Is this fish Pox?

Hi all,

Vision 260 tank (approx 260 litres)
Mixed Tanganekian
Set up about 3 years

Nitrates are huge and always have been
No ammonia, nitrite,
pH 7.8-8.0

This fish (aulonocara jacobfreibergi) i've had from the beginning.
He used to be with other peacocks but I've since got rid of them.
Now hes the only non Tang in the tank. He's had a hard life in that
he was being bullied for months, then he badly scrached his eye which
became cloudy and then scrached it again at one stage that the outer
part of his eye was haning off.. that was months ago and with salt and
regular waterchanges he quickly healed.

I preform weekly 60 litre water changes and buffer with ProperPH 8.2

Last week on of my leptosoma fell sick and died. He had lost the will to swim and had ragged fins and scales missing. I didnt quarantine him in time but assumed that maybe he got damaged when a rock fell or something... no leasions, lumps or anything.

However then 2 days after his death (yesterday) my Jacobfreibergi started to come down with what I think looks like Fish Pox. According to the interpet manual of fish health which describes the symptoms as having small pimples that look more like spilled candle wax that sores.

They're not fuzzy, not very white but covering his body.
Apologies for the poor picture.


Now I've heard that fish pox isnt contagious but im wondering if it is fish pox. He seems to be swimming and eating as normal.

Wondering if there's a connection between the dead leptosoma and the new sick fish. Perhaps he had a nip at him when he was dying. Wish i had a pic of the dead leptosoma.

I did a big water change yesterday as soon as i noticed the pox(?) and put in some polyfilter into my powehead to try to clean the water. I've also added some salt but wondering if theres anything else i can do????

I've studied all the other fish and they all seem fine, and are without marks

Anyone help?

A little late on the reply but from your description it sounds like you have a case of ich, otherwise known as whitespot. The best remedy is to adopt a series of 20% water changes for about a week and reduce the amount you feed the fish.

Alternatively you can buy a whitespot treatment but it is costly and will affect any catfish you may have.

Whitespot is a sign of fish being stressed, usually caused by adverse water conditions. If your Nitrates are usually high then you could look into getting a nitrate removing pad but they have mixed results. I used one when I had an overstocked tank of Mbuna with some success.

Zebadee,I dont think that describes White Spot.

In future when posting on a medical issue please state that you are assuming or advising (IMO or IME).

The best remedy is to adopt a series of 20% water changes for about a week and reduce the amount you feed the fish.

The reason I say this is because your conception of white spot is incorrect.It is an external condition which brings on secondary infection and bacterial issues.I will let Anto go into the small detail on it but you are misadvising.
-A series of water changes will stress already stressed fish
-Reducing food has absolutely no effect on an external parasite (tomite)
-While water quality should be addressed it is not the primary concern until the parasite is being treated with medications (4+ days)
-Remove all decor and allow to dry to kill parasites attached to rocks etc
-Turn up temperature to speed up reproduction rate (they are only vulnerable in 2 stages over a 3 stage lifecycle)
-Once tomites are unattached they will be killed by medication,which is the only sure way for a beginner to get rid of White Spot
-Advanced keepers can do it by controlled temperature treatment

Alternatively you can buy a whitespot treatment but it is costly and will affect any catfish you may have.

Again medication is the only sure way of eradicating White Spot (more detail involved,see Anto).It will not reappear in your tank again once fully eradicated in the first place,FACT. (unless you re-introduce more parasites)

Whitespot is a sign of fish being stressed, usually caused by adverse water conditions.

Whitespot is an external parasite which does not exist at all times in aquariums.It is not brought on by bad water etc etc.It is passed on in farms,LFS etc etc.

I am very sorry if this post comes across a bit rude but advice should be given only when you are 100% sure,otherwise add that "in my opinion"or "in my experience abcd" etc.As we are all here to learn together lets learn from each others mistakes.I learned the hard way with White Spot myself and was told not to use meds!!

PS What Tangs do you keep?

Fish pox is actually clumps of white spot.
Whitespots join to form clumps. You fish can become twisted and amaciated. Normally its caused by bad diet and lack of vitamins, they can heal themselves with proper diet and water conditions but I would use meds this time.I wonder if this proper ph has anything to do with it. I would not touch this stuff with a 10 foot barged poll. I would not raise the temp at this space in time as it might do more harm then good but normally I would do this.
What food are you feeding your tangs and whgat tangs are they.

