White spot treatments

Hi folks,

Just thought I'd ask you good folks opinion on which medicine is best for treatment of white spot and similar things?

I've been using waterlife,s Protozin, sometimes with undesired affects like death of fish, although i did miscalculate the first time I used it and overdosed them, so I guess that was to be expected!

Anyhow! Is there a better, or more affective/reliable protozin available? All the LFS's have recommended this one to me, so is it the best, or just the one with the highest profit margin?

Another thing is that the Waterlife claims to treat other things like velvet, costiasis, trichodiniasis, neon tetra disease and fungus. I was under the impression that neon tetra disease was untreatable? Is this right? Also, what are the actual symptoms of NTD? Every book I have mentions it, but doesn't give any info on WHAT it is!

I thank you all in advance for any help!

Cheers!
Big G!

 

Protozin is bloody good.... The Sera one is also REALLY good....

 

Yip, we've used the Waterlife as well and found it to be the best.

 

I personally have gone anther route. I raised the temp of the tank to 29 degrees. added some Salt, I kept the temp there till the whitespot dissappeared.

 

Amen to that. Just up the temp, add salt and wait a few days. You could also do a 50% or 75% water change with the above

If you insist on meds to cure whitespot, don't go and buy the expensive stuff...rather go to your LFS and get Marltons Anti-Ich....it only costs R 15 max per bottle and it works just as well.

Cheers
Dale

 

Marltons never worked for me.....only ones to work in my experience was the Waterlife and the Tetra. I've never tried the Serra, but imagine it must be quite good. I've never been 'brave' enough to just go the up temp and add salt route......always used the medication in combination with raising the temperature.

Big G if you want to try the Marltons route though, I have about three bottles here which you can have if you want

 

treat it asap, if you leave it you'll end up with a headache. Especially if you have more sensitive fish

 

I've always had great success with Marltons....that's perhaps the reason why I won't buy expensive meds & water conditioners (that's IF I buy).

 

Hey folks!

Thanks for all your help! I do however have a further puzzling development... I have been treating for white spot or so I thought, as I bought several neons about a week ago now and later noticed that one or two had a white patch near their dorsal fin. After starting the protozin treatment, I started to think about neon tetra disease, a condition I know little about, but listed as one of the treatable items on the protozin bottle, so I continued the treatment as instructed!

I came home tonight, and I found two of my boesmanis dead, and a rather weak looking emporer tetra! The only signs of symptoms are fairly rapid breathing rate, or at least rapid movement of the gills, and the emporer tetra keeps ending up upside down or at least tail up? As soon as he is disturbed, he rights himself and then a short while after he rights himself! No fish other than the couple of neons had white spots or patches.

I believe that medicinal treatments can starve the water of dissolved oxygen, are the above symptoms signs of this?

Any other ideas what could be the issue?

pH is about 6.8, sometimes 6.6.
Alkalinity (kH) used to show negligible, but has shown around 20 ppm since christmas (coincidentally the tap water suddenly had a pH over 7.8! Need to retest this)
nitrites and trates are showing low to negligible and watet shows as soft.

Thanks for any further help!
Cheers!

Big G!

 

Do a 80% water change, up your temp to approx 29 - 30, add aquarium salt, add an airstone and MAYBE add a few drops of anti-ich (or anti-fungal if applicable)

That's the quick-easy-effective way I use to get rid of most disease problems in a tank and have had pretty much success with it.

If it is definitely ich, you can dose your tank without having to move the fish to a seperate tank, but if you have some sort of fungal infection going on, best to move the affected fish to another tank and treat them seperately there....you don't want your show-tank's water all orange or green because of the meds Anti-ich doesn't alter your water's colour that much and clears up quickly anyway

Hope this helped

Cheers
Dale

 

Hey Dale thanks man, I'll give it a try! Won't be till tomorrow morning now tho! Got a crazy, CRAZY day today!

Further developments over night....

The Emporer Tetra died, and my third large Boesmani Rainbow is sitting at the bottom of the tank with very laboured breathing! All other fish look fine otherwise, except for the dwarf neon rainbows which are quite rapid breathing but still very active. My two young boesmani's seem fine, also very active!

