Millions of white dots......can anyone help!!??

[Wasserpest]

Can't wait to see what it is... still having the same problem as you describe, although most fish don't seem to be too affected. I think its Paramecium though...

I know of two ways to get rid of them apart from using chemicals: DE filtration (diatomaceous earth) which simply filters the buggers out, or UV sterilization, which kills them.

I looked into UV sterilizers, but they are all around $100, and you still need a pump or put them inline with a canister filter.

Well I hope once we identified what it is we figure out an easy way to get rid of them... maybe daphnias in a tightly meshed net???

 

[Mogo]

Hello AngelKay!

I got the photos yesterday afternoon, but had a bridal shower to go to. I had the day off today, so I started saving the full sized versions of each photo. I was at 38 when the computer froze Anyways, I had some real serious computer issues, and just finally sorted it all out I'll be looking at them tonight, so hang tight and hopefully I'll get some info back in a couple hours.

 

[Mogo]

Hey AngelKay,

I've finished downloading the pics, and have just finished sorting them out, according to organism. I don't have much for you right now, as a friend of mine just popped in, along with doing a water change on my African tank, but I'm working on it I did brighten, sharpen and resize these two, which will you be happy to know are just air bubbles. Little hint: the smaller the bubble, the thicker the black ring. If you are using a cover slip, there is a way to put it on that will help keep air bubbles to a minimum, if you want to know how to do this, let me know, and I'll tell you how

Just a quick question, do you have a condensor on your microscope?

I've uploaded the pics to my website. You can save them from there, or if you want, I can email them to you. I'll keeping working on it and hopefully I can get a couple more up soon.

 

[Mogo]

Hi AngelKay,

I apologize for not getting any more up earlier. One friend turned into two friends, two turned into three and then three into four Well, this one here looks like nothing. Could just be fish poop or dirt. I'll be looking at the actual organisms you sent me now....I'll probably only post one image of each organism, I believe if I can remember correctly, you had 12 distinct microrganisms...oh yeah, in the future, keep track of the magnification of each of the photos, that helps in determining what the organism is. Talk to you soon

 

[Mogo]

Okay, here we go again

This stuff is usually organic gunk and debris (I say usually, as sometimes bacteria also appears this way)

Now here is what appears to be gunk, trapped in an air bubble

Now this, although it appears very similar to the above photo, is definately a cyst of some sort. Contained within the cyst are developing new little critters who are waiting to burst out. I'm not sure "who" the cyst is from, but will be able to sort this out, once I identify all the organisms you sent me. I'm going to post one of the images you sent me, and if you can remember the magnification you used that would be great. If not, tell me what mag's your microscope has and I'll do my best guessing on the size. Gonna get to doing that right now.

 

[Mogo]

Hi AngelKay,

Well, I didn't bother posting those pics that I wanted to know the magnification of. Three of the pics look like they were taken under different magnifications (assuming you didn't use the zoom on your camera) so I am guessing you probably are using 40 or 50x, 100x and 400x. Let me know.

I did sort out one of the things you sent me, the rice looking type thing, and I believe it to be a phacus species. These guys are flagellates in the phylum euglenophyta, and you'll be happy to know that they are free swimming mostly in freshwater, and are not parasitic. I had never seen one of these before, but I am pretty sure I am correct on my identification, but if something else comes to mind I'll let you know.

Yeah, I know you're probably wondering why you can't see the flagellum. Most of the time, the flagella is not visible under the microscope, but if you were able to see it it would be coming out of the opposite end of the little pointy tail type thingie. Two other things that pointed to it being the phacus is the distinctive longitudinal ridge (the dark part running through the center of the organism), and thanks to your excellent photo, the very obvious longitudinal striae, the parallel thin lines, sort of like little channels. The thing that threw me was the lack of green colour, as these guys usually have chloroplasts, but after a little reading I did find out that there are colourless varieties, called hyalophacus. Here's the pics:

 

[Mogo]

Hmmm....haven't seen you around AngelKay....ah well, I'll just keep working on these.

This is a hypotrich (order hypotrichida) which is a ciliate. As you can see in the photo, what appears to be sparcely placed cilia. Well, these really aren't cilia, but cirri, sort of like little tentacles. In these guys, cilia is basically limited to the mouth region. It's kind of hard to see from the photo, maybe I should have highlighted it, but in the first photo, you can kind of make out the large C shaped macronucleus typical of these things, it looks like a string of beads. The 2nd photo is of the same thing, he's just a little compressed. You'll be happy to know that these guys are not parasites, and feed on dead, decomposing or live plant matter, like algae.

