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fungus or disease common to mr bg

Greetings from Port Saint Lucie FL

Added some bg from the local ponds into my system (130 gal) Also put a few redear sunfish too. Noticed on the redear white blotches, like a bad suntan and their scale peeling off, the fish seemed to be leaning in the water, off center. I took those out of the system. The bg are doing well but some have on the tips of their dorsal fins a white color. Any info or suggestions appreciated!

Bill

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Permalink Reply by TCLynx on March 30, 2011 at 4:14pm

What are your water tests saying? pH, ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and water temp range.

There is some danger of bringing disease into a system from wild caught fish, however, there are many fish illnesses that then to be in most any water and the fish usually only get sick when they are stressed and of course catching fish and moving them into your tank is going to be stressful for them so they are already weakened and if your water quality is at all poor (which is very common during system cycle up) it can be really hard on the fish.

Salt is about the only fish treatment that is also "food safe" for an aquaponics system. However, Bluegill are not a very salt tolerant fish so you can only salt up to a point. 1 ppt of salt can help mitigate nitrite toxicity. 2 ppt of salt is often recommended as a general fish tonic to help sooth their skin and improve slime coat and osmotic pressure while not being too bad for most plants. 3 ppt is a common salt level to bring it up to if there are signs of trouble with the fish.

I'm not terribly experienced with bluegill yet though so that is about all I know to say. Here is a link to a post about salt the other day. Salt for fish health

Permalink Reply by William on March 31, 2011 at 5:46pm

Thanks for the quick response! I went to the link and read the info. I did add some salt to the system today, so far the fish are ok but will test again tomorrow after the overnight rains coming our way.

Great information and glad to be part of the group!

Permalink Reply by Jay Wolf on April 12, 2011 at 7:38am

TC is on point as usual!!!!

Permalink Reply by William on April 19, 2011 at 2:48pm

Happy to report, all fish accounted for and the white ick has all but disappeared. I did bring it up to the max 3ppt and did lose the one strawberry plant I had. Going on 6 weeks with the entire system. Thanks for the help!

Permalink Reply by TCLynx on April 19, 2011 at 8:51pm

Glad to hear it.

My Blue gill when I first got them I lost perhaps 8 or 9 of them but they seem to be doing fairly well now. I think I still have about 230 of them.