Whitespot or ICH as it is known in North America is probably the first and most commonly encountered aquarium disease that hobbiests face. For many those first few ominous white spots that appear install dread and the reaction of "oh no my fish are ill, what do i do now?".

Luckily whitespot/ICH is one of the easiest aquarium diseases to treat and by following a few simple steps can be under control in a little over a week.

First step The parasite has a 3 stage life cycle, the first is spent attached to the fish, the second in the substrate and the third free swimming in the water column. To lower the ammount of the parasite in the water and substrate do a 50% water change and vacume the entire substrate really well. This will lower the parasites ability carry on infecting your fish.

Second step While in the first stage of its life cycle the parasite is immune to any treatment, to speed up its lifecycle so it enters its second and third stage of the life cycle turn your heater/s up to 29c (84f). This will cause the parasite to drop off of the host and enter its dormant and free swimming stages where medications can attack it.

Third step As soon as the first step has been completed add the measured dose of a recomended brand of commercial whitespot/ICH treatment. In the UK i recomend Interpet #6 Anti Whitespot+ or Waterlifes Protozin, follow the directions on the back of the bottle carefully making sure not to overdose or miss any part of the course. Repeat the course if the spots are still visable 4 days after the last dose.
During the use of any medication aeration should be increased as most medications lower the ammount of free oxygen available to the fish in the water.

Salt Many people recomend the addition of 1 tsp of salt per 10gallons of water when treating for whitespot. While this does not have any direct effect on the parasite it does aid in gill function which can be benifitial with species with high oxygen requirements and aid the fishes osmotic function to replace electrolytes lost during stress. Do not use where scaleless species (eels, loaches, catfish) are present.

Great, short, and to the point CFC.

I would like to add that despite what is written in a number of places, Ich is NOT present in every tank. Not even close. It can take a short while to show, particuliarly if a fish has survived a serious outbreak previously and then becomes an asymptomatic carrier and the outbreak then becomes very noticeable on fish more likely to suffer (such as scaleless fish).

To quote a very good article here

if a fish has had ich before then it will lie dormant on the fish (immune system keeping it under lock and key) but if the fish is subjected to stress it will infect it. so thats why some fish get it a whole lot more easier than others.

That's wrong Die Grinder. The parasite will feed off the fish and then turn into hundreds of eggs. There is no long term dormant life stage of the ich parasites.

A better site on ich:

http://www.skepticalaquarist.com/docs/health/ich.shtml

This post has been edited by andywg: Mar 14 2006, 01:32 PM

I'd like to add that if using Interpet medication it states to mix with 500ml of warm water then pour evenly over the surface of the water. However for warm, read HOT to touch, though not boiling. The heat (so I am told by people cleverer than me) activates some of the ingredients making them work. If you do not do this, you may find as many people do, that the Interpet meds simply do not work.

I however now use Waterlife Protozin as also mentioned by CFC in the excellent article above and it is very good and can be used with inverts present such as shrimp and snails.

Arfie

CFC --



I'm not sure this is helpful (though I know what you're getting at). There are fishes with scales that are intolerant of salt (e.g., minnows, tetras, loaches) and ones without scales that positively need salt (e.g., brackish puffers, moray eels, Arius shark catfish).

Possibly it's better to phrase it thus: Most primary freshwater fish are intolerant of salt, while many secondary freshwater fish and virtually all peripheral freshwater fish tolerate salt well.