 

[Mogo]

Upon closer examination of the photo of what I thought looked to be a cyst of some sort, I noticed a couple charateristics that resemble the mature adult free swimming stage of ichthyophthirius (ich). Don't quote me on this yet, as I'm going to still keep looking into this. The first thing that I noticed was the cilia, that I have highlighted in blue. It sort of looks like a rainbow effect around the outside of the organism, and is more apparant on the left side on this particular photo. The other feature, that I have highlighted in yellow, is what appears to be a horseshoe shaped macronucleus, which is another characteristic of ich. The horseshaped macronucleus is not limited to ich, as many other ciliates have the same thing. But coupled with the very round shape, has me thinking it could be ich. The only thing that is throwing me, is the macronucleus is usually much larger than the one in this photo. If you could do some more slides and find another one like this, without using a stain to kill or slow it down, watch the movement. If it rotates practically on the spot, let me know, this is another clue. Try to get a higher magnification of it (one of the photos you did send me was on a higher magnification, but was too blurry to make much out).

 

[cheirodon]

Did you try Methylene Blue?
From what I've read, used properly it's a great overall antibiotic.
Maybe someone here can expand on this.

Could you have something decomposing under the gravel somewhere? This would explain the rapid reproduction of such microorganisms. There's an obvious inbalance of some sort, that allow these things to thrive unchecked.

Also, will a paper filter remove them? If so, you should put what's left on the filter under the microscope, so as to get more individuals on your sample.

I'm sorry this is happening, but at least we are shure to learn something form it!
)

 

[Feline]

Hmmm inteerreesting!! Great explanations Mogo!!

Everyone's got a nice microscope *wish hubby is reading this*

 

[Mogo]

Feline, maybe I should start sending some microscope ads to his email for ya That would be a nice subtle hint

 

[Feline]

 

[Wasserpest]

Mogo,
Thank you for your time and sharing your knowledge
Still having the same issues in my tank. Actually I have now three tanks, the big one has them, the medium doesn't, and the little 10gal I just set up yesterday. I used water from the big tank, and now these little monsters are clouding the water in the little tank as well. I added a few waterfleas to see if that will clear things up (hoping they will eat each other).

I don't want to add chemicals to my tank... what other suggestions do you have to reduce these little ball things? I seriously put a mesh bag with some waterfleas in my big tank as well... although that's probably not enough.

There isn't much organic waste in that tank. It's a densely planted jungle, I am adding NO3 because it goes down to zero if I don't, I feed sparingly the few fishies in there, and they seem all happy except for the infrequent scratching. Any ideas what to try? Does it make any sense to add waterfleas? I know it sounds ridiculous... and I would rather battle the source of this.

 

[Alien Anna]

I would suggest people try using a UV unit if they've problems with organisms in the water but don't want to use chemicals. It will kill free-swimming ich, among other things, but shouldn't harm the beneficial bacteria (which grow on the surface of the gravel and filter inserts).

The only thing is, can anyone tell me if a pond UV steriliser would work on a large tank?

 

[Mogo]

Hi Wasserpest and Alien Anna,

Yeah, a UV sterilizer would do the trick, it's just really unfortunate that they are still so expensive, at least they are around here. One of the things on my wish list. What size of tank are talking about AA? I don't know about using a pond one, but it's probably the same thing, but don't quote me on that. I know around here they are available in lots of sized for different tanks.

Wasserpest, I don't think the waterflea idea is ridiculous at all, it's actually quite ingenious. The only issues are, are these little pests you have in fact part of the waterfleas diet, and how much of a population would you need of waterfleas to effectively reduce the population of the pests. I'd say it's definately worth a shot, let me know how it goes.

The only non chemical remedy that I can think of is using salt, granted all the fish in the tank are salt tolerant. Salt intolerant fish can be moved to a temporary holding facility. Now, the issue here is dosage. The instructions on the boxes/bags of aquarium salt give you the dosage to give a 0.1% solution. This won't do anything for the pests. I don't know at what level each specific microrganism will die at (I'm still doing the tests with the copepods), and I don't know which bugger you have in your tank, but most will die at or slightly below a 0.5% solution. Some could be 0.3% or 0.4%....etc... So, effectively you would want to start raising the salt solution, first by starting with a 0.1% salt solution and raising it by 0.1% every eight hours, keeping a close eye on the fish for signs of stress. Once you get up to 0.3% you have eight hours to observe the critter population, if it appears to be going down, bingo. If not, bring it up to 0.4%. Once you get the right solution, you'll want to maintain it for about a week, this way if it is an egg/cyst laying variety, this will give the eggs/cysts time to hatch and you'll be able to wipe out any new youngins before they are mature and ready to multiply again. After treatment, you can slowly lower the salt solution by small partial water changes, the important thing here is small, as you want to lower it slowly.

But then again, since you say that the fish are only scratching on occassion, I wouldn't jump to the conclusion that what you have is in fact parasitic. The fish are likely scratching just due to the fact that these little things are floating around and because there is such a high number of them. If you have a spare tank to relocate the fish to, you could do this and then just treat the tank. Another option you may want to consider.

If this sounds like the route you'd like to try and need to know how to calculate the salt dosage, I can give you this information. The important thing is to know the exact water volume in your tank.