Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Water chemistry pictures of dead catfish

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Here are pics of a recently found dead catfish from my pond in Jacksonville, Florida. Catfish fingerlings were placed in pond about a year ago. The pond is 1 1/2 years old and is aereated. Have limed it with pelletized lime (10 40lb. bages twice about 6 moinths apart, most recently a month ago) size is 100 x 75 with average depth of 10 ft. Have found 3 dead cats in the past 6 weeks about a week and a half apart. Any suggestions?

That one looks like it was in fairly good condition. I can't see any obvious causes of death; it appears to have been aging for a day or two afterward, which may hide some indications.

How many CC did you put in the pond?

200 initially, but about 30 to 40 died within 1st week, told it was stress due to traveling.

Are there any other fish in the pond and are they also being affected? To diagnose if it is something like Ich, photos of fresh dead would be the only way to tell, and even then it would be educated guesses. A couple days of decomposing will hide many surface clues as to the cause. The shape of the fish makes me think you feed fairly heavy? It may just be bloating? But, can you check DO, ammonia and carbon at daylight to see if any of those are low or high? Aeration will greatly decrease chances of a DO fish kill - it will not totally prevent it if conditions get right. Also, in most contamination cases I have investigated, catfish are the first species to die. They tolerate low DO well, but not impurities like pesticides, chemical spills, etc.

If you want someone to look at it, I have a friend who is an experienced freshwater fish biologist in Jacksonville, and maybe you can talk him into looking at it?