Do I have white spot

Well spotted on my neons some very small white spots on there fins and was wondering is this ich aka white spot this is my first every diease iv had in my tank and iv had it close to a year now.....

think I may have introduced it when I turned the heat slighlty up and did a 50% water change.(due to the egg another story)

Well long story short if it is ich
DO I
20% water change
remove carbon filter ie black coloured sponge
treat with ich/white spot meds
turn up the heat slighlty more its now at 27 C

will i treat the hole tank or take out the infected fish and put into a hospital tank.....hopefully have it up and running soon

quick replys would be helpful
thanks everyone

Sounds like Ich. I think you have the right approach. You should treat the whole tank as most (if not all) of you fish are probably infected even though they're all not showing symptoms as yet.

This is something that can be brought on by adding infected fish or stress. I'd say it's the latter in your case.

What meds are you using?

havn't bought any yet what ones do you recommened
just going to get some now how long do i have to treat them for

The Waterlife products are pretty good. I wouldn't recommend Interpet.

It should tell you how long you need to treat for on the bottle. It's usally around five days. Make sure you finish the full treatment even if symptoms disappear.

If you turn up your temperature, you should add some aeration. The higher the temperature, the less oxygen there is in the water.

have the filter breaking the water and will turn on the air pump what temp should I turn it up to 28 c 29 c
cheers for the replys

eSHa Ich treatment is the best. King British and Interpet are useless. Follow the instructions on the box. eSHa can also be used with catfisch and loaches. Some medications will kill them.
Don't use any water conditioners since they chelate heavy metals such as copper which is one of the main ingridients in most treatments.
If your fish can deal with it put your temp up to 30 degrees. Ichtyo can't tolerate these temperatures (that's why you will not have ichtyo ind Discus aquariums) and you will more than likely get away with any medication. But be careful with this high temp since there will be less dissolved oxygen in the water. Aerate with a ain airstone or two

Holger

Just wondering do you get much loss of life from ich ie fish loss oh and its not conteagous to humans :oops: :oops:
Cheers folks much appreciated

Doesnt affect humans and will only cause the death of fish if not treated. You shouldnt loose any fish if you get on top of the outbreak!

What fish are in the tank.
30c for 2 weeks should do the trick. Don`t bother with meds unless your fish cannot stand the heat.
Why is your tank temperature at 27c? Do you keep Discus?
That is too high for a commumity tank.
If you need tp use meds then Protozin by Waterlife is very good.
Keep us posted.

PS don`t forget the airstone.

well its roughly on 27 C so the sticker on the front says not very accurate though my snow ball pleco passed away there during the night dont think he liked the meds (water life protozin) iv left the heater on at 27 C and havent hired it up any more what should it be on

You should really read the instructions before you add any medications. It would have told you either not to use whitespot meds when you have either loaches or catfish (i.e. your pleco) in the tank or to use half the recommended strength depending on the medication you added.
Sorry to say but your pleco died because you didn't follow the instructions. Beginner mistakes happen, they happened to all of us. I am not trying to play the blame game here. I made beginner mistakes, same as everybody else on the forum, no doubt. You'll know better next time (hopefully). Some of us made less mistakes because they had somebody giving them a helping hand. In my case the old man who's at since the fifties. Unfortunately not many people have that luck. In some way I feel that the forum slipped up a bit here not to warn you...
Holger

was at the local fish shop and they only had the king britsh and interept white spot meds went all the way to newlands for the water life meds and even asked was it ok with all my fish and i was told it would be grand with my fish

cant believe i posioned my own fish :cry:

Don't dwell too much on it. Sh*t happens. I seem to remember that Newlands doesn't exactly have the best reputation in the forum. At least now you know what when wrong.

not to use whitespot meds when you have either loaches or catfish (i.e. your pleco) in the tank or to use half the recommended strength r

I dont know the commercial names and whats in them, I only under stand it all from the raw ingredients, malachite green (the green stuff in white spot ingredients) that tends to make the silicone go permanently green, this medicine is very effective, but scaleless fish such as fresh water loaches and eel, and even rams cant tolerate more than 50% dose. (what is a 100% dose? looking into a tank .....12 inches it has a very very faint colour, looking side ways into a 4 foot tank looking through 48 inches of water it takes on quite a Strong green colour, naturally a 505 dose would be half this impact. I did not know catfish are effect at 100% dose, methylene blue, blue colour stains to knock out the bio filter, all fish can take that and used worldwide in the marine industry for shipping fish developed by a hunk of a guy, again wrasse eel basically scaleless fish dont like that either, formalin all species seem to take it, its hard on the fish kppers hands if you are working all day with your hands netting fish as it make your hands dry.

