Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi all first time writing on the forum please be gentle, I have found that my silvers have got Flexibacter columnaris I have them in a hospital tank and they are now doing ok after heavy loses in the tank, my question is what do I need to do to the tank to get rid of the disease so it dose not come back. the story so far system was starting to cycle fish where doing well and winter hit in nsw and we started losing all the big silvers so pulled all the fish out of the tank and all was ok left them out for 2 weeks with salt added to their hospital tank. Put half back and within a week the disease is back ph is 7.0 amon 0 nitrate very close to 0 nitrite 0 any ideas

thanks Dave

was the only difference in the system and the hospital tank the salt added? or was the hospital tank also indoors sheltered from the cold?

Generally speaking, I dont think you are going to be able to eradicate the disease. You will need to keep your fish healthy enough to not succumb.

brian

If you've taken the fish out of the fish tank to treat them.... then dump the fish tank water... (and sump water)...

Refill and salt to 3ppt... before transferring the fish back...

Then look to the amount of fish/filtration you have... and your system design re suspended solids...

Out of curiousity... how many fish do you have... how much filtration do you have.... are you running a CHOPII design....

Perhaps some pics would help...

Hi guys,

thanks for the replies
Media is scoria, the tank is a 500 ltr sump is 150ltr chop2 we originally started with 30 silver perch all was going well then they decided a trip up the pipes was in order and we lost half, all part of learning. We then got 20 more but from another supplier and I think this is where I went wrong just as it got cold all the new bigger fish died very quickly the smaller ones held up well so this is when we brought them inside and added the salt.

Questions is the filtration of the media good enough or do I need to added something else into the system I know it never really cycled fully one because of the weather and the fish size but the plants are still thundering along. I also use a dedicated pool pump and clean new filter to remove excess waste from the main tank.

I have read that the disease cant handle high levels of salt the cells swell fish can handle short doses and have read that I can remove all the plants bring the salt in the system up to 10ppt run it for a while dump and refill. Was thinking this would be my best choice.

Any comments would be great Dave

So just to make sure I've got this right...

2 x bath tubs as grow beds... and 30 Silver Perch.... size??