The only other thing I have noticed is that one or two of my Serpae Tetras has a white lip, which I don't always remember being there, but could just have been poor observation. Is there a known lip fungus or parasite? Could this be related to the sudden deaths?

The final observation was that the two dead Boesmanis where belly up at the bottom of the tank! One of them was actually inside a hole in a piece of bogwood, didn't notice him at first, but saw his tail sticking out after I removed the first dead one.

Thanks again in advance!
Cheers
Big G!

 

Big G is there no way of taking photos of the sick fish so that we can physically see what the 'white stuff' is that you referring to????

Was the 'white spot' definately white spot do you know. Sometimes you can get secondary infections occuring, especially fungus, with whitespot which is why I ask??

Remember, you can't swop medications without either doing an extremely large water change or adding carbon to your filter between medications and waiting 48 hours. Could do more harm than good if you just swop medications for a fungal one now....

 

Hi Vee!

I can try and post a pic, but I don't have a macro lens, and neons as you know are mighty small.

The two neons in question I tried to remove, but they dissapeared into the wood work so to speak, its like trying to find a needle in a haystack!

I did however notice that the last time I saw them, the white was gone, and a dark patch was left in its place. there was no lump or spots so to speak, just a darkened patch.

Hope that helps further? Starting to sound more like a fungal infection rather than a bacterial job huh??

Cheers
Big G

Sorry, also meant to say that the Rainbows and the Emporer had no visible signs of ailments. Colour and physical condition still looked good apart from the dead bit and the belly up bit, and maybe a few little interested nips from the other fish. Interestingly, none of the other fish ate the eyes! Usually the first thing to be munched! I did however find a rather chewed neon carcus, so maybe the rainbows were internally affected from digested neon??

Thanks again!
Big G!

 

Ok, when I got home last night my third large boesmani was dead, and the second emporer tetra was showing signs of slowing down, and subsiquently died maybe 1 or 2 hours later. As I was going to bed, my largest dwarf neon rainbow was looking a bit out of breathe, and coming to the surface for air. I get up this morning, and she is dead! Once again none of these fish are showing any physical marks or anything like that!

All the small fish seem fine as well as my larger pearl gouramis, but is it a mere coincidence that its all the largest fish that have died?

I'm gonna try Dales suggestion this morning, but I just hope thats enough!

Cheers!
Big G!

 

Big G have you tested your water parameters?

 

Ok, further news....

I've done the 80% water change as suggested, although I'm still in the process of re filling. About 2 thirds thru!

I tried to get some aquarium salt yesterday, and couldn't find any, although I was not able to go afar for time was a real constraint!

I did have a dead neon appear yestersday evening, which I promptly removed. Again no visible signs of anything out of the ordinary, apart from the obvious dead fish! The other issue was from a male dwarf neon rainbow... This one was a fair bit smaller than the dead female one. I noticed that for a good few hours last night it was swimming around pretty fast at the surface taking in air. It didn't seem as heavily laboured as the others before they died, but none the less was breathing faster than the other fish currently in the tank.

One further compication was that last night we had a power cut for a good few hours, just after midnight! Having turned up the temp during the day, I was a little concerned as to what the temp dropped to at its lowest before the heater came back on with the power? I really don't know the answer to this?

So then this morning, the same male was swimming at the top still, but not for as long a period, so I thought great!

About 30mins ago, I could see him swimming quite randomly around, and realised that he was loosing stability and control. He didn't quite roll upside down like the emporer tetras did, but was getting close, so I decided to remove him sooner than I had with the others. Just before I removed him, I noticed that his colour was a bit weak over his back, and the neon silvery colouration was quite faded and between his scales looked whitish.

Does this give any more clues?

Oh and vee, I will do another parameter reading once I have finished the water change.

Cheers again!
Big G!

 

A thought just occured to me that shortly after I added the neons, I also started with some new food.

I bought some frozen Mysis shrimp and Dorado bottom feeders tablets. I'd never heard of this brand, but it was all I could afford at the time! Anyone heard of it? Could either of these be the source of infection?

I look in my tank this morning, and there appears to be no sick fish, so hoppefully its all past now, but time will tell! Still got a bit more filling up to do, as well as get my filtration back up a running fully!

Thanks again for all your helps!
Regards
Big G!