much stress, overstocking, overfeeding, equipment problems, etc. etc."-cecil

"That fish is too far gone to treat with anything. Most likely an Aeromonas infection as in A. hydrophilis. (Similar to the flesh eating bacteria of humans.) Can't tell for sure but it also looks like there is a secondary infection along with it.


Thanks! This particular fish is definitely too far gone for anything since it was already dead, but he's looking to see what he can do for the other fish. He says the cats have been dying but the carp he throws in do fine. They are all wild caught. Would they have a different challenges than those raised in captivity? I will check on the substrte.

I had similar issue with some of my catfish, but I think it was ammonia or nitrites. I gave all the fish a salt bath and then raised the salt level of the tanks to 3ppt and stopped losing fish, but the temperature was also warming up by then and Ich and one fungus I read about doesn't handle the warmer water as well. I lost the fish whose skin was peeling, but no more developed those symptoms. Too many variables for me to isolate what helped, though.