Parasite treatment kills many fish at Texas aquarium

[April 16, 2015]  (Reuters) - Up to 100 fish died at an aquarium in Texas that houses stingrays, barracuda and sharks after their tanks were treated with a compound designed to kill a parasite infestation, officials and media reports said on Wednesday.

Staff at the Texas State Aquarium in Corpus Christi administered the treatment, which caused many of the fish to fall ill despite having been used successfully at other aquariums.

Workers struggled through the night to save as many of the fish as they could, but "considerable losses were sustained," the aquarium said in a statement.

Water samples had been sent to laboratories for testing, the aquarium said.

Its Chief Marketing Officer Richard Glover told the Los Angeles Times newspaper that as many as 100 fish in four affected tanks had died.

According to its website, the aquarium's tanks house green moray eels, cownose stingrays, barracuda and nurse sharks, among other species.

(Reporting by Curtis Skinner in San Francisco; editing by John Stonestreet)

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