velvet or white spot

[Graeme Holden]

I have detected what to me is velvet, not proper spots, have treated with methylene blue and salt, temp is already high, only very susceptible fish are affected, no deaths in one tank, and another tank I think the temp went far too high and white clouds died, (faulty heater was the cause) and I have an idea the fish just could not cope and really the slime on their skin/scales was affected more than anything else. guppies in this tank are fit as rats, temp now way down to low and no sign of disease any more, had transferred plants to another tank and inadvertantly also transferred disease I guess, treatment well underway and most fish look great, others too early to tell, because I was using met blue I only used a low dosage of salt, might up the rate if fish do not recover or seem any better after a few days, fish eating well, have started them on oxheart to give them a boost, no lack of appetite, crossing fingers, arms,legs, etc

[Alan]

To prevent Velvet, we killiephiles have been known to keep a penny or hal'penny in out tank.

The copper given off by the coin stops the velvet.

So I'd suggest a med with copper in it.

FOLLOW INSTRUCTIONS carefully tho Graeme, and the treatment will probably kill the snail population,

so if you have lots, beware of the pollution problem formed by their demise.

[Graeme Holden]

cool Alan, tks for that, not many snails in that tank as the loaches are present, tks for the tip, Graeme

[caserole]

Velvet gets worse in the presents of strong light as well, so keep the tank as dark as possible.

[alanmin4304]

You have to be carefull with fish that don't like copper (including killies)

[Graeme Holden]

This tank has now almost come right, lost all the white clouds, some guppies, a neon, albino cats, I now have pretty good looking fish with nice proud fins, new born guppies, healthy snails, looks normal to me now, death rate has stopped, still a death a day in the big tank, but also looks to be on the mend

[Alan]

Regular water changes keeps the copper pollution right down so as not to affect your fish.

First sign of copper build up is the snail population dying off quickly. Action can be taken at that stage to prevent a toxic build up..

[Graeme Holden]

Alan, what fish are affected by copper?? do not want to get my disease back again and copper seems to be a good preventative

[Alan]

Scaless fish would be the most susceptable G., but as long as you are doing your regular water changes you should be right.

[Graeme Holden]

cheers, thanks

[alanmin4304]

Fish that don't like copper usually don't like malachite green either. I killed 300 killies with 1/6 of the normal dose of chelated copper sulphate and I am therefore wary of it on sensitive fish. It is a good cure for vevet so long as you don't end up with a sterile corpse.

[Graeme Holden]

Tks for that, I actually presumed just by the name that mal green was a copper derivative of some kind