Ich Whitespot (what Treatment Works For You)

[kev350d]

What im looking for is a what treatment you found to work without the parasite returning and what fish it was used with, i ask this as there are so many mixed oppinions.

The guy in the LFS refused to sell me protozin as he knew i had clown loach and basically said it would kill them on contact, after reading this forum many disagree!

I used protozin to the letter and my clowns were left totaly uneffected and has cleared it up until now...

I dosed my tank within accordance to the instructions 3 seperate daily doses then 1 more on the 6th day (no carbon present) problem is between the 3 day break the fish were still showing signs of the parasite but on the 7th all was taken care of, now 2 days after the final dose one of my gourami's has developed signs that indicate it wasnt erradicated. Temps were turned up to 30° from day 1.

So in my oppinion Protozin didnt live up to its claim and would require further treatment, what do you guys and gals use and to what effect (also can you use it with loaches, corries, plecs and without damaging the nitrifying bacteria.)

 

[Bignose]

I dosed my tank within accordance to the instructions 3 seperate daily doses then 1 more on the 6th day (no carbon present) problem is between the 3 day break the fish were still showing signs of the parasite but on the 7th all was taken care of, now 2 days after the final dose one of my gourami's has developed signs that indicate it wasnt erradicated. Temps were turned up to 30° from day 1.

I want to make sure I understood this correctly. You dosed on days 1,2,3, & 6, right?

If so, I don't think that would guarantee a complete kill off of all the ich. The medication you have may be effective, but the dosing schedule I think was what made it ineffective. Consider this, ich's life-cycle is about 3 days, especially at those high temps. Ich is only vulnerable for a short time during its lifecycle. So, you dosed on day 1, and, especially since the outbreak was visible, there was probably quite a lot of ich in there. So, you probably didn't get every single one that was vulnerable. Well, those vulnerable ones from day 1 would be vulnerable again on day 4, and day 7, and so on. Your dosing schedule wouldn't catch them again. You probably got like 90-99% of them, but, like you now know, unless you get 100%, the ich can fairly easily come back.

I would start the treatment again (lots of water changes to start, you don't want any medicine still in there as much as you can help it). And dose every day for about 10-12 days straight. This way, there is no chance an ich can get through its life cycle without being killed by the medicine. I recommend 10-12 days so that you can be 100% sure that none will come back. 10-12 days is enough that every ich would go through its lifecycle about 3 times, meaning that it would be vulnerable to medication about 3 times. I'd say chances are good that some ich would survive one dose, but three in a row? Very unlikely an ich would survive that.

Give that a try, and see if that doesn't work better.

 

[sussexgirl]

I dosed my tank within accordance to the instructions 3 seperate daily doses then 1 more on the 6th day (no carbon present) problem is between the 3 day break the fish were still showing signs of the parasite but on the 7th all was taken care of, now 2 days after the final dose one of my gourami's has developed signs that indicate it wasnt erradicated. Temps were turned up to 30° from day 1.

I want to make sure I understood this correctly. You dosed on days 1,2,3, & 6, right?

If so, I don't think that would guarantee a complete kill off of all the ich. The medication you have may be effective, but the dosing schedule I think was what made it ineffective. Consider this, ich's life-cycle is about 3 days, especially at those high temps. Ich is only vulnerable for a short time during its lifecycle. So, you dosed on day 1, and, especially since the outbreak was visible, there was probably quite a lot of ich in there. So, you probably didn't get every single one that was vulnerable. Well, those vulnerable ones from day 1 would be vulnerable again on day 4, and day 7, and so on. Your dosing schedule wouldn't catch them again. You probably got like 90-99% of them, but, like you now know, unless you get 100%, the ich can fairly easily come back.

I would start the treatment again (lots of water changes to start, you don't want any medicine still in there as much as you can help it). And dose every day for about 10-12 days straight. This way, there is no chance an ich can get through its life cycle without being killed by the medicine. I recommend 10-12 days so that you can be 100% sure that none will come back. 10-12 days is enough that every ich would go through its lifecycle about 3 times, meaning that it would be vulnerable to medication about 3 times. I'd say chances are good that some ich would survive one dose, but three in a row? Very unlikely an ich would survive that.

Give that a try, and see if that doesn't work better.

I used Protozin for 2 weeks and it got rid of it. I've since used the Interpet Anti-Whitespot treatment and that you use on day 1 and again 7 days later. Worked well for me and I'd use it again. I have shrimp in my tank and they survived although I know you shouldn't really use a copper based treatment on them. But when push came to shove, losing 19 fish was more of a worry to me than losing 2 shrimp (that's all I had at the time). I guess with your predicament the clown loach might 'survive' but you don't really know the invisible damage the treatment may have done to them.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

I've never had to battle of big out break of whitespot, but we've found WS3 to be very effective when we bought a fish who was infected with ich, it cleared up in a few days

 

[Glod]

Had good luck with WS3 also, tho at the time I had no particularly copper vulnerable inhabitants, only one BN Plec I was unseure how to classify. Even at half dose it seemed to kill the whitespot within the week with no losses.

 

[andyt_uk]

are you not supposed to use protozin with clown loach present?

oh!

mine were ok though