White spot/Fin rot or something else

[Simian]

Ok at the moment I have an attack of white spot going on in my little 2' community tank.

It is the second in three weeks the first was on a platy (died) but it went away after a dose of treatment. Now my clown loaches & Ancestrus are getting hammered by it, and now I just noticed one of my angels has some fin rot.

I have turned the temp up to 27, increased aeration, dosed with white spot cure and after 3 days its still not settling down I have lost 1 Clown loach and an ancestrus with another CL looking ready to bite the dust.

Im anal about water changes and my water tests ok, not sure about ammonia but I cant see that being an issue with my water change system (25% per week).

After a chat with my LFS I have done a 35% change, dosed with white spot cure again and followed up with a dose of formaldehyde.

The fin rot and the way the little guys are keeling over so fast has me wondering if these are symptoms of a larger problem.

My fish are dropping after only a couple of days of noticing the problem, and they are not exactly "covered" with spots, how long does it normally take for them to die?

[Caper]

Just thought I'd mention this, do you have carbon in your filter, if so it must be removed or it will remove whatever meds you add?

Caper

[Ianab]

If you are getting fin rot and white spot and deaths it's generally a sign that something is wrong with your water conditions. Those diseases happen when the fish are getting stressed out by something and their natural immunity is low. You can treat the symptoms, but you need to find and fix the underlying cause.

Personally I would up the water changes (and hope it's not something in your tap water causing it.) I know big water changes aren't generally recommended, but if your tank water is toxic, then fresh tap water is an improvement.

Sometimes you can get toxic bacteria buildup in the gravel if it's deep and not vacumed regularly. If you suspect that be carefull disturbing it, it will release more toxins when you stir it up.

What you can do is take out part of the water into buckets, net out the fish and put them and the filters in the buckets. Then clean out the tank, wash the gravel etc. It doesn't have to be steralised or anything, just the nasty crud washed out. Rinse the gravel untill it runs clean and wash anything else in clean water. Refill and put the saved water, fish and filters back in.

Really you have only done a 50% water change, you haven't disturbed the filters, and the fish should be fine.

Dont be afraid to step up the water changes if your tank is highly stocked. Large water changes after a long time are bad because you will change the water parameters suddenly. But if you change regularly your tank is close to tap water conditions anyway, so the fish dont notice.

I do 50% changes each week on my well stocked tanks, and would not hesitate to do more frequent changes if I had to.

Cheers

Ian

[Simian]

I did suspect some bacterial problem, I vac my gravel when I do water changes, but I may give the total clean out option a go after I get this white spot outbreak under control, it will get rid of the cysts hiding in the gravel.

Hopefuly the massive med dose will smash anything down long enough for my fish to recover.

My CLoach Lived through the night so that's promising, thanks for the advice.

[Stella]

This is of more significance to coldwater ich outbreaks where the lifecycle is much longer, but may be useful to you.

The whitespot lifecycle is this:

Whitespot on fish - unkillable

Whitespot falls to ground, encysts and grows - unkillable

Whitespot cyst ruptures and releases swimming infective stage - KILLABLE

Whitespot latches on to fish - INVISIBLE and unkillable.

So when the last spot falls off, you might think the fish are clear and get the meds out of the water. Meanwhile that spot is alive in the gravel producing 200-1000 swimming versions of itself to re-infect the fish. Also the fish may have invisible whitespots on it, so it looks clean but is not.

And, as the wise say above, that the fish have whitespot to begin with says there is something else wrong.

NOTE: all my experience is with coldwater fish. Tis the same parasite but I don't know how fast it grows in tropical conditions.

[friendlyfins]

I have have a similiar issue recently whereby ich progressed to a fairly severe tail rot. I lost fish (Platy's and guppies) of which were the old fish, and the newly introduced fish survived...(they were quarantined first but still obviously carriers...).

