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breambuster

Carp Die-Off

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Today's State Newspaper, (Columbia, SC) is reporting a massive die-off of carp in South Carolina. It is believed that the die-off is the result of a disease called columnaria, since other fish such as catfish and bass have not been affected so far. The report is that 10s of thousands of died already. The locations given seem to be in the Midlands and Low Country. I didn't see any reports of die-offs from the upstate in the article.

 

Hopefully this isn't going to get worse.

 

Breambuster

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Wow that is some news. I found the article and it says it is a common disease for carp but it is the biggest fish kill they have seen for carp. I always considered carp a very hardy species and could withstand alot and live it tough conditions

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Thanks for the link will

 

Thats just plain wierd sure hope it dosen't spread to the other species that could be a disaster just waiting to happen sad.gif even if it dosent spread carp are a species that is being chased more and more by anglers and they play a important role in the eco system.

 

SD

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It could also be a serious blow to the state economically if it spreads to sports fish. We have a lot of out-of-state fishing and hunting both in SC. The area where I live is lousy for deer. They are everywhere. You can't have a garden, drive a car, grow flowers by the door hardly for the deer. There are lots of people from out of state who come to SC for the largemouth, stripper and even crappie fishing. They stay in the motels, eat in the restaurants and buy gas at $2.00 a gallon. Let's hope it doesn't spread.

 

Breambuster

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About a month ago, a friend and I were fishing a favorite pond here in NE Illinois. We saw bunches of carp floating belly up around the shoreline of the lake. We were not seeing other fish, just the carp. We caught a few bass that day, but not as many as we sometimes do.

 

Since then, all fishing has picked up. Including the carp fishing. I never did find out what happened to cause the fish kill. Obviously it was not a major problem.

 

More later,

Ken S.

 

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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.

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I am a fisheries biologist and koi breeder located near to Houston, Texas on the Upper Texas Gulf Coast.

 

I work as a consulting biologist to aquatic resource and especially sport fishing interests. I also operate a koi breeding facility, producing champion quality koi.

 

Sometimes I go fishing, then occasionaly with my fly rod.

 

My purpose for posting here is to try and shed some light on the S.C. carp die-off.

 

I doubt very strongly that biologists in S.C. are correct in determining the cause of the die-off to be a bacterial infection such as Columnaris or Aeromonas. Columnaris affects most species of fish, not just carp.

 

The more likely candidate would be KHV (Koi Herpes Virus), a species specific virus that affect only common carp (Cyprinus carpio) which includes all koi.

 

This disease has been spreading across the globe for about the last 5 years. As recently as last fall there were huge, nation wide carp die-offs in Japan and Indonesia. A few years back also in Israel, South Africa, and many other countries. In the US such die-offs have been primarily confined to koi collectors, koi dealers, and fish farmers.

 

The information and timing lead to such a conclusion. KHV onsets at water temps in the low 70's and continues into the low 80's. It only affects common carp and kills most of those infected.

 

Anybody in S.C. with contacts in the state should tell them to contact Dr. Andrew Goodwin at The University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff. He is a fish pathologist and expert at determinig such infections.

 

I hope this might shed some light on this subject. Anybody wishing to contact me is welcome to do so at my e-mail address.

 

Brett Rowley

Fisheries Biologist

Texas Sportfish and Koi/Brett's Fish Farm

Brazoria County, Texas

 

www.brettsfishfarm.com

 

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I caught a small carp on a local water (Winton Woods for you sw Ohio citizens) which had some nasty sores on it body. There are also reports of a carp die-off on the Great Miami river, though I haven't been able to verify anthing personally yet. I did check with a member of The Ohio Smallmouth Alliance who is a fisheries biologist and here is what he had to say:

 

"Given what I've heard, I would suspect the virus spring viremia (_Rhabdovirus_carpio_). This is a bane of koi culture. The symptoms

match, and spring viremia is extremely selective (affecting pretty much nothing but the large minnows commonly known as carps). It has even been used as an experimental carp control agent in Australia.

 

There was a massive carp kill on Erie in 2000: corpses, stink, and maggots littering the whole of the western shoreline. I was deep into Metzger Marsh work at that time, and this made for pretty horrific work conditions. It also elevated our carp catches significantly over that of other years (2- to 3-fold) because carp

were lethargic in their death throes and less able to avoid our sampling gears. I did a little research into this at that time and spoke with the staff of several agencies (EPA, Div. of WL, USFWS, OSU Extension, etc.) about it. Nobody was willing to commit themselves to a definite diagnosis, but the general consensus of opinion (including mine) was that this was caused by spring viremia."

 

The context of our discussion was the Great Miami carp die-off. I certainly hope this doesn't become a catastrophy in the making. Its pretty tough to get anybody excited about dead carp, but by the time bass start dying it might be too late to do anything - if anything can be done at all! This is an uncertain turn of events for a great game fish...

 

Joe C.

 

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