Help Needed - Clowns, White Spot, Anything Else I Can Do

[becks683]

Hi guys, any help you can provide would be good, or even just to set my mind at rest.

On addition of a couple of clown loaches a couple of weeks ago, my tank came down a week ago with a case of white spot. Based on research I upped the temp over time to just under 80 degrees, added a half dose of aquatic salt and have been treating with a half dose every two days of NTLabs Anti White Spot and Fungus (Malachite Green and Formaldehyde).

The clowns which had originally looked worse were looking better, though two which seemed to be later in the cycle (i.e. weren't as bad to start with) were a bit worse. However today I just lost one clown and the others have been sitting in one corner at the surface so starting to get very worried.

From research, it would suggest they are not getting enough oxygen but I have an external filter pumping out above the surface adding a stream of bubbles and surface agitation and a bubble wall which they usually play in. The odder thing is that they are hiding in the corner farthest away from both but do seem to be breaking the surface every so often. If I disturb them, they do swim around ok. Rest of tank inhabitants all doing OK, only a couple seem to have caught the white spot.

Details of tank:
Water parameters: nitrate, nitrite, pH, ammonia all tested and all good, same last week.
Tank: 225lt, 60 US gal, 50 UK gal, eheim professional 3 ext filter, sand, mix live and plastic plants. Tank been running in current location for 2 years.
Water changes every few weeks, in between siphon up waste using handheld which traps waste in sock but water goes through
Mates: Now 4 clowns, 1 dwarf plec, 1 syndontis ocellifer, mixed range of tetras (penguin, cardinal, orange) and a few black widows.
Chemicals and temp as above.

Hope that covers info you expert guys need -is there anything else I can do bar wait? All help gratefully received.

Becks

 

[Joshwainwright]

Personally, I can't think of anything else you can do
 
You seem to have covered everything and are doing everything you should so it's just a case of sitting tight and carrying on with what you're doing.
 
Hopefully they will come through soon enough!

 

[lock77]

Stick with one treatment, either use salt and temperature or chemicals. I'd stick with the salt and temp.

 

[Brianandrews1951]

I also believe the treatment you have used should do the job against the white spot. (I noted that you were careful to use a half dose only of malachite green for the clowns and tetras.) Unfortunately in severe cases of white spot, fish are also physically damaged, and this opens the door to bacterial infections which, if severe enough, can easily deliver the death blow even after the white spot is on the mend. White spot and other protozoan parasites can certainly damage gills and reduce the fishes' ability to receive oxygen. (Without actually seeing the fish I can't be sure of their state, and whether this is part of the problem.) While there is increasingly strong reason to minimize the use of antibiotics as far as possible (to stop the development of resistance in bacteria), this may be the only solution. An antibiotic such as oxytetracycline at 20 ppm of pure product (or as indicated on a brand product) could help substantially, though improvement could take a few days to become evident. One of the advantages of oxytetracycline, in addition to its high tolerance by all fish (and eggs) that I have ever used it on, is that it will not affect the biofilter, which most other antibiotics will - notably including doxycycline. A downside is that it will not be tolerated by some (all?) plants. Ideally the fish would be treated in a bare tank, but I would not want to stress sick fish by moving them. Maybe you would be able to treat them where they are? A good way, if practically possible, is to lower the water level if the tank is large, to reduce the amount of medication needed - not cheap! That will depend on your set-up, filtration, etc - just a thought. (The filter can be left running.) I would expose the fish to the antibiotic for at least three to four days, but it can be left indefinitely, though it is likely to darken the water to an orange/brown color - which will not bother the fish. In my experience, need for re-treatment is rare but may be needed in bad cases. 
 
I don't know if you can or would go down the antibiotic road, but if you do, make sure the oxytetracycline you use is suitable for fish use. The best would be to use a medication formulated for fish (that is, water soluble without the carriers sometimes used for other applications). Carriers can impact on water quality. If you ask a vet, make sure to specify this. You could try asking for 98% pure oxytetracycline, though I don't know if this is readily available in small quantities for your application. Maybe worth a try.
 
Good luck with them! 

 

[becks683]

Thanks guys, I appreciate the comments. Situation doesn't seem worse today so fingers crossed for tomorrow and the days after.

Brian, will keep in mind re the antibiotics.

Just out of interest, I looked up the white spot med as it had a clown loach on the front and it says its safe for all fish at standard dosage. It is NTLabs White Spot and Anti Fungus with ingredients:

- Malachite Green 140mg/100ml
- Formaldehyde 800mg/100ml

Is it likely the dose age is already half strength and I'm then reducing it again given that there is not much abatement and its been a week?

