help!! my fish are dying!!

[bill newton]

600 litre tank with 40 jade perch in - i found four dead this morning and one swimming slowly upside down - the dead ones had white spots on their bodies - (see pictures)

is it a disease?

temperature has been a bit low for a couple of weeks?

pH 6.6 nitrite 0 nitrate 0 ammonia 0

carna pies!!!drinkanimdrinkanimdrinkanim

[bill newton]

another couple of shots of the dead fish:frustrated:

do i have to salt -- and how much?? -- 600 litres

carna pies!!drinkanimdrinkanimdrinkanim

[MattySEQ]

don't know what it is but doesn't look pretty, have you salted the tank at all? Someone with more experienced may be able to help you further but I would be doseing the tank 2-3ppt so roughly between 1.2 to 1.8 kgs of salt, if you have access to rainwater or water which you can replace the current 600L with I would be possibly salting higher and flushing the water.

[RupertofOZ]

Owah... that's the dreaded Jade Perch ulcer disease... can't remember the name off the top of my head.... but it's nasty and often fatal...

There were some posts a while back, either here or BYAP with the same issue....

You need to either salt dip (10-12ppt) and then quarantine with 6ppt... or salt to 6ppt in the tank... and take the hit on the veges....

[RupertofOZ]

Low temps wouldn't have helped... stressing the fish... but frankly you're so overstocked that a pathogen attack was just waiting to happen anyway....

The extra stress from the cold just brought it on...

[RupertofOZ]

P.S.. you probably need to bring your quarantine tank up to around 18....

If you can't quarantine... and can't heat the tank.... then cull all the infected ones... and salt... or just cull them all...

[MattySEQ]

there ya go rupert came to the resque

so 6kgs to 7.2kgs of salt 10ppt - 12ppt

or 3.2kgs salt to get to 6ppt

[Murray]

It has been brought on by the cold.....
The pathogen/fungi is there all the time, just like staph is on our skin all the time, these things take over when our resistance is down and in the case of Jades, it will appear when they are cold.
Often it is precipitated by some "pecking order" depute minor injury, or the Jades brushing up against a sharp edge in the tank such as a hose clip on the submersible pump. In warmer weather these encounters are easily dealt with by the fish natural slime coat protection and are hardly noticed.

Jades really need to be kept at 15c or above if you want to enjoy optimum health. Over stocking for the capacity of your system will exaggerate the problem.

Paying for heating is a real pain in the bum that is for sure, but ways of doing it are imperative for the 8 to 10 weeks of cooler weather here in Qld....Down south, my advice is , don't keep Jades unless you are prepared for some serious heating.

My instant gas HWS works really well. I have it hooked up on the Homestead kit system and I am wintering over almost all of my Jades in that system. The water is clear, the fish are happy and being lightly fed every second day.
I have the heater set to come on at 14c and off at 16c. There is approx 300 Jades in that tank. I have another tank which I cannot heat easily, but it is the floating raft system and because of the beds all being covered with foam sheets the temp does not drop so low overnight in that tank.

Salt and warmer temps is the remedy. 6kg per 1000 ltrs for moderate treatment, but if you have a hospital tank to put them in go for 10kg per 1000 ltrs for a 5 or 6 hour treatment then start to cut the salt back to 6 kg per 1000. Repeat this every 3 or 4 days. The fish will recover in 99% of cases.

[bill newton]

thanks everyone - getting some salt today -- thought the temperature may have something to do with it - the infected tank is out in the open whereas my ibc is inside an igloo - they're all ok

carna pies!!!drinkanimdrinkanimdrinkanim

oh - and QUEENSLANDER!!!!:p

[bill newton]

ok - no more deaths or white spots on the fish - have added three kg of rock salt to the tank and i'll stop feeding for a week - i think i was killing them with kindness
see how we go over the next couple of days - but i'm not building my hopes up

carna pies!!!drinkanimdrinkanimdrinkanim

QUEENSLANDER!!!!!

[MattySEQ]

hows everything going bill?

[bill newton]

everything is going well now - only had one more death in the tank - the fish are still a bit stressed but not as bad as before - the mornings aren't so cold now - actually a couple of them look big enough to eat - so maybe in the next couple of weeks we'll have a nice feed!!

carna pies!!!drinkanimdrinkanimdrinkanim