Potential Usefulness of Chlorine for Controlling Pacific Salmon Leeches, Piscicola salmositica, in Hatcheries
Susceptibility to the lethal effects of low levels of total residual chlorine (TRC) differed between juvenile coho salmon (Oncorhynchus kisutch) and the salmon leech (Piscicola salmositica), the vector for the haemoflagellate salmonid pathogen Cryptobia salmositica. There was no salmon mortality at concentrations below approximately 50 μg TRC/L for the maximum exposure time of 24 h. Some damage to gill tissue (hypertrophy, fusion, oedema, and some necrosis), was observed at the highest concentrations of TRC that did not kill any of the fish (approximately 50 μg/L for 24 h, and approximately 100 μg/L for 8 h). This damage was repaired by the fish within 4 d of exposure, although evidence of past irritation was noted in 6 of 12 fish. All small juvenile leeches exposed to 44 μg TRC/L for 24 h died, and over half of such leeches exposed to 44 μg/L for 8 h and 21 μg/L for 24 h died. Below TRC concentrations that were lethal to the fish (approximately 50 μg/L), contours of constant leech mortality derived from a logistic regression model fitted to the data offered a wide range of concentrations and exposure times that would result in high mortality of juvenile leeches. Larger subadult and adult leeches were more resistant to chlorine than the smaller leeches but were more sensitive than the juvenile fish. Thus, chlorine may prove useful for controlling P. salmositica in salmonid hatcheries.