*Blasted whitespot*

[Ashleigh]

Hey guys, just wondering if anyone could shed a bit of light on a bad situation, let me explain....
For the past say month or so the clown tank has been showing signs of discomfort followed by a few whitespot, no more than 2-3 spots per fish on the body not the gills, no biggy, up the temp goes and some added airation and it usually clears (we are talking about 3years ago when they last got an outbreak). So the spots seemly disappear after a few days, temp stays up along with airation for the following couple of weeks just to make sure everything is all clear but no, the fish still show signs of discomfort and now darn spots are back and the poor fish are less than happy, piling up ontop of eachother, clamping, the awful flicking although are eating well (I tend to feed a bit more than I would do normally when under the weather to keep their strength up), begging etc and they are not gasping. The clowns are the worst affected followed by the Zebras,Rummys have no spots apart from one fish on its tail, Yoyos and Denson barbs are showing no visual signs of the spots just the symptoms
Im not that comfortable with using medications without it being completly necessary. I picked up a couple of bottles of Malachite Green, enough to dose the tank 4 times at half doses but Im pretty sure this will completly ruin my seeded filters and last time I used this stuff I lost 3 5inch clowns; anyone else got any ideas what else I can do apart from treatments? Is there a chance it will shift without treatment apart from heat?? Or is there a treatment I can safely use that will not affect the filters??

Tank- 5x1.5x2
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 40ish - trying to put off water change incase Ich flares up
pH 6.8-7 - It moves between these values
Filtration - Eheim wet and dry, Fluval 303, 2 Fluval 3+, 2 aquaclear powerheads
Temp 30-31 degrees C
No new additions, plants or anything since the tank was setup so no idea how this got into the tank in the first place, must be that darn welsh water
Adding two more powerheads this evening and another heater to make sure water temp doesn't fluctuate to much.

Anyone... help??

Ashleigh

[newshound]

the question really is why this is happening.
something went wrong and you've got to figure it out.
feed less food during this time not more.
the one time I had white spot I used coppersafe.
easy like sunday morning.
the ick was my fault as I did a radical waterchange with out warming the water enough.

[Ashleigh]

The water is carefully warmed to tank temp before being put into the tank via another tank and there is no contact between this tank and the others I have.
I don't see why I would feed less food, surely the fish in question need to keep up energy etc when fighting something, not decreasing it? Ive heard mixed responses with coppersafe, one being that through treatment over 2weeks, no change with fish; the fish died as a result.

Edit; Is it possible this could have come in with live foods ie brineshrimp/bloodworm? If so that might be the explaination, but it still doesn't help with the cure.


Ashleigh

[shari2]

Have you considered using salt treatment?

http://www.fishdoc.net/articles/details ... ticleId=28

See here for some pro's and con's.
http://www.kokosgoldfish.com/IchPrevention.html

In your case the fish don't seem to be overrun with spots, you have had a bad experience using chemicals in the past, you have fish that can tolerate the high temps used with salt treatment and you know what you're doing well enough to nip any major ill effects in the bud.

Salt treatment may be the best way to go, for your situation.
Just a thought.

[Ashleigh]

I wasn't sure on using salt on clowns? What dosage would you recomend and Il try that, from what I remember it was 1 tbs per 5gals just as a general, but Id assume it may be slightly different for the loaches. I would thinki ts a safer bet than chemicals imo; Id only use them as a last resort.

Ashleigh

[loachmom]

Ashleigh,

When I was just starting back into fishkeeping one year ago, I bought some clowns which promptly developed ich. I tried chemicals which didn't work on the ich, but did destroy my bio-filter. I then had a tank of very unhappy fish.

I didn't know anything about salt and loaches at that time, and I used one tablespoon of salt per five gallons. I raised the temp to around 87degrees and sometimes it was higher than that. I kept that temp for two weeks after I saw the last spot.
All the clowns and other fish got completely better, and I never had another ich outbreak. That was my experience with salt, just thought I'd share.

[Mad Duff]

It is rapidly getting to the situation where there are no hard and fast rules with whitespot/ich outbreaks because there are so many new and virulent forms going around, when I lost all 20 of my Clowns and a good few other fish I had put nothing new in the tank at all so something must have already been a carrier.

I ended up using Interpet number 7 - Velvet and anti slime and that seemed to take the sting out of the illness and it slowly disappeared over a few days.

[shari2]

the recommendation is usually 1teaspoon per gallon.

loachmom used 1 Tablespoon per 5 gallons. That ends up being just over half (if I've done the math right) of the recommended dose. Often for loaches, medication protocols will halve the dosage.

In your case I think that using the 1 tablespoon/5 gallons would be about right. Another plus of the salt method is that is will cause the fish to increase the thickness of their slime coat, making it more difficult for the ich to attach, thus leaving more in the water to burst from the salinity.

Do you have live plants? They will suffer from the salt. But only the most fragile should die from it. Most will come back once the salinity is reduced.

[mvigor]

I successfully treated my 5 clown loaches with 2 teaspoons per gallon of salt for a 14 day period and they seemed happy as ever, especially after the 3rd day when all the ich parasites fell off their bodies. I added 3 cups to a 75 gallon tank. I also charted the salt level remaining for the next 10 or 15 PWC until there was hardly 5 or 10% left in the water. I did not bring the temp full up to or past 86...rather around 84 just to speed up the life cycle of the ich and then let the salt kill it. I also had both powerheads blowing full air and another powerful air pump as well.

