white spot

[tel]

looks like very fine salt on one of my tangs, about 6 spots.

is w/s always present in the tank and then brought on by stress??

whats the treatment options and your experiences? thanks

[rossco]

Here is one old post, plenty of others if you scroll or search back.

http://www.fnzas.org.nz/fishroom/trusty ... t2554.html

My recommendation, having had tang or two with it: try to let them beat it the natural way first. Plenty of feed, good water conditions, low stress. Supplement food with FRESH garlic juice and add cleaner shrimps (to tank) if you desire. See Pies and Fay's posts.

Hyposalinity works. You have to do it soon enough though so the fish has a chance of recovering from any WS damage. Its a pain to catch a tang but the best treatments are always outside of the main tank.

Good luck!

[chimera]

my blue tang has had ws once in about 2 years. didnt do anything, just left it and it came right after a few days. happened when he moved tanks (4ft to 5ft) never seen it since. i would wait, personally i think doing various treatments stresses the fish more and probably causes it to get worse.

[tel]

i decided to start the treatment 'Stop Parasite' by Salifert. any feed back on others use of this product would be good all fish in tank now have w/s to some degree, purple tang being worst and clowns almost untouched (visibly anyway) lost 2 x cleaner shrimp in last 3 days, 1 before treatment start and 1 after. unsure why. all my tests are mint so far but have now taken out carbon and PO4 remover as per Salifert instructions. fish are eating real well so hope their appetite stays up.

[rossco]

Hi Tel

How goes the WS? I got a bad dose earlier this year - lost a couple of great fish. Treat WS with HUGE respect now...

Some more thoughts..why did the shrimps die? I used Salifert SP and it certainly didn't affect mine. You need those little critters to help reduce the incidence of clinical WS. Are you sure about your salinity? Checked with refractrometer thingy? Don't trust swingarms - they have huge variance.

Stop Parasite seems to help a bit. Not sure whether it helped me or the fish feel better. Hard to tell as WS naturally goes in cycle over 3-4 days.

How many corals do you have in your main tank? Is it worth removing them so you can treat your whole main tank with hyposalinity? Others might disagree, but should keep your nitrifying bacteria going as long as you do it over a couple of days. Hypo is the way to go for WS. You KNOW that you are breaking the cycle if you keep it at the 1.009 level.

Clowns are naturally tough critters. Their natural anemone resisting mucus helps resists WS but they can still get it in their gills, eyes and fins.

[tel]

at this stage instinct tells me to leave as is and continue with Stop Parasite, as this is the least stressfull course for the fish. w/s seems a little better but obviously the tomites are prob just in their free swimming stage now. mr purple seems pretty tippy as per my other thread but we'll see :-? i keep a diary of events and tests so the likely cause will become apparent...well, the likely guess. bit like trying to put smoke in a box

[tel]

day 6 after 1st noticing w/s.day 4 of salifert treatment so 2nd dose just put in the tank. all white spots now gone off all fish and residual scars visible where they were. feels good to see that but im aware they are just swimming around and dividing, getting ready for a new invasion. quite a varied response out there about Saliferts w/s treatment.......... 8)....... hmmm........mr purple is tipping over less and less so he is hopefully sobering up.(im still dosing vodka) reducing vodka dosage back to the point of no cloudiness but i wish i had as much hair its still holding on

[rossco]

Hi Tel

Doing the double dose option? Seemed to be worthwhile for me.

Its the old story - its hard to know how effective something is when you don't definitively know what would have happened if hadn't treated!

[tel]

yup double dosage

[cracker]

White spot is the worst issue an aquarist has to deal with. Stop parasite seems to work in a tank ONCE. The tank seems to become immune after the first dose.

If you have never dosed it before it will more than likely work. This is from experience and from reading other peoples success/failure stories.

If you have used it before in your tank, it probably wont work again.

MY THEORY:

White spot is EXTREMELY difficulkt to control and I believe you will never cure it until you STOP adding fish.

Since aquarists are generally always adding fish, (Due to not having finished their setup, or due to replacing fish) White spot canmnot be controlled.

White spot will vanish from a system only when you stop adding fish to it.

You may be lucky and add fish without WS, but it is more common to add it, especially with clowns and tangs and a few other species. WS cannot be seen in the early stages and fish that are already immune will be carriers, but will not show ANY signs.

MY ADVICE:

Forget quarantining fish unless you are prepared to do it for a MINIMUM of 6 weeks. If so, you will probably be fine.

THE REALISTIC WAY.

Add fish no more than 2 at a time and wait at least 3 months between doing so. This will allow ALL fish within the tank to acclimate to the WS and battle it at their own pace. After this 3 month period, ALL the fish that are still alive will be immune and good strong fish. The ones that die were never strong enough for your system anyway.

TWO STEPS FORWARD, HALF A STEP BACK.

