Water Body Care: Sanitary Posts and Reservoir Protection Essentials

Pond and water-body care is carried out by dedicated sanitary posts staffed by people who have received prior training and who monitor the sanitary condition of the water body. These posts keep the water clean, track down sources of pollution, and look after the health of the fish that live there.

What do the sanitary posts that look after water bodies do?

Sanitary posts that care for water bodies have two core duties: keeping the water clean and identifying where dirty effluent has been discharged into it. These tasks make them the first line of defence against pollution in a lake, pond, or river.

The functions of a sanitary post can be summarised as follows:

1. Monitor the cleanliness of the water.
2. Determine where polluted run-off has entered the water.

Each sanitary post is organised into specialised groups, each with a distinct responsibility:

• The reconnaissance group traces the pollution from the discharge point back to its source to establish who is responsible for contaminating the water body.
• The communications group quickly reports to the fisheries-protection authorities and the sanitary-epidemiological station what has happened at the water body and who is at fault.
• The clean-up group watches over the cleanliness and natural state of the banks, clearing them of litter, the waste products of human activity, snags, and debris.
• The landscaping group handles planting along the shoreline.

Banks without bushes and trees lead to the premature ageing of a water body, accelerated overgrowth with coarse vegetation, shallowing, excessive overheating of the water, and the collapse of the banks. The landscaping group organises the planting of trees and shrubs along the shores to counteract these effects.

These plantings act as a green barrier against the ageing of the water body, and bushes and tree saplings are set out along the banks every year.

How is the health of the fish checked?

Sanitary posts also perform other tasks, such as checking the health of the fish, carried out under the guidance of an experienced fish breeder. Fish are subject to many diseases — it is said that ichthyopathologists count no fewer illnesses in fish than physicians do in people.

The mass spread of a contagious disease is called an epizootic. Adding medicines to fish feed for disease prevention significantly reduces the number of epizootics in our water bodies. In addition, imported fish (acclimatised species and aquarium fish) undergo thorough quarantine inspection.

1. The first are caused by parasites of plant origin (bacteria, viruses, fungi) — infectious diseases — and by parasites of animal origin (flagellates, amoebae, ciliates, worms, crustaceans) — invasive diseases.
2. The second group includes injuries, chills, and poisoning by toxic substances in the water.

The signs of disease — which, unfortunately, appear in a number of illnesses only when the epizootic is already at its height — are called symptoms. Healthy fish swim actively; their movement through the water is purposeful rather than darting in all directions, they keep together in a shoal, and within the shoal they perform shared manoeuvres in unison (turns, gathering, dispersing).

Sick fish swim sluggishly or, on the contrary, dart about, rove aimlessly, and leap out of the water. They usually stay alone, near the surface or close to the banks. When examining a caught fish, pay attention to the dorsal fin: in a healthy fish it should be clean and held upright (in a sufficiently spacious vessel, of course — these observations can be made in an aquarium).

The fins of a healthy fish are free of cloudy patches, nodules, white cotton-like coating, bruises, and ulcers.

What does a healthy fish look like out of the water?

Out of the water, a healthy fish has bright skin and scales and clear eyes; cloudy eyes and dull skin or scales are signs of illness. Lay the fish on its side and its eyes roll as it tries to maintain a vertical position — sick fish do not do this.

In the hands a healthy fish quivers, going still only briefly before giving an energetic jerk, whereas a sick fish is submissive and listless and easy to catch in the water even by hand. With disease, fish may show lumps, ulcers, scars, and bluish slime on the skin, as well as white spots on the skin and fins and white tubercles with an opening at the top. Now observe the breathing.

A healthy fish in clean water breathes normally — rhythmically — holding itself horizontally in the middle of the water body or near the bottom. A sick, suffocating fish breathes convulsively and irregularly, stays near the surface at roughly a 45° angle, and tries to gulp atmospheric air.

How is emergency aid given to fish?

Caring for water bodies also includes organising emergency aid to fish by ensuring they have enough oxygen. In winter, holes are cut through the ice on frozen water bodies to prevent winter fish kills (for more, see What the water in a water body is like). It is important, labour-intensive, and large-scale work.

In summer, summer fish kills are prevented by removing excess plants and increasing the flow and current speed in the water body. It should be said that in recent years more and more fish-farming operations have been using special aeration units that saturate the water with oxygen.

How are fish protected during spawning?

The next stage is "Attention — spawning!" First of all, care must be taken to preserve the brood stock in natural water bodies — the fish that will be ready to spawn by spring. Together with a fisheries-protection inspector, the wintering sites of the fish in the water body, the so-called pits, must be identified.

They stand or even lie tightly on the bottom, touching one another's sides and moving their fins lazily. The energy and chemical processes in the fish's body proceed slowly during this harsh time of year, their need for oxygen is minimal, and they do not feed. To prevent fish-kill phenomena, holes must be cut in the ice — but, of course, not directly over the pit, rather off to the side.

If it is a river, one hole is cut upstream (about five metres away) and another downstream. In spring, the rested fish quickly regain their health and activity, enter their pre-spawning state, and begin to look for places suitable for spawning. Sometimes convenient spawning sites lack the material on which the fish are accustomed to lay their eggs.

This means artificial spawning grounds must be prepared and placed in these parts of the water body in advance. The simplest of these is a sheaf of plants fixed at a shallow spot on a rod or stick driven into the bottom. After hatching from the eggs, the fry head for deeper water but remain in the shallows, in water well warmed by the sun.

Here many dangers and enemies await them. With proper care of water bodies and attention to the environment, nature will delight us with clean water — and anglers with good catches.