[MoonPye]

the recommendation is usually 1teaspoon per gallon.

loachmom used 1 Tablespoon per 5 gallons. That ends up being just over half (if I've done the math right) of the recommended dose. Often for loaches, medication protocols will halve the dosage.

In your case I think that using the 1 tablespoon/5 gallons would be about right. Another plus of the salt method is that is will cause the fish to increase the thickness of their slime coat, making it more difficult for the ich to attach, thus leaving more in the water to burst from the salinity.

Do you have live plants? They will suffer from the salt. But only the most fragile should die from it. Most will come back once the salinity is reduced.

When I first started keeping fish again (a few months ago, I didn't have any fish for 5 years before that, I had kept them for about 5 years the first time) I had one after another ich attack and lost quite a few fish. The loaches I keep are kuhliis (in the tropical tank) and dojos (in the coldwater tank). I tried the malachite green first because I was very inexperienced at treating ich and didn't know any other options, and either the ich or the med killed several dojos and one kuhlii. After researching alternatives on the web, I found out about salt, used 1 tablespoon per 5 gallons, and it seemed to do the trick, even without raising the temp on my coldwater tank. Now I am no expert here, and the first time I kept fish I'm sure I learned how to do all the "wrong things". This time I am reading ALOT and asking ALOT of questions in places like LOL and feel like I'm heading in the right direction with this wonderful hobby finally. (Altho I did have very good success with some fish in the past, but I lost alot too.)

So, just wanted to put my vote in for salt and let you know what concentration I used with my loaches. It's a great relief to treat something like ich without chemicals, and i'm so glad I found out about how to use salt.

p.s. I didn't lose any live plants with the salt, either.. but I don't have anything special, just some low light stuff. Matter of fact, I suspect it made the lotus grow even faster!

[Diana]

Ich has a life cycle that includes time spent on the bottom of the tank. I have heard of Ich being cured with daily water changes that included a thorough gravel vac, and no other meds. You are removing the Ich before they can reproduce and re-infect the fish.
(Problem- there was a rumor -cant' remember where I read it- that suggested Ich can reproduce while still on the fish.)

High temperature does two things- One is to speed up the life cycle so the Ich falls off the fish faster, the other is that Ich used to be intolerant of temps over 86* F. Part of the problem was getting ALL the tank up that high, even the cold spots under the substrate. Newer problem is Ich that can survive temps that might kill the fish.

Seeing Ich on the outside of the fish means that the Ich has already been living on the fish for a short time (or longer) inside the gills where you cannot see them. Seeing the fish unhappy, clamped and so on without yet seeing the Ich is common.

I would use the salt treatment. Figure out what is the highest dose you want to use (1T/5g seems a common suggestion) and divide that dose into 3 parts. Dissolve that 1/3 dose in warm water and add it slowly to the tank over a period of 12 hours. Next day add the second part, next day the 3rd portion, each portion dribbled slowly into the tank over as many hours as you can. Every time you do a water change be sure to re-dose the salt based on how much water you have changed.

Do more water changes, your Nitrates are too high, and more water changes will also remove some Ich from the water and from the substrate. You do not have to do large water changes, but frequency is the key. If you can vacuume 1/2 the gravel today and the other half tomorrow, and keep alternating, you are removing a lot of the Ich that is getting ready to reproduce.

Whatever treatment you do remember to continue it for several days or longer after the last spot has fallen off the fish.

[Emma Turner]

Hi Ashleigh,

So sorry to hear about all this. Have you considered putting a UV steriliser on the tank?

Emma

[Rocco]

I've had success keeping ich away using a salt and methylyne blue diluted stock solution.

I put a tablespoon of salt and 15 drops of meth blue into a 100ml container, shook it around and put some of it in my tank.

ich vanished.

[Ashleigh]

Thank you everyone for your input, it is much appreciated.
Last night the tank had just over a 50% water change, massive gravel vac and with heated water added again, salt was added at 1 table spoon per 20g, il up that per 5g now reading your responses. Another heater has been added and nore airation.
Things do not look good this morning, some of the spots are hardly able to be seen until you look really closely; some fish are completly plastered in them, I feel like Im fighting a losing battle right now, I hope things look better when I return from work.
They are still feeding well but can clearly see that they are really really stressed out.
Will update again tonight when I get home, right now just hopeing for the best.

Edit; Yes Emma I have been intending on adding a uv on the tank for a while, things just got in the way so thats just neglect on my part-would it help throwing on one now?? If it would help even a little I would be willing to try just about anything right now to get rid of this

Ashleigh

[mickthefish]

Ashleigh, please try the interpet 7 anti velvet and slime treatment as i think you might have diagnosed your disease wrong.
we all thought this was whitespot the same as you, but all whitespot treatment did'nt touch this stuff.
we tried the interpet and within days the fish were virtually cured with few or no losses.
we also figured that this disease predonminantly started with asian fish first, before then i had never seen a disease take hold as fast as this bugger did.

so give it a try mate.

mick