Help! White spots on fish.

[taygen.carson]

I just got a 35 gallon tank a few weeks ago, I have 3 juvenile angels, 2 glofish, 2 juvenile green tiger barbs and a dwarf powder blue gourami. I notice a little while ago that they have white spots all over them. I'm pretty sure it's ick, but how should I go about treating it?

 

[Delapool]

Like white, salt grains all over with maybe some flashing and/or clamped fins?

Two common methods are the heat treatment method OR treating with store meds for white spot. Will see if I can find some links.

Either works and unfortunately either carry a bit of risk.

Meds - water change and half dose to start to allow fish to adjust. The faster method. Watch fish closely in case of bad reaction.

Heat treatment - need to lift heat slowly to allow fish to adjust. Would not use if you have had any bacterial infection in the tank. Bit slower, maybe a bit safer - especially if tank temp is already high over summer.

 

[Delapool]

Found one on heat treatment method.

http://www.aquahobby.com/articles/e_ich2.php

 

[taygen.carson]

Like white, salt grains all over with maybe some flashing and/or clamped fins?

Two common methods are the heat treatment method OR treating with store meds for white spot. Will see if I can find some links.

Either works and unfortunately either carry a bit of risk.

Meds - water change and half dose to start to allow fish to adjust. The faster method. Watch fish closely in case of bad reaction.

Heat treatment - need to lift heat slowly to allow fish to adjust. Would not use if you have had any bacterial infection in the tank. Bit slower, maybe a bit safer - especially if tank temp is already high over summer.

I was looking at some online but most of the reviews said it killed off the tetras so I'm not sure if I treat them with the dose the tetra needs is it still gonna work for the other fish?

 

[Delapool]

Yes, half dosing will still work (perhaps a bit slower) and they will usually say that on the instructions for sensitive / scaleless fish to half dose. This is for products with malachite green / formalin particularly which is the main treatment med here.

It's mainly the first dose which I would half dose. This allows the fish to adjust - especially new, young fish under a bit of stress already.

Unfortunately you need to start treatment as soon as you can. Fish won't recover from this on their own and it will get worse. Is there a local pet fish shop nearby? Online I guess I'd want next day worse case and if there were a few spots only on each fish.

 

[taygen.carson]

Yeah there's a pet store down the street from my work, I was gonna grab it today. I was just look at what my options were online. I wasn't sure what that store carried for it.

 

[Delapool]

Also I'd pick up a water test kit to check on how your tank bacterial population is handling the med.

http://www.apifishcare.com/product.php?id=580#.WI80ODzCaEc

 

[taygen.carson]

Okay, will do. Thank you!

 

[Delapool]

Good luck with it - nasty but common. Feel free to post back as needed.

 

[shan4404]

Last week I had gotten gouramis that got way stressed out from the move and developed ich. I caught it early before it really got bad but I prefer the heat method. I raised the temp from 75-80 and in a few days they were all clear. Once the parasite attaches to the fish it gets under their membranes and the cycling med method isn't much help and usually those are hardy. Warmer water speeds up the life cycle of the parasites and kills it quicker. Might be my opinion and possibly could be wrong but I prefer to warm it up and let it ride!

 

[taygen.carson]

it seems to be getting worse, even after the treatment the black angel is covered in it. Worse than the other fish

 

[Delapool]

Which product did you use for treatment?

Meds treatment (and heat treatment) really only kill off newly forming parasites. When it is on the fish, ich is fairly safe from meds or heat treatment which is why it will look to get worse before it gets better - hence early treatment critical.

https://www.google.com.au/amp/m.wik...-White-Spot-Disease-(Ich)?amp=1?client=safari

Just in case - did you remove any carbon you had in the filters?

 

[taygen.carson]

I did remove the carbon from the filter and I slowly raised the temp from 76 to 86 degrees and for treatment I got herbtana its chemical free and it's supposed to treat ich, flukes, chilodonella, costia, trichodina, oodinium

 

[taygen.carson]

That treatment was the only one the local pet store had in stock

 

[Delapool]

I did remove the carbon from the filter and I slowly raised the temp from 76 to 86 degrees and for treatment I got herbtana its chemical free and it's supposed to treat ich, flukes, chilodonella, costia, trichodina, oodinium

Unfortunately can't comment on this product as haven't used it and has been a number of threads complaining about the lack of disclosure on ingredients. Grrr.

Anyways, I would of done the same from what you have said - heat treatment with the herbtana. From previous posts, these sorts of treatments can work or help but may take longer.

Make sure you increase aeration to keep the water oxygenated.

 

[taygen.carson]

I did I took some water out of the tank so it's about 2 inches from the top and I read the back of the bottle it says it can take up to ten days but I just didn't expect them to look worse than they did before

 

[Delapool]

It's pretty common unfortunately that it will look worse before it gets better. Heat speeds up the life cycle so all of a sudden all these new white spots will appear. Watch for secondary infections - hopefully that med will help even though probably not designed for it. (Some of these non-mainstream meds can have good work behind them it seems, so don't want to seem complaining about it, just hard to comment with no idea on ingredients. Will be very interested in how it goes if you don't mind posting daily/weekly(?) updates?).

 

[taygen.carson]

Yeah I can do that, its microbe-lift herbal actives. The bottle doesn't even have a label to tell you the ingredients, but they do have a website. In the two days I've been using it I've lost two fish. One of the glofish and one of the tiger barbs. They were both babies so I'm not sure if it's possible they died from the ich or if it was the treatment

 

[Delapool]

Could even be the heat increase (even when gradual). The first day is pretty tough for them I've found although haven't used heat treatment method much. After that they adjust. My tank will regularly get over 30C/86F in summer when I'm away but never lost one.

 

[taygen.carson]

I did very very gradual, I started at 76 and I started raising it yesterday and I'm only at 79 right now. I was nervous about losing them so I've been very slowly increasing it