There is advice out there against as well as for using ich remedy (I used Malachite green) and Melafix together. I used them both together and didn't have an issue with poisoning (one is chemical & one is natural). My LFS told me to net the really sick looking fish and apply pond strength melafix to them with a cotton bud. You never can tell what it was that killed them, especially when you are changing several variables at once (water temp, adding salt, chemicals..etc). I did notice a couple are fully restored to healthy fish again, so I attribute that to the melafix.

Scrubbing the tank out is a great idea, but is an added stress for the sick fish for sure, so be careful. It's a case of trying to choose the lesser of two evils sometimes I know. Good luck.

[Simian]

update.

I gave it the formaldehyde/white spot cure dose then after 3 days all white spots gone.

Total clean out of tank/filter media.

4 days on, my water is clean as crystal(I used filter media from another tank).

The C-loaches died (last one today) they just wasted away :evil:

All other fish seem very happy except for the fins of one angel (I am suspecting a phantom fin nipper).

[Stella]

one is chemical & one is natural

No, they are both chemical. One is called by a chemical name, one is called by a brand name. One is extracted from a plant and I am not quite sure what the other one is made from. It is still a chemical. No matter how 'natural' something is, it is still chemicals within it that are the active part. Indeed the less refined (and therefore closer to the 'natural' origin something is, the more random other chemicals there are in it.

Which is more natural, salt or sodium chloride?

Would you rather eat a whole lot of foxglove or take one heart pill?

Same chemical, different name or different level of extraction.

[friendlyfins]

Hmmm. So much conflicting information. I have 4 Aquarium shops for which I go to - for different things amongst them to deliberately get their take on what to do. I raise these sorts of questions and ask for advise of what to do in the case of severe ich & fungal disease. Armed with this information, and all that is available on the net, it boils down then to trial and error. All 4 pet shops advised different medications & methods of treatment (raise temp & salt), whilst adament about not commencing others (which the other pet shops did!). Some love melafix, some laugh at it!

I can honestly say sometimes you sometimes need to go by your own experiences and make a decision.

I found on this occasion, I threw out the 3 different meds for white spot I was advised to give. I dropped the temp back to normal as well as ceased salt and reduced levels by way of a waterchange. Used a white spot medication which is broad and covers fungal etc, by creating a hosptial tank and dosing it right up - whilst half dosing the problem tank with cats & fry. Results now after 4 days = no more deaths, and my fish playing silly buggers with joy again..... The salt may have stressd the fish as they weren't used to liking salty water. Potentially the melafix mix with malachite green was unhelpful.

Therefore the fish were in a water environment they had always been used to, plus a broad spectrum med to cover the disease. All this other playing with the water temps/salt/ etc I believe just stressed them more.....But hey, that's only my experience, and other people experience different successes.

:lol:

[alanmin4304]

Malachite green is a dye and is good for curing parasites like white spot. I understand that malifix is teatree oil and is good for oiling teatrees. You should pick the most apropriate treatment and use that on its own. If you mix treatments you can end up with a toxic soup. The usual treatments for white spot would be malachite green, copper ion (chelated copper sulphate), quinine, mepacrine. Some fish are not tolerant of the first 2, and the last 2 don't knock the plant about. Others are used as well. Wunder tonic contains a mixture of some of the above but best not to mix unless you know what you are doing. Others will nno doubt have there own favourites.

[ryanjury]

I just use the good old fashioned little bit of salt and if the tank has a heater up the temp a bit. It always clears it up and im not pouring many potentially harmful chemicals in there, have also treated it on clown loaches like this too and had no trouble.

[Stella]

Malachite green and formalin are two meds that are best mixed. They work on their own but they work better in conjunction. They are pretty nasty chemicals but they do work very well.

Melafix is indeed a tea tree oil preparation. Don't be tempted to use normal tea tree oil, it is a special type. This med is known for making the fish freak out and appear distressed initially, and it will make the water froth somewhat at the surface. This is normal.

I would not mix them. Or indeed any other meds. If one med is supposed to kill whitespot then it will kill it. Add another med and as Allan said: potentially toxic soup.