Pictus Catfish

[pinkdolphin_113]

i noticed a single tetra in my tank today (did have a shoal but got rid of them because of a new tank addition, the pictus). i must have missed him when i took the rest out but i also noticed he had white spot.
i took the fish out and put him in a bag, changed 30% of my water and all seemed fine however, i've just noticed my new pictus catfish now has white spot. how do i remove whitespot from the tank without harming my catfish?

any advice will be greatly appreciated as i'm expecting another 2 pictus cats tomorrow

thanks

 

[jayjay]

Buy a med. for whitespot and follow the instructions, I've used waterlifes Protozin with good results.

Don't add anymore fish to the tank either until the disease has gone.

Also I'd read this.

 

[pinkdolphin_113]

i have 2 more pictus, a clown pleco and a BGK coming in the morning.

how long will the disease be around?

if i start the treatment in the morning, would it be safe to put other fish in the water because isn't that what dies first? the white spot in the water before it manages to cling onto anything?

 

[jayjay]

It should clear up in about 5 days..... I wouldn't add those fish. Also what size tank do you have?

 

[pinkdolphin_113]

5 days, okay, i reckon i could work something out with my lfs, thanks

I have a 30 gallon tank.
yerakno the BGK will out grow but i'm upgrading to a 60 gallon in a few months

 

[Bozza]

Depending on how early you get hold of the disease it can be around for 7days or abit longer. Pictus always have white spot, thats why they are rare in australia because they most always arrive from overseas with white spot. Good luck, its easy to combat

 

[pinkdolphin_113]

Depending on how early you get hold of the disease it can be around for 7days or abit longer. Pictus always have white spot, thats why they are rare in australia because they most always arrive from overseas with white spot. Good luck, its easy to combat

thanks, i've been reading about diseases alot and it's worrying to think that our tanks have diseases in them the fish are just usually too fit to get them.

what happened with my pictus (and now my new baby bristlenoses) is that i'd accidentally left a single neon in the tank after catching the rest. i had 16 all together but thought one got eaten earlier on by one of my angel's so wasn't expecting the full 16. anyway, after leaving it in there for a week and abit, it had been covered in white spot. i removed it, did and 30% water change and thought everything would be alright but i guess not.

am i going to be alright using the normal dose or does something special need to be done?

 

[jayjay]

For the dose what else do you have in the tank? Also up the temperature a little.

i've been reading about diseases alot and it's worrying to think that our tanks have diseases in them crazy.gif the fish are just usually too fit to get them.

There is no "dormant" independent, long-term encysted life stage separate from a host fish for Ichthyophthirius multifiliis. This is useful to know. You will often hear to the contrary. Dr. Peter Burgess, who took Ichthyophthirius multifiliis as his Ph.D. subject at Plymouth University, mentioned among Ich "old wives' tales" that "It's present in all aquariums." "What utter rubbish" noted Dr. Burgess (in the Nov 2001 Practical Fishkeeping).

.....

The "dormant Ich" myth. In 1965, Dr. H. Reichenbach-Klinke could write, in the English translation of Krankheiten der Aquarienfische, (Stuttgart 1957),

"We know as yet nothing about possible sexual reproduction in this species, nor does it seem to produce resting forms of any kind. Deviations from the described cycle may occur... young parasites may divide while on the fish, or mature forms, swimming free in the water, may produce swarmers without having been encysted."

....

It's possible that the myth of Ich "lying low" in the aquarium in an imagined "dormant" stage, may have come from confusing Ichthyophthirius multifiliis with a similar marine ciliate parasite called Cryptocaryon irritans. People like to call Cryptocaryon "Ich's marine counterpart." In marine aquaria, I'm told, Cryptocaryon (which means "hidden spore") can remain infective for up to thirty days, especially at low temperatures! If this is true, it's an insidious parasite, and much more difficult to eliminate than our familiar freshwater ciliate. But perhaps a habit of confusing the two--— by calling them each other's "counterparts"--— has helped create the myth of a counterpart "dormant" life stage for Ichthyophthirius multifiliis.

Where did you read we have diseases in our aquariums constantly? As the link I provided goes through that, as quoted above.

 

[Bozza]

Just remeber some catfish are scaleless and so the dosage should be (i think) halved. Depends what you have in the tank

 

[pinkdolphin_113]

well where does ich come from then? nothing can come from no where, like a cold or a flu or even cancer maybe a more suitable example.

it's fine anyway, i bought wilko white spot control whilest i was on my dinner break yesterday and when i got home, i noticed that the pictus was already getting better. less spots and his fin all the way up, i'd already got a smile on my face before i even put the stuff in
this morning he's even swimming around lively like a pictus should lol i'll leave it until next friday until i put anymore fish in.

i started the doseage as normal just to give it a good kick start but from now on i'm gonna half it every time i add it to the water.
when we say "half the doseage," does this mean we put half in at a time but add it more often? or add half the doseage but on the normal addition rate? it says add it every 48 hours, so would i add half the doseage every 24 hours?

thanks for all your help

 

[jayjay]

Is the pictus not a new arrival to your tank? Does that not mean it could not have brought the disease into your tank? Did you quarantine it?

When people say half dose, you will dose 5ml instead of 10ml for example, you will not add two lots of 5ml, you will use half what you are meant to.

 

[pinkdolphin_113]

it is a new arrival but the other 3 were and still are perfectly fine. it wasn't the pictus that had whitespot anyway, it was passed on by the neon tetra i missed when taking the shoal out. i didn't want them to get eaten so removed them but thinking one had been eaten by an angelfish a few months ago, i was only looking for 15 and found 15 however, there were 16 all together. being on its own, it was severly stressed, making it's immune system weak and making the fish vunerable. this made the disease do what it does and all of a sudden i spotted the ill neon with spots all over it. i took the poor tetra out, flushed it and checked the other fish and the pictus being the most susessptable (don't know how to spell that word) to diseases, had caught it. that's my theory anyway.

all is fine now anyway. no fish have white spot and the pictus is swimming around lively