Help! Fish enjoy white spot?
I have 2 Oranda fish. One is an orange with a black striped hanger-on tail.
( Had him about 1 month )
The other is a deep red/orange with a plain white disciple tail. ( Had him about 3 weeks )
The fish were perfectly ok ending night but, I went out today 9am - 5pm and checked on my fish when I get back.
The deep red/orange fish has 'white spot' adjectives on his tail and back end of the body.
The orange and black fish have a group of about 5 on his top fin.
I noticed the problem straight away and took them out.
I hold put them in separate new fresh tanks and 1 fish is within each.
Both the fish are swimming and don't appear ill. But, the spots are very clear and the red and white fish have loads!
I wont be able to get any treatment till tomorrow as it is 7pm here and everywhere is closed.
I don't have any treatment or aquarium brackish.
I need some help!
Also the red and white oranda has black patch on his sides, not spots but patches on the gills, is this related?
the white spots probably due to stress, to be honest, i think moving them was a doomed to failure idea, you shouldn't have moved the new fish as its most probable still in shock from being moved from the wholesaler's tank, to the pet-shop container, and then to your tank, it was a impossible idea to move that fish yet again. go attain some anti-white spot and treat their hospital tanks, and i'd suggest at least a 50% sea change on the main tank.
its called "ick"
the same piece happened to me. i have a mollie and i woke up one day and she have all these white spots all over her.
i bought this medicine call quICK cure and it worked really well.
all the spots went absent in about 3 days.
but its really important to rush up and get rid of the infection because otherwise the white dots (which are actually paracites) fall bad into the water and sprad onto other fish.
That is probably IcK just get some white spot treatment they will be fine after that so don't verbs yourself
Stsart by putting a touch salt in the tanks( you can use palin table salt contained by a pinch), about 1/2 tsp per gallon then in the morning, stir get some meds for ick
they will be ok until the morning
it sounds like ich. tomorrow you need to get ich meds and follow the directions on the bottle.. it will clear up
Answers: I think this is white-spot disease.
Its good that you took them out of the reservoir because it can be easily spread.
The fish is covered, head to tail, in small white spots/dots which are small organisms surviving by using a fish as host. The spots stay on the fish for 24 to 48 hours, and afterwards they fall off into the substrate and then breed producing more organisms which after they search for another host to survive, which has to be near in 24 hours or the organism dies.
Treating white spot isn’t as easy as you would of thought, because the organisms attach them self’s to the fish rather than the mucus surrounding, it is impossible to snuff it while it is on the fish as the fish's coating are protecting the organism and therefore the only way to snuff it off is to kill it while it is off the fish.
Treatments:
Salt tub - 1 teaspoon per gallon, this works as a good general treatment and helps to distress the fish, but normally salt is not affective enough. See Goldy's post on using salt(
Protozin treatment- (malachite green and quinine sulphate), there are some treatments already made up by prime companies like Waterlife's Protozin which is effective to kill the organisms which you should know how to buy at your local fish store.
Increasing the temperature- at 80oF, white spot has the shortest life cycle and will be "flake" off the fish plentifully faster than a colder or warmer temperature. This can be done easily by increasing the dial on a kiln.
Moving the fish- There is also the option to move the fish to another tank at the same time during every hours of daylight, when the fish has less spots on its body, every 12-24 hours as you would stop the cycle.
Methylene Blue- Like salt, it is also a devout general treatment, but it is a lot better at killing white spot, it will also modernize gill efficiency. Methylene Blue is available from chemists and some aquatic stores.
One thing you have need of to remember is that white spot can stay dormant on a fish, and if the fish is stressed too much, white spot can return.
This "white spot" is call "Ick" or Ichthyophthirius.
Usually, I'll just change the water, check the wet quality, and buy some treatment at the pet store. They have it in somewhat bottle just like they do water treatments. Ask the pet store receptionist.
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If in dire straights:
1. Check your water quality!! 9 times out of 10, the fish can do fine next to a few Ichthyophthirius in the water, but when they are stressed by anything, like questionable wet quality, it makes it much easier for the little buggers to set up shop in your fish's skin.
2. Do a 50% river change, just to be safe.
3. Add 3 tsp of aquarium brackish per gallon to your tank. This reduces the osmotic stress on the fish caused by the invading organisms, and may adversely affect the organism as in good health.
4. Pick up an ich medication of your choice at the local fish mart. Most of the ones that are sold are more or less effective. My personal favorite is a malachite green/formaldehyde combination sold under the brand given name "Quick Cure". ("RidIch" has the same ingredients.) Note: Most people recommend halve the dose of Malachite-containing medications if you are treating small catfish, any scaleless catfish, or tetras.
5. Disregard the instructions on the bottle! Use the DOSE written on the bottle, but treat approaching this: Treat every 3 to 4 days for 4 treatments, changing 50% of the water before every treatment. Do NOT treat once or twice, approaching the directions will tell you! You need to treat over 12 to 16 days in lay down to get all the little guys when they are vulnerable. (See life span cycle diagram for explanation)
(Excuse the digression here, but this is my chance to vent my frustration at the aquarium trade -- I think they purposefully give poor medicating information so that the consumer will treat singular partially, and knock down the parasite burden only satisfactory to temporarily cure the fish! Because not all the organisms are dead, they will bounce back surrounded by a few weeks or months, and the poor consumer has to run out and but more of the ich medication! What a scam!!)
Other things which may help:
6. Raise the temperature surrounded by the tank above 85 degrees for 5-7 days. The tomites do very poorly at these temperature, and it also speeds up the life cycle so more organisms are vulnerable to killing at any time.
7. You can use a diatomaceous dust filter to decrease the number of infective tomites.
8. Move fish to a clean tank after 7 days. This reduce reinfection by tomites left behind after the initial treatments.
