The behaviour of very small fish

[vole-woman]

Gosh! I love this site.

[Endrick]

Lice are a huge political and environmental issue particularly for wild salmon and seatrout. You may have heard of the controversy around salmon farms? That is partly to do with lice. Where a salmon farm is built in an estuary they attract sea lice in their billions into a very small area. This means that wild salmon and sea trout have to run this gauntlet of lice to get to their feeding grounds. Of course lice are normal and one or two attaching to a salmon or seatrout isn't an issue. However if they attach themselves in their dozens (which I have seen) to a young salmon or seatrout then there is a major problem.

The salmon farms can put dozes of chemicals into the cages which make the sea lice detach from their hosts in the cages but that doesn't help other fish in the vicinity when the lice have to find new hosts.

Malcolm

[tom00_uk]

fish lice are a pain in the back side,

i was tagging fish in the Southern Ocean last winter to assist in working out stock levels and trying to remove lice before sending them back was a pain in rough seas out on deck.

If to many lice then i sent them to the factory and they were processed for consumption and a fresh animal was requested.

There are some cool parasites, if that's your thing, like the tongue-eating louse (Cymothoa exigua) that replaces the fishes tongue and steals food as the fish eats

[N0z]

Originally Posted by The Woodman

Fish lice or species of Argulus are very common in certain waters.
Info here..http://www.pond-life.me.uk/fishhealth/argulus.php

The other external parasite often seen is the fish leech, Piscicola geometra. http://www.pond-life.me.uk/fishhealt...lageometra.php

Salmon get them too, one destructive louse in Scandinavia Gyrodactilus salaris, may have its sights set on the UK element of the north Atlantic population. If it does, there will be drastic measures taken to rid it from rivers.

OK, nothing to do with the behaviour of very small fish.

is this Scandinavia Gyrodactylus salaris http://www.thefishsite.com/diseasein...loddy-fish.jpg if it is wow...

[N0z]

Originally Posted by tom00_uk

fish lice are a pain in the back side,

i was tagging fish in the Southern Ocean last winter to assist in working out stock levels and trying to remove lice before sending them back was a pain in rough seas out on deck.

If to many lice then i sent them to the factory and they were processed for consumption and a fresh animal was requested.

There are some cool parasites, if that's your thing, like the tongue-eating louse (Cymothoa exigua) that replaces the fishes tongue and steals food as the fish eats

Cymothoa exigua = xexexe! and wow!

[yorkieuk]

Out of interest. How can you be sure they are bream fry and not roach. They look rather enlongated to be to be bream fry.

[yorkieuk]

Originally Posted by tom00_uk

fish lice are a pain in the back side,

i was tagging fish in the Southern Ocean last winter to assist in working out stock levels and trying to remove lice before sending them back was a pain in rough seas out on deck.

If to many lice then i sent them to the factory and they were processed for consumption and a fresh animal was requested.

There are some cool parasites, if that's your thing, like the tongue-eating louse (Cymothoa exigua) that replaces the fishes tongue and steals food as the fish eats

Parasites fascinate me, I saw a tongue-eating louse which had replaced a fish's tongue over in florida early this year. Its such an interesting parasite.