So what of these 3 chemicals are in the aquarium product? are you sure it effects plecs, they are really hardy and if the electric goes off there are the last to die, did the fish die of white spot (visible spots) or did he die with out white sopts but within 12 hours of treatment, the reason I ask this is most morts of plec and corys are bacterial disease (secondary infection)caused primary infection (white spot)

I doubt that the plec died from whitespot. Ususally they are the last fish to suffer from it. Anti whitespot meds are the easiest way to kill a whole lot of corydoras if you hammer them with a 100% dose. By the way catfish have no scales either, Sean. before anybody writes in that they have, here are the links that will prove that I am not talking through my hole:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catfish
home.earthlink.net/~catfish_billy/id40.html

Or just google catfish and scales and there are hundreds of netsites that will tell you the same. Bony plates ain't scales.

Rams on the other hand have scales but are notoriously susceptible to any kind of medication but can handle 30 degrees, no worries

Holger

I am sure you are right the last time I kept corys plec was mids 80´s in an aquarium, as a spotty teenager and then marine tanks are not the right eniroment to keep them, so if you say they cant take 100% dose then you are probally right if it contains malachite green (green colour).

I have worked on a fish farm that bred plecs in Tampa Florida, they would make "caves" in the earth walls of the ponds, when the water was 98% pump out to harvest them, the adults 18inches were never netted and gently walked to the next available water full pond, the were picked up at the base of the tail were it meats flesh and swung back one or twice like a scottish highland games and tossed over your shoulder in thin air and thrown into the next pond. The juveniles were netted and put in a holding tank on a trailer at the back of the tractor, and some were losses a few days latter to redness under their belly (bacterial infection) I never knew plecos were not tolerant to meds, one learns some thing new ever day!

Malachite green and formalin are both fine. The problems arise when the medication is copper based. Incidentially all copper based medication will also kill any freshawater shrimp you have.

Malachite green and formalin are both fine. The problems arise when the medication is copper based. Incidentially all copper based medication will also kill any freshawater shrimp you have.

That's makes me a feel a bit better, I though it was strange pleco could not tolerate, the green stuff, and with you superior south American knowledge I was willing to back down as last post suggest, but I am glad we have agreement, once again malachite green is readily available through the president of the ITFS I beleive he is bring the maalchite green in neat form in small quantities in plastic test tubes for any one that needs some this coming Tuesday at 8.30PM Irish time (9.30GMT :twisted: )

hi all
i think i have some white spot cant say for certain .anyway ive tried turning up temp. but the heater that came with the aquerium doesnt seem to be able to get it up past 26deg. Is this always the case with the jewel heathers and is there better heathers on the market[whats the best]. is it better to raise temp.or use medications.i also hve a plec and catfish in there.if it is not whitespot and iraise temp./medicate can this do damage
thanks for all the help
john

Hi John,
I have run against the exact same problem... I ended up buying a 2nd heater and sticking it against the glass in addition to the heater I have in my internal filter (Jewel Rio 180). Only then could I reach 30 deg.
I have a 'theory', though I am not sure it's true and I will be running an experiment as soon as I start bringing the temperature down ... The heating unit is in the internal filter and loses its efficiency because of the water passing through the filter at speed. I have a feeling that if the one heating unit was not in the internal filter, it would be more efficient.
Can anyone confirm this ?
Thanks and regards,
Valerie

hi all
started treatment today for whitespot and have a few questions here goes
when raising the temp is it done over 1 or 2 days
how long do i keep it at 30
when reducing it is itdone gradually
do i stop feeding for a couple of days
if i put nets in boiling water will this stop cross contamination as i am in the process of setting up a rio 120 [thanks brian 947]
can i squez the filter media to help cycle this tank or should i keep it away
thanks for all ur help
john

keep it at 30 c for about 2 weeks white spot cant survive at these temperatures raise it gradually roughly 1 or 2 degrees a day (2 been the max as you can temp shock fish) if your not threating meds.
If you are threating with meds just keep the temp up untill your meds are completed then do about a 40/50% water change and put the carbon filter back in then gradually decrease again.

filter media can be affected by some meds ie killing some of it off in my opionn id leave the bacteria alone for the moment until white spot is gone.
although it is possible to use it without contaminating your new tank as whitespot live on fish if there is no fish in your tank there is no whitespot.
oh and dont forget to remove the carbon filter pad as this removes the meds.

I actually started this thread myself and have learned about whitespot thru these guys so just pasting my info.
hope this helps

thanks for the speedy reply sorry for hijacking ur thread what do u think about the feeding as i was thinking of not feeding for a day or 2

keep feedimg them just make sure u dont overfeed them ie left overfood

If they are eating keep feeding.
@ Valeria,
save yourself the experiment. A heater is actually more efficient when water flows past it rather than being stagnant. Even more so in a closed system. The flow helps to distribute the heat throughout the tank. Ask anybody who did 1st year physics in college. One of the first experiments they throw at you. Hated physics myself , thankfully only had to do it for 1 year.
The Hydor inline heater is more efficient for the same reason. Water passing through it at a constant flow

Holger