Today, my system reached 4 months old. A Tilapia died yesterday, one of the bigger ones, for no apparent reason. I was worried about my Koi because I noticed what seems to be haemorrhaging near the gill area. So I googled and found what could be a VHS infection. VHS or Viral Hemorrhagic Septicemia is a viral infection that affect fresh water fish and there is no remedy for it yet. Infected fish can only be isolated and monitored as there is a chance of survival. From wikipedia, the symptoms of VHS are haemorrhaging to of internal organs skin and muscle. Some fish shows NO EXTERNAL SYMPTOMS. Others might show sign of infection from bulging eyes, bloated abdomens, bruised looking reddish tints to the eyes, skin, gills and fins. This is actually how most fish especially Tilapia in my tank look like.
Look at the bulging eye, bruised/ reddish around it
Recalling the dead Koi last week, there is a yellow mucus on the snout and bright red gill...found out that that is a secondary infection caused by Septicemia. The bright red gill is also found on the Koi I inspected last Saturday. This is really sad. I think I brought in the infection from the newly bought fish as the virus can be transmitted through infected water. I just pour in the water from the bag into my tank. BIG mistake and lesson learned. Next weekend I will clean the tank as much as I can with bleach and hopefully the remaining fish will survive the ordeal. This would also mean killing the bacteria in the grow bed.....dilemma!
Anyway, on the growbed things are going well for the mint. It is growing wild. Look at the picture and compare it from my last post. The matured leaves are almost 3 finger size wide!
The seeds however haven't germinate at all so I made a new plan. Checkout below picture:
I re-sown the parsley but not the coriander and rosemary. On the other pot is cucumber seeds, I think from the Japanese variety. The water is fish water from the tank. I found that the LECA has a very excellent water pulling efffect (can't remember the correct term :o) ) so the seeds will be kept moist with that little water at the base. I put this on the window sill at my kitchen so it can get fresh air and light. Give this a week and see what happen.
One more thing, since I'm having a little problem with iron deficiency in the growbed, I decided to change the food for the fish! AHA! surprise surprise. I thought by feeding the fish with food that has high iron content should also benefit the plant from the leftovers. So I looked for such feed and found this:
Spirulina based fish food! Spirulina is know to have high iron content, also magnesium among others. Price per kg is RM23 which should last for a month, give and take. I just started the new diet yesterday. Still too early for anything but I'm really eager to see if this will work.
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