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Sunfish health problems
I have had some reoccurring problems with many of my sunfish recently. I
thought maybe someone out there may have had some experience with the same
problems and might know how to treat them.
Mostly on longear sunfish, an infection that resembles a fungus appears on the
dorsal and caudal fins. Eventually the white "puffy" matter disappears, but
the fish is left with damaged fins that never seem to heal. This seems to
affect about 10% of the longears in my tanks and in excess of 25% in my ponds.
It virtually destroyed a beautiful show-quality male I had last year. I
treated him with a wide variety of medications over a period of time. Aside
from permanently damaged and shredded dorsal fin spines, he is healthy, eating
and spawning in the ponds along with the other longears.
This does not seem to kill or considerably weaken the fish, but I am getting
nervous as it affects more and more longears. I would really like to know if
anybody has any ideas on how to stop this or treat the affected fish.
Another problem I have had with increasing frequency is a "cloudy eye"
infection that has been especially bad on warmouth (Lepomis gulosus). Usually
both or one of the eyes turns an opaque, cloudy white and within a few days
the fish wastes away and dies. I have lost 4 warmouth and 1 mud sunfish in
the last few months to this infection. This occurred in several different
tanks, so I don't think it is specific to the conditions in any one tank.
A similar problem has occurred in my dollar sunfish. They are maintained in a
60 gallon tank. They have been very healthy and spawning for several months,
but recently the dominant male was on a nest and developed a cloudy eye on one
side. I was concerned because the fish clearly could not utilize such an
infected eye. I removed him to a hospital tank and treated him with
amphicillex, but he died within a week. The next largest male began to guard
a new nest on the same site within a couple of weeks, but now he has developed
the same cloudy eye condition!!! Is there something I am doing wrong? All my
tanks are very well maintained with weekly water changes and efficient
biological filtration.
Recently my longears have developed a similar but different condition in which
one eye "degenerates". Some abnormally colored splotches develop in the eye,
and it appears almost like there is a "hole" in the center of the cornea. I
am not sure if these conditions are due to dietary causes, water conditions,
or otherwise. If anyone has any ideas on this or any of the other problems I
described, please contact me at: TysonTL at aol_com or post it on the e-mail
list. I would like to know if anyone else has experienced any of these
conditions on Lepomis sunfish. I am starting to panic as these diseases (or
infections, or whatever they are) slowly eliminate my breeding stock one fish
at a time. Thank you for your thoughts on this matter.
Tyson Lagillardaie
TysonTL at aol_com
San Diego, CA, USA