What is the most likely cause of Whitespot in this situation

[easy does it]

I have a 6 month old 2 ft aquarium housing blue and gold rams as well as 2 bumblebee gobies and a bristlenose, succesfully for the last four months. 10 days ago I introduced 3 Wild Caught Scalare Angels, destined for a 3ft x18 x18 tank when they grow. I kept the lights off for the first day, and have done my best to minimise traffic around the tank. They have been eating NLS 1mm community pellets as well as Sera Vipagran, supplemented by frozen blood worm. The tank is reasonably planted. 2 Days ago I introduced a piece of driftwood from another tank, to which I had grafted pieces of Java moss.

Tonight I have spotted the largest and most dominant of the fish with white raised 1mm spots across the upper body and front third of it's lower body. This is the most comfortable and confident of the trio, evidenced by being the darkest stripped and the first to come to the surface to feed and staying in the open the most out of the trio. And at the moment he doesn't seem hampered or fading in any way.

Note that I have been relatively lucky in my fishkeeping as I have never had much fish illness, and of the fish in the tank that the wood came from, there were no fish with any illness. The plant did however come from another persons tank, I washed it thoughroughly in tap water before attaching to the wood tho.

What is likely to be the cause of the fishs affliction?

1. Contamination from bloodworm?

2. Contamination from plant?

3. Fish were already harbouring illness?

4. Stress, but I'd be amazed if it was.

5. Other, this is where you folk come in

And what is a suggested course of action? Recommendations on medications etc.

Thanks for your time and help guys and girls, I just want to have the right idea when I head to the fish store tomoroto get some meds. :

Regards

Adrian

[gingerbeer]

White spot is a bit like the common cold. You can sometimes point to someone and say - You gave me a cold you bugger - and sometimes - it's just life.

The important thing is to treat it right.

Remember the following - ya can't kill whitespot on the fish - you kill it during one part of it's lifecycle only while it is freeswimming.

Whitespots lifecycle is about 10 days. Hence you need to treat fro two weeks MINIMUM even if you can;t see any spots anymore. (There are a number of 3 day treatments - not true got to treat for two weeks)

Wikepedia actually has a good entry on white spot. No I am serious. It does. Honestly. Go have a look. Surprised me too.

HTH

[CThompson]

White spot is always present. Regardless of fish health. What brings it on to a point that we can see it and it threatens fish is stress. A stressed fish sloths off its body slim making them more venerable to white spot because their slim coating is no longer as thick. The classic time for stress is introducing new fish. Once a host is found, it provides a stepping stone for the white spot life cycle. Which means even healthy fish will be getting bombarded with parasites and they will in term become stressed and lose some of their slime which will open them up to white spot. Different fish types have a greater natural ability to resist white spot, for example African cichlids are very resistant, but scaleless fish such as clown loaches are very susceptible.

[Rod54]

My understanding is white spot will only occur in an established aquaria with the addition of something new....fish, plants, live food ,snails or shrimp....ie something that carries one of it's many life cycle stages. If you have an outbreak and treat it properly it is gone....unless reintroduced via a new external source.

I'm unaware that it can be dormant till activated by stress to existing fish.

[dobbin4]

Low temp,Stress,new fish etc,Craig has it right.

Can come on at any time but caused but some change.

Was it boiling water to wash the log??

If you drop the temp you can bring on white spot with nothing added.