Primary freshwater fish families (evolved in fresh water):

• All barbs, minnows, and carps
• All tetras and characins
• Gouramis and bettas
• Spiny eels (with a few exceptions)
• Almost all catfish families

Secondary freshwater fish families (ancestors came from the sea):

• Cichlids
• Killifish
• Livebearers (except stingrays)
• Rainbowfish
• Siamese tigers
• Glassfish

Peripheral freshwater fish (most species marine, some freshwater species)

• Puffers
• Monos, scats, and archers
• Flatfish
• Moray eels
• Shark catfish, eel catfish
• Gobies

It should be noted that peripheral freshwater fish may naturally occur in completely freshwater conditions in the wild, even though they are physiologically tolerant of brackish water (perhaps even salt water) conditions over the short term. Conversely, there are secondary freshwater fish that are intolerant of brackish water, such as discus and mbuna. Finally, there actually are some species of primary freshwater fish that actually do tolerate brackish or salt water. The x-ray tetra, for example, naturally occurs in slightly brackish water in Brazil, and so do bream and roach here in the UK.

Brackish or salt water can be used as an effective treatment for species like morays and puffers known to be sensitive to copper-based medications. According to Klaus Ebert, freshwater puffers can be kept in one-quarter strength sea water for days at a time without any problems. Morays can obviously be kept in marine aquaria. Either way, raising the salinity will zap the whitespot very quickly.

Cheers,

Neale

This post has been edited by nmonks: Apr 20 2006, 08:14 PM

I found out my betta has ich. I understand all the steps posted above. However when adding salt and treating for ich, how often do i add the salt. I have a 29gal tank. So my question is while treating ich, and adding salt, how often and how much each time do i add?? Also one last thing is will all my fish be ok turning the temp up to 84. I have mollies, guppies, albino tiger and the betta in that tank.

Not sure you have understood the steps above. If you did, you'd appreciate you cannot use salt in a tank with a betta or tiger barb. Use proper whitespot medication instead.

Incidentally, your mix of fish isn't a good one. Single tiger barbs become very aggressive fin-nippers, almost always. They are schooling fish, and need to be in groups of at least six if you want any chance of them being peaceful. Sooner or later, you barb is going to attack your betta; they just cannot resist the long fins of bettas.

Mollies (all kinds) need brackish water. Kept long term in freshwater tanks they are prone to fin-rot, fungus, and a neurological problem called "the shimmies" which is fatal if untreated. See this posted topic for more.

If you can, try and return some of these fish, and create a community using compatible species. If you like the mollies for example, try some salt-tolerant species like orange chromides, glassfish, bumblebee gobies, and wrestling halfbeaks. A betta, on the other hand, would be fine with peaceful freshwater fish like Corydoras and kuhli loaches. There's a thread here on acceptable betta tankmates.

Cheers,

Neale

hmm.. I have never had a betta have a bad reaction to aquarium salt when used as directed (sick or healthy), and i'm assuming the same for many of the folks on the betta forum as they all recommend adding it when a betta is ill...

[edit] or anyway, I have never seen anyone NOT recommend it...

This post has been edited by starrynightxxi: May 3 2006, 03:39 PM

Adding salt is an old fashioned remedy going back decades. People used to add salt to tropical fish tanks and goldfish bowls to treat everything from whitespot to nitrite poisoning.

It may work, but there's preciously little science behind it, given that the majority of aquarium fish have evolved to live in places without salt in the water. It's the same with chemotherapy on humans, while it sometimes helps, it's pretty lethal stuff, and you certainly wouldn't want to have it every single day. Given there are much better (i.e., scientifically tested and known to be safe) whitespot treatments, why waste your time with salt?

Either way, adding salt at a therapeutic level will not be sufficient for the mollies, and it is definitely harmful to things like barbs and tetras.

Cheers,

Neale

i think i get what you're saying, but on rereading what i wrote, i don't think i made it clear that i don't use it as a treatment for ich/whitespot. I use actual ich medication for that, but i have always heard that the salt reduces stress during the medication process, and it was instilled in me when i very first started keeping fish, that while it isn't NECESSARY, a little aquarium salt is good for the fish (ie the recommended tablespoon per 5g).

but that was well over 10 years ago and things change. Is there actual research that says it doesn't really do anything inparticular? I'd like to have a look at that.

and speaking of it being bad for tetras, everything seems to be bad for neons lately, but mine have done just fine (the greedy little whales...) despite having cycled my tank, AND having salt added to the aquarium. but this is getting off topic, so i'll hush now.

