Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I have an up and running system with trout. System has two tanks one with trout one emptied of trout for silvers. The goldfish that was left in that tank is covered in ich. Water gone cloudy. Should I salt. Or any ther advised would be great .......cheers!

Yep, salt to 6ppt (6 gram salt per liter of water). Dump it all in at once.

Remove any peas or strawberries from the system before you salt.

I've found 3ppt works fine with Ich on trout, although I've always treated before it got too bad. That much salt did kill off some of the old strawberry leaves, but the plants continued to put out new leaves and even flowers, and now some fruit. 6ppt would probably kill them though, which is 6g of salt per litre.

Thank you! I'll go out and salt now. Hopefully the new fingerlings will be okay.

Sorry, follow Gungulla's advice, he's treated more Ich than me, and I messed up the ratio, I just edited it, but I'm glad Gungulla caught it.

I'm just parroting what I'd read, I've never had to deal with it.

Just to clarify, 6ppt would kill the strawberries, but probably not the trout.

Also, a UV clarifier should help kill off the free floating theronts, and is handy for keeping cyanobacteria under control too.

Have a read of: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ichthyoph ... ultifiliis

Thank you to you both have salted fingers crossed.

Have uv filter somewere just need new bulb. Will try it out. ...........

Sorry if I'm abit behind here but what's ich lol

Hi Gunagulla
I am very interested in your suggested use of UV lights to combat ICH. chthyophthirius multifiliis (commonly known as freshwater white spot disease
I agree that the addition of salt is the normal treatment for infected fish destined for human consumption. 1.002g/cm3 being the accepted required amount. The conversion to ppt is beyond me after several drinks. I beg you forgiveness.
I understand that the life cycle of the ich prtozoan goes through stages and is temperature dependent.
I also understand that when the,’tormont’ divides it produces the infective,’theronts’ I understand from your post that it is these that the UV lights kills/reduces.
There is some confusion in the terms used to describe UV devices. Clarifiers generally being used for low power low flow equipment and sterilizers for higher power/flow etc.
Recently tap water in the north of the UK was contaminated by the cryptosporidium parasite and the UV equipment used for treatment was the size of a family car.
I am a great believer in a dedicated quarantine tank.
My current set up has a 225 ltr tank connected to a 15L pre filter and a 20 Ltr bio filter. 1400L/Hr pump on 15/45 or 30/30
Would the UV light affect their operation and/or would I need to increase the relative sizes.
I introduce fish, Trout/Perch/Carp 15 at a time
I can adjust temperature. So say 19*C for infected Trout.
What power UV equipment would you recommend?

Hezzy, have a read of this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ichthyoph ... ultifiliis




That's specific gravity, it is much easy to work with straight w/v proprtions, such as 1kg into 1000l = 1ppt. Everyone has a set of scales, not many have suitable refractometers.

UV clarifiers and sterilisers are essentially the same thing, but sterilisers tend to be of higher power. However, there are quite a few factors at play. If you have a UV-C intensity that is half as strong, if you reduce the flow rate through the unit by half, then the algae or whatever you are trying to kill gets essentially the same dose of radiation. For big systems you will need a higher wattage light, because although a low wattage light at low flow might kill them off, it takes too long for all the water in the system to be exposed, leaving plenty of time for multiplication. I'm running a 40W UV light, but in a reflective stainless steel housing, which increases the intensity, so it would be equivalent to maybe a 60W tube in a black plastic housing. I run the water through it as part of my internal tank circulation system, 5-6000lph during the day, but I slow it down to about half that at night to save energy, and give the fish a rest





UV-C radiation will kill beneficial bacteria too, but as they mostly reside on your biofilter media, you shoudn't reduce their population by too much, unless you are running on a minimum amount to start with. You'd probably only need a 10-15W unit, but I wouldn't rely entirely on it, salting as well to speed things up is a good idea IMO. Get one with a stainless steel tube, the internal reflective surface increases the intensity of the UV, and therefore the effectiveness-allowing a higher flow rate, or more complete kills on each pass through it.
19C is good in that it speeds the life cycle up significantly over colder water.

Thanks mate, I've heard of white spot but yer,
Thanks for heads up

Observing your fish closely is a key factor in treating Ich, if you can spot it early enough, you can treat it and achieve zero mortality, but leave it too long and you may lose the lot.