White Spot Advice - cont

[firemike]

Well I got whitespot from my LFS. (thanks guys)

I spotted it early and treatment is going well except for my blue acara which still looks covered with whitespot. The rest look fine and now, spotless!

If anything, the blue acara gets worse by the day. Should I look at serparating him to another tank or something. I don't want my whole tank to go down from one fish.

Medication started on Sunday.

Thanks all

Mike

[electricyellowz]

Did you try any salt??

[D6C1]

Do a search. Plenty of posts on white spot.

Winter is a good time to get whitespot. With the cold weather and fluctuating temperatures. So be careful and take precautions.

[firemike]

Did you try any salt??

I haven't no. I thought that was more for cooking pasta

I'll have a read about it.

[fishmania]

not table salt mate, aquarium rock salt(You cant use table salt as it is high in iodine?). I use it in my tanks all the time and I have never had whitespot(except when I bought fish and they had whitespot just recently ,but the fish that I have never got whitespot in my tanks ). I use it as a precautionary method at a rate of 2 teaspoons per 100L. As treatment I used Ichonex by Aquasonic and within 2 days the fish were cured . Just raised the temp. to 28 and followed the instructions on the bottle and that was all. After finishing with treatment I double dosed that particular tank with the salt and the fish are fine.

cheers

Fishmania

[CAL.16V]

i just cured my tank with no casualties.. protozin !!

[Willo]

not table salt mate, aquarium rock salt(You cant use table salt as it is high in iodine?). I use it in my tanks all the time and I have never had whitespot(except when I bought fish and they had whitespot just recently ,but the fish that I have never got whitespot in my tanks ). I use it as a precautionary method at a rate of 2 teaspoons per 100L. As treatment I used Ichonex by Aquasonic and within 2 days the fish were cured . Just raised the temp. to 28 and followed the instructions on the bottle and that was all. After finishing with treatment I double dosed that particular tank with the salt and the fish are fine.

cheers

Fishmania

I never thought of adding salt as a precautionary measure. I like the idea. I assume adding several teaspoons of aquarium rock salt into the sump every couple of weeks (about the time of water changes) isn't a bad idea.

[CThompson]

You can’t blame shop for such an issue unless there were visible spots on the fish when you bought it. In which case, why did you buy it?

White spot has a life cycle, one fish in the tank with the spots means that you have white spot going through its life cycle. What that means, while it may be a good idea to remove the infected fish and treat in a quarantine tank, you will have to treat the tank it came from as the parasites are still there even when the fish is not.

White spot mostly can only affect stressed fish, different species will have different stress thresholds, but the long and the short of it means that the fish may have been stressed by your bringing it home. It perhaps did not have white spot but being newly introduced and stressed was susceptible to invasion from the parasites existing in your tank.

Treat with proper medication not salt.

Craig

[CThompson]

not table salt mate, aquarium rock salt(You cant use table salt as it is high in iodine?). I use it in my tanks all the time and I have never had whitespot(except when I bought fish and they had whitespot just recently ,but the fish that I have never got whitespot in my tanks ). I use it as a precautionary method at a rate of 2 teaspoons per 100L. As treatment I used Ichonex by Aquasonic and within 2 days the fish were cured . Just raised the temp. to 28 and followed the instructions on the bottle and that was all. After finishing with treatment I double dosed that particular tank with the salt and the fish are fine.

cheers

Fishmania

I never thought of adding salt as a precautionary measure. I like the idea. I assume adding several teaspoons of aquarium rock salt into the sump every couple of weeks (about the time of water changes) isn't a bad idea.

Salt does not evaporate. If you want to go down this rout, you will need to replace what you take out with water changes only. If you add a set amount you eventually will have a salt water tank and a load of dead fresh water fish.

[firemike]

I decided to add another Dose because I think my fish are pretty tough. Now there are no visible signs on any fish except the blue acara who struggles to swim now.

Can I be confident that the parasites that cause whitespots are being treated and killed. And keeping a fish with obvious whitespot symptoms, is that likely to spread more? So if I remove the blue acara are my chances of having a cured tank better?

[firemike]

After work I put the sick looking fish in their own tank. Put the temp up to 30degrees and put a new dose of meds in.

fingers crossed :D

[CThompson]

White spot can only be killed when it is its free swimming stage looking for a host. While it is on the fish or in the substrate, no medications can touch it.

Having the sick fish in the tank will give the free swimming white spot parasites an easy landing spot and safety from the meds, so yes it would be better to take the infected fish out.

The original tank will still need to be treated, regardless of how tough you think the occupants may be. In addition, don't just add another dose willy-nilly as most if not all white spot medications have a dosing/timing regime. Follow this as the medication timing is organised to coincide with the white spot life cycle.

Turning the heater up a bit is a good idea if you are treating as it will speed up the white spot parasite’s metabolism to make it go through to the free swimming stage more quickly where they can be killed.

[Willy Wombat]

Good advice here from Craig. Also there are plenty of posts on white spot in the FAQs

[matt]

Hey

If you have the badly affected fish in a seperate tank with a bare bottom, try to siphon the bottom clean once a day. You dont have to take a lot of water out just make sure you have siphon cleaned the whole bottom even if you cant see anything there.

This is because one stage of the life cycle of white spot is an immobile egg/cyst thing (cant remember proper name) which sinks to the tank bottom and sits there until it hatches. Siphoning the tank bottom will remove these and greatly reduce the number of parasites in the tank, especially in combination with a white spot medication which will kill any free swimming parasites.

thanks

matt

[mcloughlin2]

Protizon is the best medication for the treatment of whitespot i have found.

While it is expensive compared to other similar sized bottles its far more concentrated. Off the top of my head its 3.3ml per 100L and other treatments are 20ml plus per 100L

[firemike]

Protizon is the best medication for the treatment of whitespot i have found.

While it is expensive compared to other similar sized bottles its far more concentrated. Off the top of my head its 3.3ml per 100L and other treatments are 20ml plus per 100L

I think I'll try that next time.

Sadly my blue acara died last night. He got progressively worse regardless of what medication was put into the tank. The remaining fish look fine so it was strange the white spot parasites found the blue acara more tasty.