Treating Whitespot In A Goldfish Tank

[Elly]

My goldfish tank has recently had an outbreak of whitespot thanks to a new Chinese butterfly plec I bought and stupidly didn't quarantine. It's developed quite badly. Question is, how do I treat it? I know that meds are only effective when the whitespot parasite is free-swimming and not on the fish. However, I obviously can't raise the temperature to 30C to speed up its life cycle because it's a coldwater tank. I put some Waterlife Protozin in today but not sure if it'll work without the temp being up. Any ideas?

 

[black angel]

The best natural rememdy is salt but you cant use it with the plec in the tank.
You can up the temp if you can put a heater in but again the plec wont like it.
Your best bet is to keep using the meds as instructed and before adding the next doseage do a good gravel clean.

 

[ileopard]

Your fish might be able to handle it temporarily. Just be careful. I had a goldfish aquarium, and I used my tropical heater that automatically goes from 76-82*F (without a setting). It was like that for a few days, and when I realized that it was cooking the fish, I went to remove it and the fish was dead.

Try this: Set the temperature to 86*F (of course, don't jump it up like that, set it 1*F every few hours), wait for the parasites to go freeswimming, and then put the fish in another tank at 86*F, and set it down 1*F every few hours until you are back at your old temperature. Then, simply let the medications you put in the original tank kill the freeswimming parasites. After the treatment is done (the box should tell you how much and how long to use the treatment for), do a 100% water change, heat the water up to the temperature the fish are in, and then put the fish in there. Your parasites should be gone.

Another possible treatment option is aquarium salt. Ick does not like aquarium salt. I heard that you can also use non-iodine table salt, but I still prefer aquarium salt, since it's guaranteed to be safe for fish (with table salt, you never know if there is anything added to it that may be harmful to your fish). By adding 1 tablespoon of aquarium salt per 5 gallons of water, or if it's only a few gallon tank, 1 teaspoon for every 1 gallon of water, you should be able to kill the parasites, possibly without a temperature change. I heard that goldfish don't like salt, so only use it as a temporary treatment, and when all of the parasites are gone, do a 100% water change (of course, make sure the water is at the same temperature the fish were at). Isolate the plecostomus before you do this.

As for your Chinese butterfly plecostomus, they can survive in temperatures of 74-82*F. I'm not sure if 4*F more than that can hurt, but if you just do that to get the parasites freeswimming, and put the fish into another tank, you probably won't have any problems. But I dont know much about goldfish, so before you do this, wait for another member's reply. If you choose to use the method of setting the tank at a higher temperature, expect your goldfish to stay away from the heater as much as possible (as mine were when I had the temperature high). They won't appear to be as active as they used to be.