Now I Have White Dots On My Fish!

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Lisa67

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For anyone who hasn't seen my previous post...I added a pleco to my mbuna tank about a 10 days ago. I suddenly ended up with 3 dead fish for absolutely no reason that I can figure out. Today I came home from work, did a head count and everyone is there and eating well.

I have a few young fish that are just starting to get their color. If I look at them VERY closely I can see very tiny white dots. There is nothing on the bigger fish (so far). The dots are so small that at first I though it was just little particles that just landed on them but they don't seem to fall off. Could this be the beginning of Ich or something else? All I have in the house that could possibly be used to treat anything is aquarium salt and melafix. I will need to add it to the whole tank as I stupidly do not have an isolation tank (working on it). It is a 55 gal tank. My ammonia is 0, nitrite 0, and a trace amount of nitrate. I 30% water changes approx every 4-5 days. Any chance the water changes and rock moving (I cleaned under them a few days ago) could stress the fish to the point that I'm making them sick? I use water conditioner, but probably not at the recommended dose as I have well water which has no ammonia in it. Thank you, once again.

After posting this I Googled Ich and saw that increasing the temp of the water can help. I just turned my heater up to 80 but would like to increase it more. How warm can I go?
 
making the water too warm will deplete the oxygen content so if you are raising the temperature also increase surface agitation to increase your oxygen levels
 
Ok, I will remove some water to increase the surface agitation. Do you have any idea how much heat this particular type of fish can take?
 
In my signature is a good link to Ich treatment. I would watch for a few days to see if you indeed have ich. While some have used salt and heat (to 30C) to kill the Ich, it did not work for me. A formalin/malachite green combo (Quick Cure in the US) worked for me.

Good luck, not the end of the world, make sure you treat for 10 days as even when the white spots disappear there will be a dormant stage of the protozoa that you need to kill off.
 
I read the info on the ich treatment in your signature. It sounds good but somewhere on one of these forums that sometimes the meds sold for ich are more toxic than the ich itself. I have no experience with this. Just wondering how many times you have used it. Also, although I'd like to wait until I'm sure of what it is I'm nervous that by that time it will have spread to the entire tank. Any thought?
 
i have no experience of mbuna fish at all but when i had a small outbreak of whitespot in my tropicals it was cleared up very easily with interpet whitespot treatment, i only had to do the treatment once and it never recurred
 
No doubt about it that the medications are toxic, as are nearly all medications at some level, human, fish or otherwise. I've used the formlin/malachite green (Quick Cure) once for ich, full strength, full term (important because you can breed a medication resistant ich- then you would be in deep doo-doo). I had no problem even with the BN pleco and the shrimp. I am using Quick cure baths at twice strength on one fish for another problem and he tolerates it well.

Try it without first if you are worried. I tried a natural remedy first and it did nothing, nor did the salt/heat alone. But others say differently. Try it first if you like, no problem with that. :rolleyes:
 
Generally speaking, the recommended temperature for a rift valley set-up's is in the higher 70's-80 degrees, coupled with the fact that the pH will be quite high, Ich should not have been a problem.
However, if it is Ich, raised temperature will help - with additional aeration.
I have always found Methelyn blue (WS3) to work quite well for ich, but I only medicate as a last resort - optimum water quality is more preferable, try to duplicate the water for your fishes natural habitat, PH, KH, temperature, water current & aeration etc.
 
So, I turned the heat up, increased surface agitation and added aquarium salt. But I'm not sure that it's ich at all...wouldn't all the fish in the tank have it by now? It's been 2 days since I first noticed it. What I am realizing is that it only seems to be affecting my 2 young red top ndumbi. Could it be part of the process of them getting their color? Doesn't seem likely to me but it's my first experience with them.
FINIALLY managed to get a picture of him!
5.jpg
 

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