Re: Carp die-off I have been closely working with this problem. It has been confirmed to be a disease out break of columnaris, which is a common disease organism affecting just about all fish species. While the cause of the disease has been identified, it is puzzling why it jumped on such a large portion of the carp population this spring. Carp are considered to be quite hearty in terms of their tolerance of poor water quality, but no more so than other fish when it comes to disease resistance. The long drawn out warming spell we had this spring might have left the carp more vulnerable to the disease than normal. Fish typically come out of the winter months with lower disease resistance and it is possible that warming pattern left them more vulnerable this spring. There have been other unusual outbreaks of columnaris in the Southeast this spring, including one in alabama involving Largemouth bass. There are two internationally significant viruses affecting common carp that disease folks are concerned with, but neither has shown up in culture. We don't expect this to jump to other species or even show up again in the future....
I would like to encourage reporting of fish kills when observed. This should be done as soon as possible, because the only way to diagnose the disease or cause is to examine live fish in the process of expiring. Minutes after death, the opportunity to find the cause is lost.