If you are wanting to add very delicate fish such as WS prone tangs such as Powder blues, Browns and Clown tangs etc, It should be designed that these are the LAST fishes to be added and if adding more than one of these delicate fishes, they should be added together. It would also be advisable to get them from the same supplier that have been in the same tank water as each other. This ensures they will not give each other WS if from seperate systems.

Once these delicate fishes are added, it is possible to kill them very quickly by adding other fish. If you add another fish with WS, (visable or not), the new delicate additions will rapidly develop WS and more than likely die very quickly.

In the ocean, WS can be diluted within seconds due to the mere size of it. Once in you tank, you are screwed until immunity takes place.

THE ONLY SUREFIRE WAY TO REMOVE IT IS THROUGH IMMUNITY.

The addition of garlic may help with speeding up immunity also, but will not CURE it.

I have lost nearly 12 fish in all due to WS and have learned by experience.

I hope this helps.

Craig

[cracker]

To get your tank supplied with ALL the fish YOU want to add, You WILL lose fish to WS on the way. be prepared, only the strongest will survive.

It is nature.

[cracker]

Comparing WS with MV, (Marine velvet).

If you are unfortunate enough to add a fish with MV there is not much you can do except sit back and net out the dead fish and wait and see which are the strongest. MV kills fish within 48 hours and will kill a large number of species.

I have been unfortunate enough to have had this also!

When buying fish, it is important to make sure MV is not apparent, if you are not sure ask someone who knows. It is not worth the risk.

If WS is apparent and you know you have fish in your system that are immune, it is not so bad, but MV is LETHAL.

[cracker]

BE WARNED THAT SOME OF THE KNOWLEDGE IN YOUR LOCAL FISH STORE IS LIMITED. IT IS BETTER TO CHECK WITH AN EXPERIENCED REEFER, SUCH AS ON THIS SITE. FISH STORES DO HAVE STAFF THAT JUST WANT TO SELL LIVESTOCK AND WILL TELL YOU WHAT YOU WANT TO HEAR.

[cracker]

Patience is the key to MINIMAL losses.

I have only just learned this after 2 odd years!

Good luck

PS, (My fish losses included MV).

[wasp]

Well written Craig

Both style and content not quite what I would expect to see in a textbook, but sensible advice born of experience & if followed will assist people to not get big losses.

[petplanet]

If you are wanting to add very delicate fish such as WS prone tangs such as Powder blues, Browns and Clown tangs etc, It should be designed that these are the LAST fishes to be added and if adding more than one of these delicate fishes, they should be added together. It would also be advisable to get them from the same supplier that have been in the same tank water as each other. This ensures they will not give each other WS if from seperate systems.

Once these delicate fishes are added, it is possible to kill them very quickly by adding other fish.

I would have to disagree with that. Fish that stress easily are the worst fish to add last. If they are the last in, they will have the hardest time establishing themselves in the pecking order. Stress reduction is the name of the game. Many people who have Blue Tangs find that if put under stress the fish will get white spot.

I think the biggest problem is that the process of moving from the ocean - overseas wholesaler - NZimporter - retailer - home. VERY stressful for the fish. Countless numbers die along the way. Fish would be heavily medicated along this supply line. When does the medication stop? Either in the retailers tank or your tank.

It would be near impossible to have a tank that was 100% whitespot free unless you medicate the hell out of it and never put any form of new live stock in. That includes rocks, corals and even natural salt water. Only takes one.

Who many of us go through stressful situations and it is only when all the stress comes of that we get sick?

[wasp]

Craig has one of those big tanks with rockwork designed in such a way, that the fish behave very naturally, and are not jammed up with each other. When he puts a new fish in the others hardly look at it.

Not like in my little tank!

[rossco]

How goes the whitespot Tel?

[splendidus]

cheers for this precious advice as i havent experienced the horrors of w/s- 'YET'-.now knowing what to look for and how to treat this helps a great deal shot brother

[tel]

thursday was day 10 of salifert sp so the 4th dose. fish vary from looking good to really bad every 3-4 days. blue tang had real bad eye yesterday but this morning much improved. if stop parasite worked i would have expected reduction in no's of w/s with each cycle, that hasnt happened.if anything the amount is far greater. i am still dosing vodka so may stop (vodka) , water params all mint.

my question to people who ''let it run its course'' by itself, would be, does it get worse before it gets better and how long??

[suphew]

for me I see the WS, go oh look it must have been X that I did a week ago, then a couple of days later all gone again. ny fish only ever get 10 or so max. I'm pretty sure having happy fish and cleaner shrimp is what does the trick for me.

[tel]

bullet has now been bitten....i have set up a 70lt tank to go the hypersalinity route. mainly because i feel confident it will work and the only other sure thing is copper which id rather not do. i'll take this opportunity to re-aquascape also :-? the new trend in rock is ''more is more'' :lol: