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Getting rid of and treating for whitespot


Richard

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Hey guys,

I was just wondering how long whitespot stays in your water for? Let's say the last fish that died from whitespot was a week ago how long would i have to leave my tank for until new fish can be put in. Also as for treatment would you only treat whilst a fish has whitespot or can you treat the water on its own if you think your water is contaminated? I've never had a case of whitespot so wouldn't know what to do if it came to the point where all my fish had died from whitespot and i was wanting new fish in that same tank.

So im pretty sure an up in temperature, water change and abit of treatment will get rid of the actual disease on the fish, but how about the living bacteria in the water? I was told by someone you should leave the tank alone running for a week since the bacteria don't have a long loifespan without a host. Not sure if it was a reliable source though.

cheers,

Richard

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I think it would be safe to say white spot is always present. It has a life cycle, free swimming looking for a host (fish), on the fish, and in the substrate. The only place white spot can be killed with medication is when it is free swimming. Most Africans are pretty hardy to this parasite, so generally you have to be doing something pretty drastically wrong to cause an African (though you don’t say what fish they are I assume them to be Africans) to be affected by white spot, and then to die of it.

Work out why they got it, before you introduce more fish, and if you have treated the tank for white spot as per bottles instructions (timed usually when the parasite is free swimming) then the tank should be okay for fish.

If you stopped medicating the tank when you saw no more white spot on the fish then you may still have problems.

Americans are still pretty tough, so what ever fish you have (had...) you need to learn and understand why you fish became ill.

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Hi Richard,

I started a thread concerning ICK a lil while ago, what worked for me was raising the water temp to 30 and daily doses of NaCl, The parasite doesnt like the change in osmotic pressure and also the slime coat on the fish has thickened, my fish were always flicking and once I raised the water temp the whitespot started to become visibl but would be gone in a couple of days, at this stage it became free swimming and with the daily doses of salt I was able to treat my tank without relying on "harsh" chemicals. I have heard that if there is no fish in the tank for about 2 weeks the organism dies due to no host being present, I would up the temp and add salt and do good gravel vacuums.

It is hard to treat.

I hope this helps... :yes:

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I'm with Craig. There is no way to ever get rid of whitespot. It's ubiquitous in aquariums.

In saying that, healthy happy fish dont get whitespot.

so normally: the population of Ich is very low and doesnt bother the fish.

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hey guys

great info from all :clap

you learn something new every day on ace

keep up the good work :thumb

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