I noticed after ice out that a lot of my bluegills had discolored spots on their fins and tails. Figuring it was probably just stress from a long winter under the ice I started feeding them hoping they would color back up and things would go back to normal.

Couple months later the problem is still present and seems to be getting worse! The fish now have red spots on their bodies and some of their mouths/tails appear to be rotting away. Today I found about a dozen dead bluegills floating on the surface, mostly big ones but a few smaller ones in the mix too.

Anybody ever seen anything like this before or have any ideas on what may be causing it? Hoping to get ahead of the issue before it gets much worse.

Here is a better picture from a fish I captured tonight that was struggling but still alive.

Whoa, that looks serious. I've battled bacterial infections on caged fish before - not saying that's what you've got here, but looks similar to the stress induced infections I've seen on my fish. Do you feed? If so, you can treat bacterial infections [if that's what this is] using medicated feed. It's worked for me the 3 times I've needed to stem the epidemic on my hatchery. If you can verify this is a bacterial infection [I'm not a fish pathology expert, but looks like it to me] then I can help walk you through the steps to treat the BG provided you feed them. If you don't feed there's no way to treat your entire pond to combat the infection, so you'll likely just need to wait this out...which is not likely what you wanted to read.

Looks like Mouth and Fin Rot...often starts as a bacterial infection with a fungal infection following after the bacterial infection takes hold and advanced. Your last photo does not show the fuzzy fungi, but some of the others do....That may be due to the fish being dead however, or close.

Thank you both for the ideas. QA I think you're right on with it being mouth and fin rot. That's exactly how I would describe it and when I googled pictures it looks a lot like my fish.

I have been feeding them and they are eating well so I don't see why I couldn't get them to eat medicated feed. teehjaeh57 I'd be interested to know where you got yours from previously.

My local fish hatchery recommended adding a few bags of salt to help the fish with their slime layer and fight off the infection. Anybody ever heard of that before?

I can not say that I have used salt in a pond, but it is common practice. I used it a lot in my old aquarium days. IIRC, I would use a teaspoon of sea salt per gallon as a normal preventative measure, but would use a tablespoon per gallon if I was fighting an outbreak of some sort.

Well right or wrong I paddled around dumping 80 lbs of water softener salt (no additives version). Scooped out another dozen or so dead ones today of all different sizes. I'm sure there's more that just didn't float up that I haven't seen. Fingers crossed it gets better before it gets worse 🤞

Sorry I do not check forum frequently enough and missed your question last week.

I don't believe you could possibly add enough salt to your pond to make a positive effect unless you employ the "Snipe dip method" - but this requires collection. If your fish feed, you can stem the tide, and I can help you. Email me at tj@hudlandmgmt.com and we can set up a time to talk for 15 min and cover weeks of posting. Just don't have the time to post everything here again, I've done it several times already. Here's some of it in the link below in addition to Snipes dip method. Happy to help.

https://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=514182&page=1

Hi TJ just sent you an email. I appreciate the offer to help! Although there's less of them now the fish that are left are still coming in for feed so I think your antibiotic idea has a good chance to make a difference.

I thought about throwing a cast net and collecting the infected fish but wasn't sure how to avoid healthy fish bumping into infected fish when I did it.

Fish will have to be collected individually to treat. Will not be rewarding to treat pond.