Sea Lice

[babu]

For the last 5 years I have gone to the Clio Channel For Crabs and Prawns, this spring in late April set my traps for Prawns in 400 feet of water and nailed a large pull of Prawns but was shocked at the amount of sea lice that came up with the catch from that deep of water also I never seen many sea lice in the Clio Channel before I was only about a half mile from a fish farm, do I blame the fish farm or is Sea Lice often found in that deep of water

 

[Fishinforfun]

I personally would blame the fish farms, but I must say, I'm no expert. I would love to hear what others have to say about this. I feel fish farms are a HUGE threat to our oceans.

 

[KoneZone]

I would say that it's the fish farmers that are a blight on the planet. In pursuit of the almighty dollar they will stop at nothing. They might be lumped into the same group as lawyers and car salesmen. Just say no to "Big Fish Farms".

 

[JuandeOne]

CA is right, this is a whole different animal here.

 

[Fishinforfun]

quote:Originally posted by Concerned Angler

Hold it guys!!!!! Those are NOT the same as lice found on salmon. If memory serves me-- I think they are deep water isopods that scavenge anything with protein..... basically bottom cleaners.

A mistake like this just gives the farming shills more ammunition

Excellent, good to know!

 

[babu]

So help me out here was I wrong in calling them sea lice.

 

[agentaqua]

Unfortunately, the term "sea lice" means different things to different people. Generally, "sea lice" refers to all ectoparasites on fish; but most people mean parasitic copepods like Caligus clemensi or Lepeotherius salmonis.

A number of older fishermen also refer to the carniverous isopods (as mentioned) as "sea lice". These are the ones that eat fish that become stationary (like hooked groundfish) - or any stationary protein source. They are scavengers.

You would expect to find higher numbers of these "sea lice" where there is abundant food. Fish plants and fish farms could be expected to occasionally dump carcasses or fish parts (even though they aren't supossed to). This would encourage these "sea lice" to multiply and stay around.

 

[gimp]

did they look kinda like this?
http://www.pac.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/sci/osap/projects/plankton/zooplankton/copepoda_e.htm

 

[agentaqua]

Okay - I was wrong. Thought the sea lice on halibut were isopods since everyone keeps telling me that – but they are actually amphipods – also called scuds or sideswimmers.

The largely nocturnal gammarid amphipods (family lysianassoid – Genus Anonyx, Eurythenes, Paralicella, Scopelocheirus and Onisimus) are the ones found on dead or non-moving fish.

These “sea lice” use chemoreception to locate carcasses - detecting basic amino acids, especially glycine (Gly), alanine (Ala), and arginine (Arg) from proteins such as fish flesh.

Inserted here is a lysianassoid amphipod image from Antarctica:

hard to find an image of the ones from around here.
Detailed report on these amphipods from the arctic at:
http://deposit.ddb.de/cgi-bin/dokserv?idn=97559351x&dok_var=d1&dok_ext=pdf&filename=97559351x.pdf