I have nitrate problems but my fish never get sick or die.
My nitrate last week was 100mgl. I did a 50% wc and buffed the water with bread soda and I did another 50% change today. Th eonly thing I found with B/S is that is caues the water to take on a dirty look.
High nitrates can cause your ph to crash. Nitrate is nitrci acid and a fih is a tank where the ph has crashed will look like they have gill flukes.

I would do a 50% wc and start a dose of Protozin do not buy ws3 its useless. Keep us posted please.
Increase your w/c in frequency and quantity in future :wink:

fish pox is a viral "disease" usually associated with koi/goldfish in ponds when the temp. changes in spring, disappearing when it warms up, there is no known cure but is very rarely harmful, unlikley to be this.
best advice i can give is try to get someone to do a harmless scrape on the worst affected fish and check under a microscope(bring it up to me and i can do it). this is the only sure way of diagnosing the prob. otherwise its guesswork. imo. if you know what exact parasite it is it will be easier to cure.
how old is the testkit? could it be over a year? if it is test with an up to date one and see if theres any difference

one last thing,
nitrates do not usually kill fish outright but they will stress them especially sensitive species like tangs. making them more suseptable to disease, better to get them down, how high are they???!!!

I did not realise it was that serious.
Its actually a type of herpes than a pox. Common in Koi and ornemantal cold water fish. I must have mixed it up with another parasite.
Me so sorry :oops: :oops:
Maybe Sean can give us some more info.

ChrisM, I think your reply is rude, officious and the tone patronising IMO. However seeing as you took the time to take me to task I will exercise the right to reply

1) You are right, I should have made it clear that what I proposed was in my opinion and not the recipe to eradicate a protozoan pest, endemic to fish keeping

2) My 'conception' is your understanding or interpretation of what I wrote and not of what I may or may not have knowledge of.

3) Ich is a subcutaneous parasite. It has a far greater chance of infecting a fish that is stressed than a healthy fish. Inter alia poor water conditions are usually associated with a white-spot outbreak. The original post does not stipulate if there were any new additions to the tank recently but mentions a prior death. As a consequence my advice was to adopt water changes by reducing what could be a nitrate spike. In addition one change of 20% will not suffice, necessitating a series of changes hence the advice. I admit I should have stated IMO or IME.

4) If a water change is stressful to a fish, how then is your advice to remove all the rocks and decorations to kill the tomites not stressful?

5) Reducing the amount of food into a tank which has ill (and likely not feeding) fish reduces the chance that food debris will build up and impact the current water conditions possible worsening them further.

6)

Whitespot is an external parasite which does not exist at all times in aquariums.It is not brought on by bad water etc etc.It is passed on in farms,LFS etc etc.

The quote below is from
www.fishdoc.co.uk/disease/whitespot.htm
Ich is most often brought into the tank or pond on new fish or plants (not if they are quarantined!). However, it is also believed that some survivors of an Ich infection can become latent carriers, with the parasites forming a latent stage at protected sites such as the base of fins or the gills.
Subsequent stress or poor conditions can awaken white spot to re-infect either its host or other fish. This certainly seems to be the case with koi, when often small numbers of trophonts are often found alongside severe fluke, Trichodina or Costia infestations, even in ponds which have not had any new introductions.

I agree that there is also a counter train of thought held by among others Peter Burgess who disagrees with the thought that white spot can be carried by fish indefinitely. The link below explains this line of thought and also a number of medications to treat the disease.
www.cichlid-forum.com/articles/ich.php

7) I do think it sounds like white spot, as do others judging from subsequent posting. The fact that you do not does not grant you licence to reply in the manner you did. As it happens I was trawling through the unanswered posts trying to offer some advice. You, myself and everyone else missed this post originally despite the fact that it now appears that we obviously have knowledgeable members of this forum.

I have had ich three times in about 8 years of fish keeping. On every occasion I have increased water changes, reduced feeding and increased the temperature (granted I forgot to add that advice at the beginning :oops: ). In only one case did I have to treat with medication to get rid of a resilient outbreak.

I've been on this forum for about a year and this is the first time that I have been so pissed off at any single reply. To be honest, perhaps you are right, I'd be be better keeping my ill advised information to myself.

Most importantly, Arabesque, has the infection been cleared or is there any update? Any additional developments and someone will give you some advice no doubt.