This post has been edited by starrynightxxi: May 3 2006, 05:00 PM

This is actually very interesting. When I started keeping fish (mid 1980s) I'd heard much the same thing about salt. The logic was basically this: freshwater fish have a higher 'salinity' inside their bodies than the water, so must spend energy conserving salt and getting rid of water. By making the water very slightly brackish, you reduce the need for them to do this, and so allow them (in some nebulous way) to direct more energy towards the other stresses in the aquarium, like nitrates and nitrites.

Another suggestion was that salt chemically effects ammonium, reducing its toxicity, which is why (supposedly) ammonium is dangerous in lower concentrations to freshwater fish than to marine ones. I have no idea if this is actually true, having only limited experience of keeping marines, and only a few species at that.

Finally, salt dips have been used (and can still be used) to treat all kinds of skin problems such as fungus and whitespot. The theory there (which is sound) is that salty water is harmful to both the freshwater fish and the parasites, but the parasites are so much smaller they are killed much more quickly.

There may be other explanations for using salt, but those are the three I recall. Only the last one has any kind of scientific worth, in my opinion, being essentially the same rationale for all kinds of human medicine, such as chemotherapy or the use of sulphur drugs.

Any other use of "tonic salts" or marine salt in freshwater tanks as a "supportive" just seems like woolly pseudoscience to me. The logic behind it is vague, at best, and it certainly doesn't mimic the natural habitat of the fish in question. I'm open minded though, and would be happy to hear from people who do find salt in freshwater tanks useful.

Cheers,

Neale

this sounds like something that might bear further research, which I may just have to do. I don't know if I'm ready to give up on my aquarium salt just yet but definately i'll have to look into it. the box says it adds electrolytes, and being somewhat of a layman, I can venture to guess that these electrolytes could be removed between city water treatment plants, and maybe even dechlorination (if done through use of chemicals), and MAY be replaced by the salt to more replicate the minerals that would be in natural water. But that's all conjecture...

thanks for bearing with me and chatting though. it's been informative (and I DO need something other than my homework to do )

Electrolytes simply means mineral ions in the blood or cells. Sodium ions, for example (Na+).

Hard, alkaline water out of the tap/faucet will have plenty of these of various kinds. Soft water has few, if any, and that's what makes it soft. Sea water and hard water (such as Lake Malawi) have lots of these minerals, though a different set. Sea water has lots of sodium and chloride ions, while Lake Malawi has more calcium and carbonate ions.

Under certain very specific situations, a fish can lose electrolytes. A marine fish dumped in freshwater, for example, will start losing them immediately. But most of the time electrolytes aren't going to be a limiting factor because fish have evolved to obtain and retain the ones they need, just as we do. It's the same with "sport drinks" -- Gatorade may help athletes under certain (extreme) situations, but for most regular people most of the time it's just a drink that has no more healthful properties than Coke.

I'd venture to say the text on the box is marketing blah blah and nothing more, but not being a vet, I can't speak with any authority!

Good luck with the homework!

Cheers,

Neale

PS. See here for more on electrolytes:

http://science.howstuffworks.com/question565.htm

Some of my fish have white spot but some do not so I have treated the ones that have in a seperate tank. Surprisingly only my goldfish seem to have it. I have recently braught a new pond but can i put the plants of the old untreated pond in the new pond if that makes any sense. lol. Thanks for any help!

Sorry to bump up an old topic but is it worth turning the lights out for the course or leave them to run as normal in a planted tank?

Dan.

No, let the lights go off and on normally. Follow the instructions on the package of whitespot medicine, but otherwise leave your tank running normally. The two big things to watch are (1) remove any carbon and (2) don't do water changes until the course of medicine is done.

Cheers,

Neale