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ARS Home » Southeast Area » Stuttgart, Arkansas » Harry K. Dupree Stuttgart National Aquaculture Research Cntr » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #211076
Title: The use of cold water to kill the exotic snail, red-rim melania Melanoides tuberculatus, a vector of the fish gill trematode Centrocestus formosanus, caught in dip nets and small seines

Author
item Mitchell, Andrew
item BRANDT, TOM - USFWS

Submitted to: American Fishery Society (Fish Health Section) Proceedings
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 4/18/2007
Publication Date: 6/4/2007
Citation: Mitchell, A.J., Brandt, T. 2007. The use of cold water to kill the exotic snail, red-rim melania Melanoides tuberculatus, a vector of the fish gill trematode Centrocestus formosanus, caught in dip nets and small seines [abstract]. Proceedings of American Fishery Society (Fish Health Section). p.42.

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: A non-indigenous tropical snail, the red-rim melania Melanoides tuberculatus, has become established and is spreading in the United States. This parthenogenic snail can brood young internally, has the potential to displace native snail populations, and can transmit trematodes directly to fish and indirectly to other animals, including humans. One of the trematodes, the fish gill trematode Centrocestus formosanus, has caused serious problems in U. S. commercial and wild fish stocks, including some endangered species. The snail has a well developed operculum that can protect it from desiccation and allows it to remain viable for days on dry fishery equipment. Contaminated equipment is one suspected way that the snail may be spread. Cold water treatments were evaluated for disinfecting fisheries equipment. Cold water treatments were produced by adding 10 kg salt and 33.3 kg ice to 66.6 L water (SIW) or by adding 40 kg ice to 32 L water (IW) and were tested at various time periods (from 1.9 min to 4 h) to find exposures that would kill 100% of the 15-20 mm test red-rim melania. Temperatures produced in the test containers by the SIW and the IW treatments ranged from -4.9° to -1.4°C and -0.1° to 2.5°C, respectively. A SIW treatment for 1-h and an IW treatment for 3-h were the shortest exposures that achieved a 0% survival rate among the15- to 20-mm snails tested. However, several 2- to 4-mm fully-developed larvae were found alive in the brood pouches of killed parent snails that were subjected to these two treatments. In subsequent testing, naturally released 2- to 4-mm snails subjected to an IW treatment for 6-h exposures and a SIW treatment for 1-h had a survival rate of 46.7 and 3.3%, respectively. In order to kill all juvenile snails tested, an IW treatment for 12-h and a SIW treatment for 2-h was required.