Right lads, please keep the peace.

i saw the fish in question in person and it def wasnt whitespot....if i remember correctly they were sort of yellow waxy spots...like u dripped a candle on the fish! the fish recovered after a week or so and he hasnt had any problems since. im sure when he sees this post he can clarify everything.

Zebadee,

I tried to state things in a manner that wasnt rude or offensive,obviously I failed in that respect,but you are getting the wrong end of the stick.I didnt write that post using a book or references,it was all off the top of my head.It was a response to something I thought was bad advice and I reacted.If we were to have had a discussion face to face you would have seen I didnt mean any harm at all.Im not going to be argumentative about someone who offered good advice based on their own experiences ,but that is also what I did so what do you say we bury the hatchet?


In regard to your links Im sure they are what they say on the tin but I tend to be extremely sceptical about internet articles unless I have heard from a fellow fishkeeper that the facts are substantial.In regard to white spot I stand by my findings on it as I have researched it extensively.I have never had an outbreak where I hadnt bought a new fish in the previous 3 weeks!!
Anyway,Im not happy knowing I have annoyed you so Im sorry.Maybe I can buy you a pint at the next meeting!

Ps Again,what Tangs do you keep?

Wow.. some can of worms opened here!!

Infection has cleared up.
In fact 3 days after my post ALL spots seemed
to be gone.. i left him for about 2 more weeks to
monitor the situation and nobody else came out with
anything...

So.. i gave him back to my LFS to cut down on my
stocking levels. My nitrates seem to be happy with
this situation too.

ChrisM wrote:

Zebadee,I dont think that describes White Spot.

In future when posting on a medical issue please state that you are assuming or advising (IMO or IME).

The best remedy is to adopt a series of 20% water changes for about a week and reduce the amount you feed the fish.

The reason I say this is because your conception of white spot is incorrect.It is an external condition which brings on secondary infection and bacterial issues.I will let Anto go into the small detail on it but you are misadvising.
-A series of water changes will stress already stressed fish
-Reducing food has absolutely no effect on an external parasite (tomite)
-While water quality should be addressed it is not the primary concern until the parasite is being treated with medications (4+ days)
-Remove all decor and allow to dry to kill parasites attached to rocks etc
-Turn up temperature to speed up reproduction rate (they are only vulnerable in 2 stages over a 3 stage lifecycle)
-Once tomites are unattached they will be killed by medication,which is the only sure way for a beginner to get rid of White Spot
-Advanced keepers can do it by controlled temperature treatment
___________end of quotes

---

This is a great road accident, as the the on lookers then them selves got run over by a lorry 5 minutes latter, after looking a the first road kill.
Chris M, has a point, its very difficult not to be a little rude when chris saw so much inaccuracy of info, he had 2 choice, not bother to reply and be the good boy and every one friend, or 2 he had the moral responsibility to let every one know that you cannot not solve the problem with just water changes, unless it was say an open system, say an salmon cage where the water movement would dilute the disease to such an extent that it would go away with medication.

Chris replied in the hard shoulder, but somehow slipped onto the motorway himself when he talked about taking removing the deco has part of the treatment.

Lets face it fish have a variety of disease all the time, they are at a low level that they can tolerate, as long as the environment is not stressful OR they get in contact with a different strain of the pathogen, e.g new fish from a different part of the world introduced to an old set up, the white spot treatment gives the fish a chance to recover (provided the environment is O.K) and at the same time drop the pathogen level from say 70% to 0.05%

Has far as been rude, its all relative, no one was called a Muppet or a grumpy old woman!

Fish pox is actually clumps of white spot.
Whitespots join to form clumps. You fish can become twisted and amaciated.
I have nitrate problems but my fish never get sick or die.
My nitrate last week was 100mgl. I did a 50% wc and buffed the water with bread soda and I did another 50% change today. High nitrates can cause your ph to crash. Nitrate is nitrci acid and a fih is a tank where the ph has crashed will look like they have gill flukes.

