Experience with Treating Spinning Disease in Freshwater Pompano with Cut Tobacco

Freshwater pompano has been affected by several fish diseases, some of which are extremely harmful with high mortality. One is “spinning disease”; once this disease occurs, if not treated promptly, it will cause the death of large numbers of fry and fingerlings. When this disease was first discovered, drugs such as fish and shrimp fungicide and Baibingjing were splashed over the whole pond. Later, cut tobacco and salt were used to treat this disease, achieving remarkable results. The symptoms of the disease and the medication details are described below for readers' reference.

1. Symptoms: Sick fish become emaciated, their body color turns black, and they stop feeding. In severe cases, they float on their side at the water surface and spin counterclockwise or spin with the head down and tail up; sometimes they dart sideways intermittently and sink to the bottom, dying after several repetitions. This disease is highly explosive, and if rescue is not timely, all will die. This disease occurs during the overwintering period of fingerlings, and the cause is unknown.

2. Treatment method and dosage: For every 1 mu of water surface at 1 m depth, use 250-300 g of low-quality cut tobacco (moldy tobacco is also acceptable). First soak the cut tobacco in boiling water for 4 hours, then splash the residue together with the liquid over the whole pond for 3 consecutive days. On the 4th day, drain 1/3-1/2 of the pond water, then splash salt over the whole pond so that the salt concentration in the pond water reaches 3%. After 24 hours, add fresh water up to the original water level. After one week, treat once more using the same method to consolidate the therapeutic effect.

Through the above measures, on the 2nd day after application, the death rate of sick fish decreased; after 7 days, deaths stopped and the sick fish returned to normal. This method was used to treat sick fish in multiple fish ponds, with consistent results.

3. Observations and discussion: (1) Cut tobacco contains toxic substances such as nicotine and tar, which have a strong killing effect on bacteria. Using cut tobacco to prevent and treat fish diseases has not been found to have obvious toxic effects on fish, and the therapeutic effect is remarkable. Cut tobacco has a wide range of sources, low cost, and will not pollute the aquaculture water. (2) Freshwater pompano lives in water, and once disease occurs, correct diagnosis and treatment are somewhat difficult. Therefore, the principle of “prevent before disease, treat early when disease occurs” should be adopted to eliminate pathogens and other disease-causing factors in the aquaculture water as much as possible. (3) The cause and pathogen of this disease are not yet clear and require further study.