Clown Loaches With White Spots

[markdyer]

Hi all, new to the forum. I've got a Fluval Osaka 260 with various community fish in, last week i introduced 3 small clown loaches (all looked healthy) but noticed yesterday they've now all got little white spots, i put some white spot treatment in yesterday which i am hoping will cure them, my questions are
1. How quickly will the treatment work?
2. Will other fish get affected?
3. Is white spot a killer?
4. Do i treat them just once?
5. Should i be doing water changes?

Any help would be appreciated.

 

[Davo86]

Along with treatment increase the temp to 28C+, increase aeration and leave the tank light off as much as possible to reduce stress
provided you do this whitespot is quickly curable

what is the full list of occupants in the tank and how long has the tank been running for?

what treatment are you using? each will have its own guidelines of how often to treat.

What are the water stats? (ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, ph)

 

[Colin_T]

Whitespot can infect any fish and will kill if left untreated. The best thing you can do is make sure the fish are kept at the correct temperature for the species, about 24-26C for most tropical fishes. Then treat the fish with an appropriate whitespot remedy. Continue treating the tank for about a week after the spots have disappeared.

You can raise the water temperature a few degrees (maximum temp is about 30C), increasing it speeds up the parasite’s lifecycle. This causes it to develop quicker and die off sooner. However, the temp should only be raised after the medication has been added to the tank. If you turn the temp up and don't have medication in the water then the disease organisms grow faster and spread more rapidly, causing more damage to the fish.

Increase aeration/ surface turbulence to maximise the oxygen levels in the tank. Medications and high temperatures reduce the oxygen carrying capacity of the water, so the more surface turbulence the higher the oxygen levels will be.

You don't have to increase or change the temperature to treat the fish. I often leave the temp at about 26C and just treat the fish for about 10-14 days. "Waterlife Myxazin" will treat it.

Keep treating the fish for a week after the spots have gone. The whitespot parasite has 3 stages to its lifecycle.
1) the white spots on the fish
2) the spots fall off the fish and the parasite multiplies inside a cyst while it is in the gravel.
3) the cysts in the gravel rupture open releasing thousands of new parasites to re-infect the fish.
The parasite can only be killed during the 3rd stage when they are free swimming and before they attach to a fish.

To work out the volume of water in the tank
measure Length x Width x Height in cm
divide by 1000
equals volume in litres

When measuring the height, measure from the top of the gravel to the top of the water level. If you have big rocks or driftwood in the tank, remove them before measuring the height.

Before you treat the tank do a 50% water change and complete gravel clean. This will reduce the gunk in the tank and allow the medication to work more effectively. It will also lower the pathogen count in the water and mean there are less nasties around to infect the fish.

Make sure any new water is free of chlorine and has a similar temperature & PH to the tank.

Remove carbon from the filter before treating otherwise it will absorb the medication out of the water.