White Spot

[Francisco Coiai]

Hello i am also new to this forum and the aquarium keeping hobby. Up until yesterday i had and elephant nose fish ,which died due to horrific advice from lfs after i saw a tetra with whitespot. They suggested that i used a treatment called eSHa exit and that i turn the temp. up to 28 degrees celcius this quickly resulted a tragedy. I also lost a black-headed ruby barb and a gold ram to this advice. The white spot still hasnt spread and despite me asking repeatedly they told me not to move him to a separate location. Do you have any adive on what to do if such an issue occurs again and what treatment would you recomend. Also, where did you buy your elephant nose.

 

[Silencedogood]

Hi and welcome to the forum.

Did you say that you had a elephant nose fish die from ick?
How big is your tank?
What are your water parameters?

If you have any fish with ick, definitely quarantine them. I recommend the heat-and-salt treatment; turn the temp up to 86 F and then depending on how big your tank is, add aquarium salt.

 

[Naughts]

Hi, sorry for your fish loss.

If the White spot is still there maybe it was misdiagnosed? Post a pic to see.

I have used heat alone to cure whitespot. It takes 10-14 days. How long since you started treatment? Due to the cyclical nature of whitespot with eggs in the gravel, I recommend treating the whole tank, not quarantine of individuals.

As you know, elephant nose fish don't tolerate medication.

 

[seangee]

Elephant nose are very delicate and intolerant of medication, so it was indeed bad advice. Golden rams are very sensitive to poor water quality (i.e. anything but perfect). If it is white spot (post a pic to confirm) heat treatment and large water changes are sufficient. If you do decide to replace the delicate fish you should aim to change 75% of your water weekly (this is a good idea anyway).

 

[Colin_T]

Hi and welcome to the forum

Can you post a picture of the fish?
If the pictures are too big for the website, set the camera's resolution to its lowest setting and take some more. The lower resolution will make the images smaller and they should fit on this website. Check the pictures on your pc and find a couple that are clear and show the problem, and post them here. Make sure you turn the camera's resolution back up after you have taken the pics otherwise all your pictures will be small.

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Elephant nose, eels, loaches and catfish are commonly referred to as scaleless fishes because they don't have scales over their body. This makes them more sensitive to chemicals in the water. If you have to treat scaleless fish with medications, you should check the medication and see if it is safe for scaleless fish. If you can't find a medication for scaleless fish, you can use a normal medication at half strength.

Having said that, whitespot can be treated just by raising the water temperature to 30C (86F) and keeping it there for 2 weeks. However, post pictures of the fish so we can confirm if it is actually whitespot or something else.

If you have to use medications, make sure you work out how much water is in the actual aquarium. Many tanks are sold as x gallons but they hold less water when there is gravel ornaments in them.

Before treating any tank you should use the following formula to work out how much water is in your tank, and do the following things.

To work out tank volume:
measure length x width x height in cm.
divide by 1000.
= volume in litres.
When you measure the height, measure from the top of the substrate to the top of the water level.

There is a calculator/ converter in the "How To Tips" at the top of this page that will let you convert litres to gallons if you need it.

Remove carbon from the filter before treating or it will adsorb the medication and stop it working.

Wipe the inside of the glass down with a clean fish sponge.

Do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate. The water changes and gravel cleaning will reduce the number of disease organisms in the water and provide a cleaner environment for the fish to recover in.

Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it is added to the tank.
Clean the filter if it hasn't been done in the last 2 weeks. However, if the filter is less than 6 weeks old, do not clean it. Wash filter materials/ media in a bucket of tank water.

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The following link has information about what to do if your fish get sick. It's long and boring but worth knowing. I recommend printing it out and reading it in bed to help fall asleep
https://www.fishforums.net/threads/what-to-do-if-your-fish-gets-sick.450268/

 

[FishGuest5123]

Hi, sorry for your fish loss.

If the White spot is still there maybe it was misdiagnosed? Post a pic to see.

I have used heat alone to cure whitespot. It takes 10-14 days. How long since you started treatment? Due to the cyclical nature of whitespot with eggs in the gravel, I recommend treating the whole tank, not quarantine of individuals.

As you know, elephant nose fish don't tolerate medication.

I agree. With ich, you want to treat the whole tank. Don’t quarantine as the community tank is already infected and needs to be treated too.

 

[Silencedogood]

I have used heat alone to cure whitespot. It takes 10-14 days. How long since you started treatment? Due to the cyclical nature of whitespot with eggs in the gravel, I recommend treating the whole tank, not quarantine of individuals

I agree. With ich, you want to treat the whole tank. Don’t quarantine as the community tank is already infected and needs to be treated too.

Although ick may be in the whole tank, it will only affect individuals that are weak or immune-compromised. You can treat the whole tank, but in my experience it is easier to separate the affected fish. For the affected fish, I would do the heat and salt and, if you want, you can do a heat treatment on the main tank.

What are your water parameters?

 

[Metalhead88]

Last time I encountered ich, I had only one fish affected. And had a catfish in there that as previously stated is sensitive to medication. I have treated with heat, salt and daily water changes with great success in the past. Things didn't go well with that alone this time.

I treated with heat and salt and when things got worse for that 1 fish, I set up a 10 gallon quarantine tank and treated with rid ich. That stuff worked wonders and he was returned to the main tank after treatment finished. All fish in that tank are still alive today.

I would normally treat the whole tank, but things get difficult if you have fish that are sensitive to higher temperature, salt, or medication.

It's also much easier to treat and do more frequent water changes on a much smaller tank.

What size tank do you have? How long has it been set up? What are your ammonia, nitrate and nitrite readings? If this tank is not fully cycled, you may have water quality issues that you aren't even aware of on top of your ich outbreak.

 

[FishGuest5123]

Entire tank should be treated. Then weakened fish shouldn’t get it.

 

[Elephant nose 4]

Hi when my tank got white spot I treated with just heat as my elephant nose was in there, plenty of water changes and increased aeration. Luckily he didn't get it.
Sorry for your loss

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