Treating whitespot with Protozin..

[Littlelady]

I am trying to deal with my first ever outbreak of whitespot at the moment and not having much luck at all! I have read and re-read the sticky and many other posts about it before posting this, but really feel I need some advice now!
I first noticed one spot on one of my middle sized clowns last Friday and having Protozin in the house immediately performed a water change before beginning treatment. The bottle of Protozin I used was one which was given to me when I bought my big tank and not being sure how fresh it was I decided to buy a new bottle on Saturday morning to continue treatment with.

The tank holds 350 L and taking decor etc. into account I decided to dose as if it held 300 L, but half the dose because of the loaches. So my dose was 10ml of Protozin. Following instructions on the bottle it should have been done on days 1,2,3 and then 6. Yesterday should have been day 4 and therefore no dose given, but I made the decision to dose for one more day because a) The initial dose was with the old protozin and b) instead of seeing any decrease in spots, there are a few more. The loaches are by no means riddled with them, we are talkng 3-4 visible spots on 2-3 of the clowns. So going by the life cycle of the whitespot my logic said - If these cysts lyse today then there would be no fresh medication in the water column to catch them. Anyway - that is the story so far. I don't know if it was an awful decision to make, but it made sense to me.

Since yesterday, my alpha loach seems very restless, otherwise fine. He/she is eating and very alert, but almost hyperactive, swimming up and down the tank - I take it they are becoming stressed. The only inhabitant of the tank who is visibly suffering is a golden pearlscale angelfish who is gasping and not eating.

I have a spraybar positioned above the waterline (its always like this) so that the water returning from the filter aerates the water as well as several airstones (3x and also an air disc) all along the back wall of the tank, I have dropped the water level as recommended and the temperature is at 27 C.

Water test performed 10 minutes ago using a Nutrafin test:

Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 5

So, today the clowns are still restless, going round and round and up and down (mainly the alpha clown who has no visible spots).
The others have more spots about 6 spots each visible on 3 of them, the smallest clowns look like they have none. No spots are noticeable on any other fish in the tank (4x Angelfish, 1x sailfin plec, 10x neons and 10x penguin tetras plus 6 clowns in total)

Having decided to defy the instructions on the bottle last night and add an extra dose I am now not in the proper dosing routine and don't know how best to proceed. If I now give the tank the days 4 and 5 break and then dose again on day 6 is it going to work still? Surely after now 4 doses the spots should be diminishing? But they aren't - does that mean the free swimming stage is not being killed by the treatment?

Should I do a water change to help calm the alpha loach? But then how would that affect the treatment?

I guess I have just lost the plot by trying to take it into my own hands

Can anyone give me some advice?
I do feel really silly for asking and please excuse the waffling too, I just wanted to tell the full story!

Thank-you

[m_hsiao]

i recently encountered the same problem as you, i used a different type of treatment which is labelled as ick guard.. but one thing that i think will benefit your tank whether you continue to follow the proper instructions of the treatment or not, lower your water level by 2 inches, turn off the light and don't give the tank any light for 3 days.. take the carbon out of the filter, do a water change every 24 hours of 20% or so.. just my advice which worked well for me.. oh yeah notch up the temperature by a few degrees

[Emma Turner]

Hi Littlelady, sorry to hear about your whitespot outbreak.

Waterlife's Protozin is one of the best treatments on the market for this problem, so rest assured you are using a good product.

Although it does not say so on the packaging, this product biodegrades quite quickly so many people find that using a dose every 12 hours instead of every 24 hours works more efficiently. In the case of treating loaches, that would be a HALF dose every 12 hours (rather than half dose every 24 hours). This means that you would be adding a full dose every 24 hours, but it would be split into two half-doses added 12 hours apart.

You have allowed for quite a generous displacement volume, which obviously means that you have added less treatment. Although it is difficult to estimate, because you are half dosing anyway, you are probably ok to add enough to half dose the 350 litre total volume. At the level you are currently using, it may not be quite strong enough. I'd be inclined to treat up to day 4, then leave a day's gap, and treat again on day 6.

If your other fish can take it, increase the temperature to 84 deg F to help speed up the cycle. But be sure to keep up the high levels of oxygenation up, as there is less O2 available at higher temps.

Good luck,

Emma

[mistergreen]

Sounds like a cool product, what's the active ingredient? I'm not sure protozin is available here in the States.

[Littlelady]

Thank- you for taking the time to read through my long story and for your comments!
This is the first time I have had whitespot in any of my tanks and although I love all my fish - this is my 'main' tank with my favourites in

Thank you for your help Emma, I will report on any progress as soon as any is noticeable!

Today 'Clack' the alpha loach is a little calmer and sleeping in his/her tube again, so hopefully he/she is not feeling quite so stressed.