hi all,

i have just discovered that my tank is infected with white spot. :an!gry

i have looked around on the net to see how to treat it and have found that raising the temperature too 30'C and dosing copper would be my best bet.

any advice would be greatly appreciated

cheers

Don't dose with copper, raising the temp to 31c and adding some salt usually does it for me.

i have south american fish i.e carinals(the only ones with it right now), panda cories, bristlenoses, apisto. agassizi, laetacara curviceps and rocket pencilfish so i am unsure that they can handle the salt.

Cardinals, cories, BN and pencilfish will be fine with salt for sure.

I second salt rather than copper also.

You could also get white spot treatment. The temp raising only speeds up the cycle of the whitespot, it does not cure it.

Do you know the cause? It pays to fix that too.

Do you know the cause? It pays to fix that too.

i guess it was one of the fish i got from organism who had i and because mainly the cardinals have it i guess it was them

The temp raising only speeds up the cycle of the whitespot, it does not cure it.

this article suggests otherwise http://www.cichlid-forum.com/articles/ich.php

The second approach is to actually destroy the organism with heat, and can be combined with the salt treatment below, but not with meds.

I gather you did not quarantine the new fish then?

That was an interesting article and if you are keen to try his method then we would like to know how you get on. Certainly sounds simple and saves buying meds.

That is the method I use Caryl and it works.

I gather you did not quarantine the new fish then?

That was an interesting article and if you are keen to try his method then we would like to know how you get on. Certainly sounds simple and saves buying meds.

I only have 1 tank and am only allowed 1 tank so no I had no chance to quarantine them.

I will post about my progress and hope things will work out.

So salt is safe for apistos?

3 of my tanks have apistos in them and the salt doesn't seem to bother any of them.

White spot appears to be a lot more resistant to treatment these days. I have just spent 3 weeks completely eradicating it from my tank, it was not severe, just a few spots on each fish, moving around the fish in the tank.

Whitespot is always present but tends to present when the fish is stressed or not in full health.

It has a 7 day cycle therefore the treatment should be continued for a week after the last spots are visible.

To eradicate my whitespot I used the following - tonic, dosed at one, three and seven days with 25% water changes between, after the first 7 days I waited a day and resumed the treatment again. This I did 3 times. The tank temperature was bumped up to 30 degrees and my lighting period was significantly reduced as the effectiveness of tonic is reduced with lighting.

There is plenty of evidence available on the net that increasing temperature does shorten the cycle of white spot significantly, therefore decreasing the risk of fish death.

+1, I use wundertonic or whitespot treatment., heat up to 30 degrees.

also I prefer to keep up treatment for 2 weeks after I see the last spot.

don't forget that with some fish you may need to increase feeding due to the increased metabolism as well

I also use the salt method, I recently got some rams and the day after i got them i noticed some white spot so treated with heat and salt with no issues after. I also add a bit of salt to all my tanks every second water change.

also I prefer to keep up treatment for 2 weeks after I see the last spot.

Is that for shop/sales reason's?

its to make sure the infection is fully gone, and to prevent sending it out to a customer.

have always done this in my own tanks as well, nothing worse than treating then 2 weeks later having to re-treat

I used the heat only method when I had clown loaches, it worked perfectly, just have to watch for stress and increase the surface agitation to keep the oxygen level up.

i have started heating and added a pump and will be getting the salt soon.

any dosing recommendations and how often should I re dose and how many water changes?

:bounce: :bounce: :bounce: :bounce:

The popular measurement is around 1 rounded tablespoon per 5 Gallons (aproximately 19L)

please, oh pleas give metric measurements...

anything from 1g/L to 6g/L depending on the fish type and if raising the temp.

Cats etc don't much salt so it is at the lower range for them (at or around what fishguy said) so 1 or 2g/L

Most other fish seem to tolerate upto 3g/L ok

My natives (and other salt tolerant fish) will cope well with 6g/L

If you see salt doses as x ppt this is the same as x g/L

1 cc or mL of fine salt weighs about 1.1g

If that doesn't work try wunder tonic---it contains 4 ingredients each of which will control itch

btw, I use table salt for treating my natives if I cant get down to bininn to buy bulk 'rock' salt

OK, i have just put in 2g/l.

what water changes should i do from now on?

i'm planning on leaving it in there for about 3 weeks

do your water changes once every 1-2 days,

just make sure the clean water is up to temp, the main aim is to not stress the fish

When you do a w/c make sure you estimate the water taken out and add the salt back

The University of Florida suggests in this paper, http://www.aces.edu/dept/fisheries/education/ras/publications/Update/Ich%20infections.pdf, that concentrations as low as 100 - 500mg/L will work