Fish fungus killing my Barras!

jessy

Ok didn't spell it write but I think I am on the money :drunken:

Devo

Quote:

salt is a tonic...the best thing for the barra's......Actually that could be the problem....do you know what level Golden Ponds salt their tanks ???

That could be the answer to your problems

Just started reading this thread.
I got 30 Barra from GP on the 16th Nov. I had one floater in the first couple of days.
Tony said they run fresh water, ie no salt addition!
I gave them a pretty solid PH shock at the start and have struggled to keep the temps up ie 18 to 20c
Salted to 1PPT in the first few days.
After a few days I put in 2 X 300W heaters and temps have stavyed in the 22 to 25 range.
The fish have just sat on the bottom and done very little.
They took some food 2 days in a row after a week and the last couple of days they have started to take food again ie had them for just over 2 weeks now. Looking back at my notes they seem to have fed when temps are higher ie 27 to 29c.
My system is fully covered with just a 400mm X 400MM window where light gets in, mainly to reduce algal growth but may be reducing stress as well.
I cant tell if they have fungus as it is hard to see through 1m of water in the gloom and the air stones bubbling
Earlier in the thread someone mentioned their fingerlings looked knockec around (or words to that effect), I thought that also, ie looked like they had the odd scale missing here and there.
Any way Hopefully I can keep the Temps up and keep them feeding.
to quote Tony from GP "a hungry fish is a healthy fish".
I dont know about the fish but I am stressed

bigwill

Thanks for all that info guys, I was the second person to have a problem with my barra.

In the last week i have added another 2kg of salt to my 1000L tank (& i had originally added 2kg about 3 weeks earlier). I have not removed any water from the system so im assuming that im at ~4ppt salt? My remaining 9 barra (from 21 starters) are looking better. They still have the white stress lines down their head but no more signs of fungi. so fingers crossed!

ivansng

Hey BW, are you water test results okay??

bigwill

this morning im at

temp - 22
pH - 7.8
amonia - 0
nitrite - 0.25
nitrate - 40

is the pH too high?

chillidude

bigwill wrote:

is the pH too high?

No - that's fine.

barrabear

devo, tony mentioned the same to me....No salt

Maybe PH shock ? I did test GP water I brought home which was around 6.3.

SALT seemed to have saved the day thanks to the advice from this site; i fed tday and heard splashing.

Outbackozzie

Going from 6.3 to 7.5 in one hit is definately a big shock. That sort of move generally takes a day or two at least.

simso

I recently picked up a book on barras, so am quoting what it mentions, here are some of the diseases it quotes for barra

Nodavirus
Lymphocystis
Streptococcosis
Vibriosis
Necrotic enteritis and peritonitis
Bacterial Gill Disease
Epitheliocystis
Red Spot (epizootic ulcerative syndrome)
Cryptocaryonosis (marine itch)
Trypanosomosis
Oodiniosis

To name a few, ps in the reading of these diseases red spot sounds like the original posters problem, but Im only reading out of a book not from experience

PS it also mentions the use of copper sulphate for treatment of itch but saids the dose for treatment and the dose for toxic death is not much different

RupertofOZ

And nearly all those diseases mentioned are classed as "notifiable"... ie fisheries must be notified of any outbreak... and most likely fish stock culled...

Ripcurled

Haven't been online for ages and have just seen this thread from the start, thanks for all the info guys! Will make sure i check a bit more often...

Ok, story since the start... i lost those two at the start and then salted up to 3ppt which seemed to clear the remaining spots on the other fish. The plants took a bit of a beating but that was to be expected. They are hanging in there but seem to be going to seed way too early.

Ended up changing out a third of the water so i reckon i am now at 2ppt. Can i keep it at this level and still have the plants grow ok? I got a heap of pond gunk off a friend, water and solids out of his boifilter, which i spread over all the beds to speed up the cycling last week.

At this stage the levels are -

temp - 24
pH - 8.0
amonia - 0.25 - 0.5
nitrite - 1.0
nitrate - 0 - 5

It looks like the Nitrites keep going up but the Nitrates are not going up.

Anything i can do to pick them up more? I think the plants are suffering because they are not getting any Nitrates from the water.

Will load up the latests pics of the system into my other thread. Bateman new member systems.

simso

Yeh its got some pictures of some of the diseases and there not nice,

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