Thanks!

 

[Brianandrews1951]

I am glad to hear your fish have at least stabilized. Hopefully you will not need antibiotics - much easier. I don't know what dose rate (ml per litre of aquarium water) is given for your NTLab product, so can't say whether it is half the normal dose, but the usual dose rate for malachite green is 0.1 ppm, except for characins (tetras) and other 'less tolerant' fish, for which the dose rate is usually 0.05 ppm. (I consider 0.05 ppm to be a half normal dose rate.) I was always under the impression it shouldn't be used at all with scaleless fish (such as loaches, knife fish - and synodontis) but obviously the manufacturer of your product has worked out an acceptable and effective dose rate for clown loaches etc, which is very useful. I would not deviate from their recommended dose rate, but if they say (or imply by virtue of the picture of a clown loach on the label) that the recommended dose rate is safe with clown loaches and all others, you should be able to use the normal dose rate instead of the half dose. (In any case I always watch fish for a while for signs of stress after treating with such toxic agents such as malachite green and formalin.) 
 
For interest I have just looked up the NTLab's product on line, and see that they give a 7 day treatment, with repeat doses every second day. Interesting. Unfortunately I couldn't see actual the dose rate there, but 140 mg per 100 ml (1.4g per 1000 ml) used at 7 ml per 100 litres of aquarium water would give approximately 0.1 ppm, which is a common normal dose rate - and that which I have always used. A half dose would therefore be 3.5 ml per 100 litres (0.05 ppm) which I have always used for tetras. I would expect the NTLab's product's dose rate to be somewhere around these two. The 0.05 ppm dose rate (3.5 ml per 100 litres) should still be effective. (I presume your medication has been reasonably recently purchased? Does it have a 'use by' date?) 
 
Formalin (an aqueous solution of formaldehyde gas) is commonly treated at 25 ppm of the 37 or 40% product as is (usually) available commercially. As that is what I normally work with, I will refrain from trying to work out a comparison from 800mg of formaldehyde per 100 ml solution. In any case, in my opinion the malachite green is by far the more important ingredient - and the more critical in terms of dose rate, though they are both tricky. Sometimes the proportion of the two agents is changed to some extent when the two are mixed, and this appears to be the case with the NTLab product, in whose case the formaldehyde proportion seems quite low. 
 
Over decades of treating white spot, trialing many different agents, I have found no better (or more practical) treatment against it than malachite green, preferably, but not necessarily, in conjunction with formalin (formaldehyde). 
 
If at all possible, I raise the temperature to 30 degrees C (86 degrees F) when treating white spot. This is really helpful as it speeds up the cycle - as you have read. (Raising the temperature even higher is said to destroy the disease on its own, but can cause other problems in some circumstances, so I generally don't do it.) 
 
If you are still finding no abatement (decline) in the white spots, it could pay to try the full recommended dose rate of the NTLab product, and if feasible, raise the temp to 30 degrees C. These are always difficult circumstances in which to make decisions (especially with delicate fish), yet one has to do something if the cure is not producing results! (I wonder how many times I have been there!) I hope this may be of some help - and in time! 

 

[becks683]

Brian, firstly can I say thank you for taking so much trouble to look into this for me. It is very much appreciated.

The dosage on the bottle is 10ml to 200ltrs every other day, therefore in comparison to your calcs 5ml and right between your dose and half dose guesses. Going to increase today's dose slightly and see how it goes. Just bought the lack so glad to see it is in date till 2017!

Three are out and about this evening but can't see the fourth. My heater is struggling to get the temp up to 80, think it may be time for a new one!

 

[Brianandrews1951]

The fact that three of the clowns are out and about in the evening has to be good. My very limited personal experience with clown loaches is that once they go down with a disease it can be very hard to turn around - depending of course on what the problem is, but white spot is one of the bad ones. I have seen big unstoppable losses of clown loaches in wholesale facilities, which is really unfortunate as they are such beautiful fish. It is a great pity they are so hard to breed. That will get better with time, I am sure.
 
If the white spot is definitely on the mend (and not getting worse from day to day is a good beginning to this) it would probably make more sense not to adjust the temperature upwards at this stage. The less disturbance to the fish the better, but if the white spot is not improving it may still be helpful. Fortunately moving the temperature up to 86 F wouldn't be a big deal for them anyway - the clowns certainly wouldn't mind. (And no harm in having a back-up heater of course - except for the cost!)