I made a thread about this problem about 2 weeks ago but I have much more information now, although I still have no idea what the problem is.
I have a small kidney-shaped pond in my backyard that's about 50-70 gallons (click here for a picture) that I raise locally-caught minnows in. All the fish are baitfish that I caught in minnow traps and the majority of them are Creek Chub, I believe. I've had the same 18 fish in there since this summer without any deaths or other problems up until mid-December when they began dying one by one for no apparent reason. Nothing was changed in or around the pond during or immediately before this time; the most recent change was adding a de-icer at the end of November. I figured the temperature might have something to do with it but it had been below freezing out on a fairly regular basis since late November and I've kept these same kinds of fish in that pond over the winter before without any deaths so I'm not really sure.
For the first week none of the fish, living or dead, had any visible injuries or anything else out of the ordinary up until I found a dead fish in the pond one morning that was covered in yellow/orange-ish lumps. I took some pictures of it so you can see what I mean:
I found that fish just as I was leaving for Christmas vacation so I didn't have a chance to do anything other than take the photos and put it in a container in the freezer in case I needed to inspect it again later on. When I came back from Christmas break all but 3 of my fish had died. None of the dead fish were covered in yellow/orange lumps like the one above was and appeared pretty normal, as can be seen from these pictures I took:
The green stuff is algae from the pond and the black thing is a head...I'm assuming that one had been dead for a while and the rest of it was eaten. The only thing I can see out of the ordinary are the black dots on the sunken fish's belly.
Since I got back none of the 3 remaining fish have died but one of them has grown white fuzz/fungus around its tail and another appears to have at least one yellow lump similar to the lumps found on the other dead fish. Here are photos of the fish with the fuzz on its tail:
In the 2 days since I took that picture the fuzz has grown considerably. This next picture is of the same fish, taken earlier today:
So what's the issue likely to be and is there anything I can do to treat the remaining 3 fish in there? I figure due to the orange/yellow lumps on the one dead fish, the white fuzz on one of the remaining ones and the fact that 15 of my 18 fish died one by one in a period of about 2 weeks that the issue here is some type of disease. But what disease could it be, how could it have been introduced and what can I do about it now?
Thanks in advance for any and all help!
I have a small kidney-shaped pond in my backyard that's about 50-70 gallons (click here for a picture) that I raise locally-caught minnows in. All the fish are baitfish that I caught in minnow traps and the majority of them are Creek Chub, I believe. I've had the same 18 fish in there since this summer without any deaths or other problems up until mid-December when they began dying one by one for no apparent reason. Nothing was changed in or around the pond during or immediately before this time; the most recent change was adding a de-icer at the end of November. I figured the temperature might have something to do with it but it had been below freezing out on a fairly regular basis since late November and I've kept these same kinds of fish in that pond over the winter before without any deaths so I'm not really sure.
For the first week none of the fish, living or dead, had any visible injuries or anything else out of the ordinary up until I found a dead fish in the pond one morning that was covered in yellow/orange-ish lumps. I took some pictures of it so you can see what I mean:
I found that fish just as I was leaving for Christmas vacation so I didn't have a chance to do anything other than take the photos and put it in a container in the freezer in case I needed to inspect it again later on. When I came back from Christmas break all but 3 of my fish had died. None of the dead fish were covered in yellow/orange lumps like the one above was and appeared pretty normal, as can be seen from these pictures I took:
The green stuff is algae from the pond and the black thing is a head...I'm assuming that one had been dead for a while and the rest of it was eaten. The only thing I can see out of the ordinary are the black dots on the sunken fish's belly.
Since I got back none of the 3 remaining fish have died but one of them has grown white fuzz/fungus around its tail and another appears to have at least one yellow lump similar to the lumps found on the other dead fish. Here are photos of the fish with the fuzz on its tail:
In the 2 days since I took that picture the fuzz has grown considerably. This next picture is of the same fish, taken earlier today:
So what's the issue likely to be and is there anything I can do to treat the remaining 3 fish in there? I figure due to the orange/yellow lumps on the one dead fish, the white fuzz on one of the remaining ones and the fact that 15 of my 18 fish died one by one in a period of about 2 weeks that the issue here is some type of disease. But what disease could it be, how could it have been introduced and what can I do about it now?
Thanks in advance for any and all help!
I would get some Kordon's Ich-Attack (treats more than just ich) and treat the whole pond immediatley.
