Fish Health Management Course at NCSU

[Steven Pro]

I got an email that the tentative date for 2008 is October 9-11, so mark your calendars.

[Me No Nemo]

Originally posted by rwbogard
Just scrape the fish with a sterile instrument and put it on a slide. Stain with crystal violet or your choice of dye, then counterstain to scope out visible bacteria and/or parasites, if microscope does not have oil immersion. You will be able to narrow it down to parasite or bacteria (gram - or +). From this you can then identify using spread plates if handy. I can give more details on how to create your own.

I'd love more info on this. I own an LFS and we have a small lab we use to diagnose coral problems and such. I am a novice on the fish end of diagnosing problems through scrapes and such, but recently hired a UCF student who studies molecular and micro biology to work at the store so we can expand this area of knowledge. Any info or links would be greatly appreciated. Here's some of our equipment:

[Spracklcat]

Looks like you've got yourself a nice dissecting scope-- great for doing dissections ( ) or looking at microcrustaceans, little things, some gross tissue work, some parasites, but to see bacteria you will need something with a stage to put slides on and some stronger objective lenses. I don't know what your magnification is, but most are in the range of 60X. For staining microorganisms you'll need an oil immersion lens for a total magnification of 1000X.

Do play around with it though---you will see amazing things. Bristelworms are especially cool--

Also, you are lucky in that you have a trinocular scope, which means you'll be able to hook a camera up with the right adapter.

[Questionmarc]

wish they had one of these in ny

[Me No Nemo]

There's already a camera on the scope that does both still and video plus I have another new scope with a stage and the immersion lens Just starting to figure that one out!