I need a solution to a problem.

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J

_Jessica_

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Jan 22, 2010
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As I've said, I work at a LFS. We use Marineland systems, about 200g with a sump with biowheels, UV sterilizer, and a drip system for constant water change. The goldfish systems have chillers, and I keep it about 68 or so.

The last few months, I've had a serious problem with sort of a bacteria..I've always thought it was columnaris. I have good weeks and bad weeks, and to start I had REALLY bad weeks, where I've lost nearly the whole system. At that point, fish would start to get it, and by the next day nearly everything was dead. They get white stuff on their mouths, top of the dorsal fin, the tails start disintegrating, and the white stuff goes over the whole body. Here's a photo:
4701425743_e185547990.jpg


Now it's not been so bad, but it's been "hanging around" and claiming the occasional fish, but today I pulled quite a few with the white stuff on them.

These problems started when the drip system broke...of course ammonia climbed because we keep feeders in the same system, but the drip has been fixed for about 2 months now and the ammonia and nitrites are at 0, very low nitrates. Everything I read about treating this sort of thing is geared towards "at home" treatments. How do I treat it with a drip system and constantly stressed fish from shipping? :nilly:

Will a bacteria (if that is what it is) go away if there are no fish in the system? Something tells me that isn't accurate...how long does a bacteria survive without fish? I could sell out all the fish, turn off the drip, run some caustic meds or something, empty and refill...such a pain though. It's been suggested, that since the fish being delivered to me are bagged overnight, that the ammonia buildup is causing burns, and then bacteria/fungus takes over the burned spots? That wouldn't really explain though why fish get it that have been there for a month or whatever...

Sorry for the essay, any thoughts? Everything else is going well with the other systems, even the salties are doing great compared to before I worked there.
 
I am no expert, but I'm curious to know if you run any UV lighting as part of your filtration process?

from what I understand, columnaris is a bacterium, and running your water thru UV would probably help control outbreaks (?)
 
No chlorine, I got a test kit for it as I was suspicious. The water is run through a carbon canister and there is fresh carbon in the tanks. There are UV sterilizers, that is supposed to take the water from each "tank" in the system through it before returning it to the main system. The lights were replaced in January, and I started having problems in May or so.
 
my bad, you said you are using UV in the first friggin' line of your post :irked:

UV lights should be good for at least 9mos to a year, so too early for them to be failing . . .

do you know that the flow-rate is? I know you use yours on a much larger system, but as an example, I keep a relatively low flow-rate on my mine, as I've read that is the better way to eliminate bacteria/parasites . . .

if your flow-rate is too fast, it may not be optimally effective for columnaris . . .

or I may just be barking up the wrong tree . . . :confused:
 
Thanks for the help guys, I appreciate it. The life on the bulbs are supposed to be one year. I'm unsure of the flow rate through it, but I know I can turn it up or down, I will check and see where it's at.

The odd thing is that it is only the goldfish systems, and we have two...the rest of the tropicals are just fine. The one with tuffies in it had the most problems when this started. Now that one seems OK, and it's the one with the feeder comets that is giving me the most trouble. Maybe it's just bad stock, I don't know, but I've had similar results from three different wholesalers.

If I were to break the whole thing down, what meds would be ideal to run through it? Something that can be easily flushed out or fish can tolerate low levels of without rinsing (I can't take the tanks off or anything), but is pretty much 100% to kill the bacteria? I know drying it would help but I doubt I can get the whole thing 100% dry.
 
For what it's worth, we ran into the same thing in my LFS. I went into work on Sunday and saw it in the feeder tanks. I'm still not sure if it's columnaris or fungus, but it looks like the bacteria pics that I've seen. Even though I told them that we needed to either treat them immediately, with meds that cost much more than the feeders were worth, or we needed to euthanize them (about 2000 fish), the powers that be decided to try using Quick Cure. Obviously, this resulted in speding money on meaningless meds and continuing fish death.

I didn't work between Sunday and today. Today I came in and saw that there hadn't been any improvement (obviously). About 300 fish remained of the original 2000. I do not know for sure, but sincerely hope, that my advice not to sell any of them until they were cured was taken. I euthanized the remaining 300 today.

One thing of note though: the system that they're in is also a MARS system. They were in the bottom two tanks of the three tank racks. The water overflows downward from tank one into the drain lines, then tank two drains, and finally tank three. After it drains into the sump, it's pumped back up through the UV filtration before being returned to the tanks.

The top tank is divided into three smaller tanks all filled with Rosie Reds. There was not a single infection in any of them. I hypothesize that the UV filter therefore was, indeed, killing the infection before it was returned to the top tank. I do not believe any of the water was spreading the disease once it passed through the UV section, and that both tanks were full of previously infected fish upon arrival.

With this information in mind, I would highly suggest looking into your UV sterilization section as a first defense and possible area needing attention.

I am now trying to figure out how to sterilize those two tanks that no longer have fish in them before getting our next shipment of feeders. I prefer to do this in a way that doesn't kill the bacteria in the fluidized bed, but I'm stumped on how to accomplish it at this time. I'm also figuring that, since the water from those tanks drained into the sump BEFORE it was UV sterilized, that the sump itself is now infected...although since it's always flowing in a direction that would take infected water through UV sterilization before returning to a tank, it may be moot.
 
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