A partitioning experiments to determine the aetiology of x-cell disease

Captured Pagothenia borchgrevinki fish were placed into an aquarium and partitioned into tanks as all healthy, all x-cell or a mixture of the two. Lengths and weights of all fish were measured and the degree of infection was determined for all affected fish. Fish were left in this set up for one month. At the end of the month, the death rate of the fish was measured to help determine unknown factors of the disease such as what the disease is, how is it spread, how quickly does it travel along the gills of individual fish, what happens when 100% of a fishes fills become covered with the disease and does the fish recover? Samples of healthy and x-cell affected tissues were collected for analysis.