is fungus contagious?
Shirley, Don’t know why, but I thought this question was answered, and regret that it hasn’t been. To answer your question short and to the point — No, Fungus is not contagious, in the sense that it is spread from fish to fish as flukes (for example) would be. Most often (but not always), Fungus is a secondary infection when invading an organism’s wound only after it has already suffered a bacterial infection.
In most other cases, when a wound is not part of the equation, its the direct result of stress on a fish due to inadequate, less-than- optimum conditions whereby these poor conditions allow ever-present Fungus to infect a weakened fish. Such a weakened, Fungused fish will add additional Fungi populations to the water column enabling another fish to contract it more easily, but then only if that fish is also so weakened/stressed; a healthy fish will not be infected by Fungus. The common factor here though is that often, the water parameters and/or other adverse condition condusive to Fungus infection is usually in place in these events, affecting (stressing) all other inhabitants common to that same water column.
By this, it can be seen that it is not other fish (however infected or free from Fungus) infecting yet other fish with this pathogen, but the water and/or other adverse conditions themselves which has stressed the infected organism to to this point. Ray
Category: Philippines Internet Koi Society
