Barramundi perch, Lates calcarifer, 24"+ in 4500 gal

[thebiggerthebetter]

Doubt it was salt from the baitfish
*****It's not salt that'd be the culprit, if any, I imagine... but a nutritional deficiency of some sort. This had been what I hypothesized.

, was your fishes mouth always that deep red?
*****Wouldn't really know. Never noticed. Likely it had not been that color until recently. It's the tongue that has the strange color. The mouth appears more or less as expected.

These guys dont seem to need salt or brackish water so it likely wasn't that.
*****Yeah. Seem. That's all I could think too.

Beginning to think some disease is slowly killing your fish.
*****I am pretty sure I have had a dozen or two of columnaris, or columnaris symptoms looking like cases over the last 6 months. One source could have been the wild fish I caught in my pumped-down koi pond. I froze them and fed them to my fish, also saved some alive, treated (hastily), and put them in the same water system.

 

[thebiggerthebetter]

Aug 2016:

 

[qldmick]

Hey, my biggest fish landed to date was a 97cm Barramundi. She was quite tasty.

Those interested in rarer monster fish should check out these guys, they export too,
Jardini International - Rare, beautiful, collectible fish from northern Australia

I've also noticed that Jardini are rare in OZ but Leichardti are being breed in numbers and are available each season while they are hard to get in the US.

 

[Friller2009]

Hey, my biggest fish landed to date was a 97cm Barramundi. She was quite tasty.

Those interested in rarer monster fish should check out these guys, they export too,
Jardini International - Rare, beautiful, collectible fish from northern Australia

I've also noticed that Jardini are rare in OZ but Leichardti are being breed in numbers and are available each season while they are hard to get in the US.

Bruce Sambell/AusyFish breeds them. Dave Wilson/Aquagreen is gonna start breeding Jardini soon, he's had some bad seasons.

 

[thebiggerthebetter]

Apr 2016, 5:05-6:54 min:

 

[thebiggerthebetter]

Barramundi 2.0
3x 6-inchers from Exotic Fish Shop

 

[thebiggerthebetter]

1 dead in several hours
1 sulks (lacks dorsal fin)
1 seems well

 

[Friller2009]

Nice looking Barra man, he's gonna get big. Don't really see to many overseas.
Sorry bout the loss of that one.

 

[thebiggerthebetter]

The one that had been doing well and grabbing pellets today started taking fish pieces. Has taken 5 days. The dorsal-less sulker came very close, maybe tomorrow.

 

[thebiggerthebetter]

The dorsal-less barra indeed started taking fish the next day as predicted.

Also, Steve of Exotic Fish Shop sent two replacement barra for the perished and for the dorsal-less. He used bigger shipping bags while I followed his acclimation procedure per his tutorial video on his site, I mean I followed a very similar procedure with the first trio too but this time I was more careful, took longer, and was measuring pH during cupping of my water to shipment water. pH started at 6.4 and reached 7.2 by the end, which is the pH in my water. I was surprised that as the acclimation water was half and half, the pH only went up to 6.6. It wasn't until it was 95%+ my water that the pH got up to 7.2.