Sick Mossie Tilapia

[jackalope]

OK, I've got a Tilapia disease problem, that I can't find an explanation for as far as the symptoms. I've checked all of the links in the post by JCO for the symptoms Tilapia Diseases & Cures, and none fit at all, so I'm guessing it's something else.

The fish affected are both younger and older, they swim upside down and backwards, don't seem to eat, and this only lasts for a day or two and they are gone. This is only happening in one of the tanks, the others seem fine. All readings are normally good, but I have to change 50% of the water twice a week because the ammonia builds up fast, for some reason. I only have about 6 left in a 30 gallon tank (The other 30 gallon tank has about 16 fish), so I don't think they are stressed by overcrowding. These are some of the last of the Mossambicas that I bought this summer and this fall - I was hoping that out of 100 fry, I would end up with at least one female and one male, but none of them seem the slightest bit interested in breeding. I'm just about to the point that I want to just destroy them all and chlorinate the tank to get rid of whatever is causing the problem, but I don't know if it's a parasite or not and I'd like to know for sure, both for my knowledge and for others who might run up against the same problem. Any ideas what the problem is?

I will soon be destroying the ones in that tank anyways, I guess, because by this spring I intend to have a different strain of fish to breed, hopefully to raise in the big tank! And I won't eat a fish that I suspect may be diseased. Some of the ones in the other tank are just about eating size, I think, so they will go into the freezer .

TIA

[badflash]

Sounds like some sort of bloat. Generlly bacterial. This effects the swim bladder and they can't do anything.

[jackalope]

I found a website that said that peas were a great laxative that will help keep them from getting bloat .... so I got some split peas, the wife ground them in a coffee grinder, and that's what they're eating for now ..... another site suggested epsom salts 20mg/liter ..... I don't know how to transpose that, so I just put about 3 or 4 teaspoons for the 30 gallons .... anyone know how much 20 mg is in english? I can figure out the liters/gallons, but the other part stymies me ...... I never did get europeanized ......

[jackalope]

I just went in to check on them and the young one is still swimming on it's back and in backward circles, but the older one seems to be swimming normally ..... for now ..... we'll see what they look like in the AM

[badflash]

20 mg/lt is 20 parts per million. That is 20 parts by weight in a million parts of water.

[jackalope]

20 mg/lt is 20 parts per million. That is 20 parts by weight in a million parts of water.

That was as clear as mud to me .... how many teaspoons is that?

[badflash]

Teaspoon is a measure of volume, not weight, so unless you know the weight per unit volume you can't answer the question.

(20 ounces Ep Salt)/ (1000000 ounces H2O). 1000000 ounces of water is about 7500 gallons. This would mean you'd add one ounce to 375 gallons of water.

[jackalope]

Thanks ....

OK, I think I've got it figured out . (I never was too good at math though ......
The recommended dosage was 20 mg/liter
30 gallons of water = 113.69 liters
20 mg/liter x 113.69 liters = 2273.8 milligrams needed
2273.8 mg = 2.2738 grams
2.2738g = 0.080205935 ounces
4 teaspoons = 1 ounce
4 teaspoons / 0.080205935 = 0.32082 teaspoons or 1/3 teaspoon

If that's the case, I overdid it, but it has seemed to help the larger one, so I'll do a 50% water change tomorrow to dilute the magnesium sulfate

[badflash]

3 teaspoons of WATER is one ounce. EP salt is about 2.3 times as dense as water, so you'll need about 1/3 of what you figure. Grams is mass, teaspoons are volume.

grams of stuff / (grams/volume) = volume of stuff. grams per volume is density.

[davidstcldfl]

If the teacher in school, would of told us we needed to know math, to play with our fish.. ..maybe I would of listened more.....