Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hello!
I hope someone helps me about this issue, because in the country I live it's difficult , not to say impossible to find a good
specialist. My father has almost 5 years rising trout in 6 tanks and it is the first time this disease shows up and it is becoming very critical. Every day are dying lots of fishes.
The symptoms are:
1. One eye ( as the picture shows) falls out
2. The trout dies
3. In the body's interior there is a strange color ( almost yellow)

I have searched for the problem and it could be pop-eye disease or Trout tuberculosis.
I have found a liquid drug called DOXATRIM , that is used for other species, but the seller told me that it was used
successfully also in fish tanks. It was some kind of antibiotic. My father has used it from 3 days and the death rate is
still high. It is probably a problem of water quality and hight level of nitrite, but he have never used filters or other
things to get water quality better , he only have cleaned tanks with lime ( i don't know how frequently ).

Should he use erythromycin? If yes, how? Erythromycin it is sold for humans in tablet form. What if we subdues them and mix with food? What dosage?
What if it is a case of tuberculosis?

Thanks in advance!

Mate!

You sure have a problem!
I would not use any "synthetic" drug to cure any problem in a "natural" system, I mean, you are going to eat them . . . aren't you?

Water change at least over 12hours, ensure water temperature below 16 degrees Celsius, Dissolved oxygen as high as possible and dose with a bit of salt as a tonic.
Normally, losing an eye is due to bird attack! or similar . . .any animals around that like fish?. . . it is not a symptom that I recognise for disease.

And what are those indentations on the fish in the picture? Are they post mortem or do they show up before the demise of the Fish? I suspect they were photographed on a "rack" some sort a long time after the fish has passed on, indicating a long time since the specimen has died, hence the change flesh colour. Normally a nice orange to pink. Again, sorry mate, nothing more to offer without knowing a whole lot more about the system you ( and dad) are running.

Best of luck.

Cheers IanK

I could only find one source about this sort of thing and it seems to put it down to diet?
Sounds weird I know but I did only skim the article.

http://www.for.gov.bc.ca/hfd/library/fi ... /FTC42.pdf

In australia if you leave a mort laying around for more than 10 minutes a bird will have eaten the eye and only the eye. So all morts on our farm look like that.. but its not a disease. they love eyes for some reason.

The disease caused by Yersinia ruckeri sp. known as Enteric Red Mouth/ Pop Eye/ Yersiniosis quite often presents with both eyes Red and bulging out, but never actually burst out and detach from the head.

For that disease and just about any systemic bacterial infection we use antibiotics. Either oxytetracyclene or trimethoprim. We coat the powder onto their feed using either oil or gelatine. As long as you dont eat them for 200 days or so you will be fine.

Have you got a picture of a freshly dead fish? That one looks like it has been sitting on the grill for the afternoon with out any heat.

Better yet got a photo of a sick but not quite dead fish?

Hi agim
My guess is your fish die of something else then loosing an eye, float on the side and then get the eye picked out by a bird.
Are your tanks covered? If not try some bird netting and you might find dead fish with two eyes.
Take a picture of the guts and the gills of the next casualty and post it.
It's summer in Albania and I believe it can get pretty hot there. What's your water temperature?
Cheers Ben

One eyed must be a Carlton supporter

And if its teeth are missing, a collingwood supporter

Hello to all of you!

I see that this picture has triggered some laughter, and now seeing the post from their point of view,
I want to laugh too, but unfortunately the case is serious.
I am posting an other picture that shows fishes swimming and a small bubble of air that comes up ( i guess it comes from the empty eye ) . I am in an other city and unfortunately can't see the fishes by myself. These photos were sent to me.
Today i consulted someone who claims to be a specialist and he told me to sell all existing fishes,
to disinfect carefully all tanks and equipments and to put there newborns ( maybe he didn't want to waste much time with me ).
For the moment I think to try with the medication suggested by gmturner, whom I thank.
Maybe oxytetracyclene will work.

If someone else has any idea, I would appreciate.

Before you sell the fish and before you start throwing antibiotics around you really need to find out what the problem is.

If you use the antibiotics inappropriately you may deal with the initial symptoms but if you don't follow a proper dosing schedule it may cause you bigger problems later. Plus using antibiotics in an AP system as distinct from an AQ system may also be an additional complication.

In Australia there are services where you can post a dead fish to to get it tested for a range of diseases. I imagine that Europe with it much larger AQ industry would have a similar option. Or for that matter Iran produces (or at least use to) a fair few trout as does Turkey.

I'm going to add to what Ben said about temperature.

Trout do best in temps under 20C, anything over that they start to suffer, and from what I've seen they'll die off after about 23C. I know there are different types of trout, but I don't think it changes that too much (somebody correct me if I'm wrong).

I did some googling of your weather, and your min night temps are 20C, and day temps getting to about 30C.

What's your water temps sitting at?

And has it recently gone up?

Also how are you aerating the system?

You can almost be certain he is following one of the key things to do during hot weather: not feeding the fish. They dont look like they have been fed for months?

Assuming your water is not above 20 degrees celcius then i would start feeding them, it will help give them energy to fight the disease, it also stops them nipping(pec fins are nipped) which creates both an entry point for disease and also creates a safe harbour in the body for disease as the fish's body starts to heal and seals off sections.

Ones that already have bulging eyes i would net out and knock on the head, feed the others and make sure they have good water flow and aeration, let biology do the rest.

not that i condone the use of antibiotics in aquaponics but if thats the course you choose then i believe oxytet is 100g per 10kg, trimethoprim is 10g per 10kg. 10 day courses, should see improvement by day 8 and almost completely wiped out by day 10. There is a withholding period of 1000 degree days, so at 10 degrees water its 100 days, 20 degrees 50days.