joliet Posted January 31, 2009 Report Share Posted January 31, 2009 Sadly my guppies have got whitespot. Only just noticed it today and I look at them every day. Only two of the female guppies have it and they were the ones I moved into a smaller tank (with water from theirs) because I thought they were going to 'give birth', after 2 days they still hadn't dropped their babies so I moved them back. Apparently it takes about 10 days for it to show though? The guy at Redwood asked if I'd done anything about 10 days ago and I guess that coincides with me getting the Guppies from Spoon and moving them to my tank. I've pulled the plants out (only a few ones that had blackbeard so I was going to get rid of them anyway) and done a 25% water change and added some White Spot Cure I got from Redwood. I've followed the instructions (2 drops for every litre - 31 litres = 62 drops) and will keep an eye on them. It doesn't say anything about doing water changes, says I should continue every 3 days if needed and no more than 3 consecutive doses. It also says I don't need to raise the temp. Is there anything else I should do? I looked through the posts but none seemed to be about whitespot for guppies so I thought I'd post about it. Their current conditions (please don't yell at me if I've got anything wrong, just tell me and I'll change it.) - 9 Guppies in an AR380 (4 males 5 females) - Water changes every 2rd-3rd day - Gravel vac once a week - Feed little bits daily - Water sits at the rooms ambient temp. The coldest I've seen it get is 21 and the hottest 28. Does fluctuating temps cause whitespot? - Normal gravel and some plants Spoon gave me - it now has no live plants and an artifical 'spawning' plant that covers the bottom. Thanks in advance Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
evey71 Posted January 31, 2009 Report Share Posted January 31, 2009 One other thing you can do is take out any charchol in the filters as this will stop the meds from working as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joliet Posted January 31, 2009 Author Report Share Posted January 31, 2009 One other thing you can do is take out any charchol in the filters as this will stop the meds from working as well. Oh yup, done this too, sorry should've mentioned that Actually, what can I do with the carbon pad (its a sponge ontop of a bag of carbon)? Will it still be ok in a few days time? Will it be full of dead bacteria etc? Or should I just buy a new one? :-? I've tried to read up as much as I can about it but just need to be certain that I'm doing everything right. Cheers Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snowman Posted January 31, 2009 Report Share Posted January 31, 2009 Hi, the black pads in Aqua one tanks arent carbon just a course sponge. Leave it in there but take out the bag of carbon. Increasing the temp will make the whitespot go through their cycle faster speeding up the cure. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stella Posted January 31, 2009 Report Share Posted January 31, 2009 whitespot is a parasite, it must have come into your tank on the new fish or have been there already but unobserved (it can hide in the gills for several lifecycles. Extra stress is probably what caused it to go nuts. THe important thing is to keep treating AFTER you see the last spot fall off. THe treatment does NOT kill the spots on the fisht, they are safe. Once the spot falls off it falls to the ground and grows a little more, then releases hundreds of tiny spots. These tiny free-swimmers are the only killable stage. You need to be sure to keep treating until you are sure no more fallen spots are going to be releasing freeswimmers. I have coldwater tanks and it takes a week, so I keep treating for two weeks after I see the last spot fall. Not sure how long it should be done at tropical temps, the heat speeds up the lifecycle (consider yourself lucky!) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joliet Posted January 31, 2009 Author Report Share Posted January 31, 2009 whitespot is a parasite, it must have come into your tank on the new fish or have been there already but unobserved (it can hide in the gills for several lifecycles. Extra stress is probably what caused it to go nuts. THe important thing is to keep treating AFTER you see the last spot fall off. THe treatment does NOT kill the spots on the fisht, they are safe. Once the spot falls off it falls to the ground and grows a little more, then releases hundreds of tiny spots. These tiny free-swimmers are the only killable stage. You need to be sure to keep treating until you are sure no more fallen spots are going to be releasing freeswimmers. I have coldwater tanks and it takes a week, so I keep treating for two weeks after I see the last spot fall. Not sure how long it should be done at tropical temps, the heat speeds up the lifecycle (consider yourself lucky!) Thanks for the advice so if it says I shouldn't do more than 3 consecutive doses (9 days worth) should I ignore that or stick to it? There are quite a few spots on their tails, more on one of the fish than the other but they seem to be the only two with the spots. None of their gills, just the back tail and the front side fins. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joliet Posted January 31, 2009 Author Report Share Posted January 31, 2009 Hi, the black pads in Aqua one tanks arent carbon just a course sponge. Leave it in there but take out the bag of carbon. Increasing the temp will make the whitespot go through their cycle faster speeding up the cure. Nah the thing I've taken out is like a package, it has white sponge on the top and black carbon underneath. The coarse black sponge is still in there Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joliet Posted February 3, 2009 Author Report Share Posted February 3, 2009 Update! Today is day 4 since spotting and treating the whitespot. I also added salt two days ago (1/2 tsp per litre) to help them build up a slime coat. Yesterday I did my 25% water change + added more white spot cure + replaced the salt I took out. They're looking great! The one female who was totally riddled with it looks almost naked :lol: she hardly has any now, maybe one or two spots? And none of the other fish seem to have got it. So maybe I'll do another treatment in 3 days time (well, two after this one) and then hopefully it should all be gone. Just updating so if anyone comes across this post in the future then they know the white spot cure + salt worked Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stella Posted February 4, 2009 Report Share Posted February 4, 2009 That is great Joleit! These issues are big learning stages and I am glad this one has gone well. Probably the whitespotcure OR the salt on its own would have done the trick, but probably little harm in mixing the two (generally it is discouraged to mix meds, unless you know what you are doing) Still keep treating for 3-4 days after the last spot falls. If you are worried about not wanting to use more than the described doses of whitespot cure, simply discontinue that, leave the salt in and after 4 days do a waterchange and not add more salt. The salt will decrease with each waterchange. Carbon is fairly useless in small doses, needs to be replaced regularly and personally I can't be bothered. Others swear by it. Carbon absorbs stuff (chemicals?) from the water, and has a rather short life. If it is exposed to the air it will be absorbing stuff too. Probably best to throw away the carbon that was in the water. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joliet Posted February 5, 2009 Author Report Share Posted February 5, 2009 Probably the whitespotcure OR the salt on its own would have done the trick, but probably little harm in mixing the two (generally it is discouraged to mix meds, unless you know what you are doing) Ah. Point taken haha, they seem to be fine though thankfully! Probably best to throw away the carbon that was in the water. Ok, will do is there anything else I should replace it with? In there at the moment is a black coarse sponge pad and some bio noodles (ceramic looking things?) in there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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