I would do a 50% wc and start a dose of Protozin do not buy ws3 its useless. Keep us posted please.
Increase your w/c in frequency and quantity in future :wink:

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The real problem is the photo is crap, if we are ever to know what the fish had, without a harmless skin crap and a children's microscope we are all guessing, looking at the blurred photo it would appear if the fish has big spots?? If and only assuming if I am interpreting the photo (Author dont get embarrassed about the photo I would not have a clue how to post a photo IT wise) White spot is quite small, only after 2 weeks near the time of mortality the spots sort of join together, at that point is too late, the fish would have had small spots all over the pectoral fins even it its body was light coloured ages ago. Don't be afraid to use some forms of white spot at half dose when buying new fish for a few days, it does not effect the filter to any great degree providing there is no methylene blue in the ingredients, the chemical is also use when shipping fish as it prevents bacterial blooms in the bag water during shipment i.e milky water, I should know this as I was the first to experiment and introduce this into Phillipe packed fish in the early nineties if you like my claim to fame and nowadays most fish exporters use it. Fish pox is like any warts you get on your lips, its a virus, I have never seen a link to nitrate and virus, with marine fish, its mainly the squirrel philippine angels some tangs, that are effected, and its actually related to low prolonged temperature, In Manilia Aquatics in Tampa Florida, the base of where I did all my shipping experiments we notice that the virus were always in the winter, and as there was no artificial heating in the warehouse we found the link. In the freshwater glass fish, can sometime suffer from the same problem ,its very clean and very big warts on the tips of the tail.

In cold water cyrionds goldfish and koi, the warts are not really warts but lesioning, which is nearly always show with redness around the fishes lips and blood shot veins, this is without doubt a bacterial infection, to summarise redness bacterial, and treated with antibiotics, and virus clean devined white big spots cut the tips of the fin i,e 3% not 50%!! or use a cotton ear bud and wipe it off and raise the temp to 26C or 27C.

Can high nitrates cause the pH to drop, well yes and no.
The chemical NO3 i.e nitrate does not directly make the pH drop.
But here is a link. What actual make the pH to drop is the acid produce by the bacteria that convert ammonia to nitrite and then to nitrate, so since nitrate is a by product of this if there is a high nitrate level this gives an indication of the amount of acid produce, this is a very simple explanation, as if you a porous rock, then deep within the rocks will live another type of bacteria which will subject to a carbon source i.e fish food or glycerin will remove nitrate and produce gas and wait for it!!! increase the pH so in effect counteracting the pH drop, which theorically you never have to do a water change, in practice after a couple of years the fish may stop spawning as there is a build up of phenols any dies which cannot really be removed except with dilution by a water change.

although marine clown fish will stop spawning after 2 years with out water change some fish, e.g African childis will keep shagging.
surprisly enough the so called real hardy fish, i.e livebeares suffer more with out water change as the constantly release chemical to inhibit growth and comprises the well being of the rest of the non livebeares with toxins that cannot be broken down by conventional filters.

What I should have said but didn`t because I wanted other members to have a rant and offer up some of their own insights instead of there own.
White spot can form together to form Pox. When I say Pox I don`t mean the Herpes virus (KHV).
Pox is a general term for that can be used for anything from clumpings of blisters to sores and white spot.

Sorry I have no time this week for the forum as I am working nights.

Anto are you a Garda, working these hours, if so I will have to be a good boy.

I am a super hero. :twisted:

Snook away tonight so can do plenty of posting and make my way up to aquatic village tomorrow.

You have a point I should of PM the criticism about taking the rocks, and not post, message read and understood, I will stay out of the fish pox forum, there is nothing really all wrong about taking a few rocks in or out, it would change the teriatory so may even stop an aggressive fish stressing a already stress fish, keep up the good work, I guess was trying to defend the other guy, but it was non of my business, please continue this pox forum, without Anthony or me. :?

I have no wish to draw this one out any further. I admit some of the 'advice' I offered could be misleading. Thanks for the apology and I'm sorry if I went nuts.

In reply to your question, I keep Calvus, Compressiceps, Occellatus and occasionally Speciosis.

I am a super hero. :twisted:

Snook away tonight so can do plenty of posting and make my way up to aquatic village tomorrow.

The rumour is out that if you are collecting fantastic beige soft rocks with the same form as volcanic rocks at beslington lakes this week end, all your hard work and back breaking work could be in vein, its possible there will be a lazy squad car with a big chap in his early thirties waiting to book you, to avoid a court hearing you will have back your car up to the blue car and put all your hard earned rocks in the squad car boot, it you have to much and could comprise the supension of the blue car you will be escort to a north Dublin location. :twisted:

sorry this should of been post as a new subject in news section

My car even looks like a squad car.