Tokis-Phoenix:
I went out this afternoon and bought myself a smaller tank to use for quarantine. Definately sound advice, thanks. It didn't seem to matter as much with the smaller tank I ran for years, if the worst came to the worst then starting from scratch wouldn't have been too much in the way of cash or trouble. Am kicking myself, tank was fine for eight months, always stocking with fish from my excellent, if expensive LFS. Bought a single bristlenose cat from the local 'Pets at Home' (was seduced by the new and apparently disease free system installed) and have paid dearly.
I had read that the free swimming stages of the protozoan were susceptible to high temperatures, apart from the odd genotypes that were heat resistant - is that not the case? The tank is dropping back to 24C now anyhow, keeping it at 30 for a fortnight hasn't done any good to the other inhabitants. It's interesting, if somewhat heartbreaking, to see the negative effect of high temps on the immune systems of all the other fish. I'll have to wait a while for the new tank to settle anyhow, and just keep fingers crossed that the whitespot is gone. I perhaps should have read more about the elephant nose before buying him. Having said that - is a wonderful weird fish. What treatment would you recommend if it comes back, or are all over the counter ones the same?
For treating the fish in your main tank, "Anti Whitespot" by Interpet is a good treatment- if you have any carbon sponge (the rough black sponge) in your filter though you should remove it though as this sponge will remove any meds you put in the water.
Elephant nose fish are very sensitive to water quality conditions, so stabilising the tanks water quality and ecosystem is essential.
Cloning the filters bacteria from the filter in your main tank will be the easiest way to do this- simply set the new tanks filter in your current tank running alongside your original filter for a week. After one weeks time the filters sponge should be established with the essential bacteria from your old one (there is bacteria in your filter sponge that breaks down ammonia into nitrites and then into nitrates- it is important to have this bacteria in your filter sponge as otherwise the tank will suffer bad and unstable water quality problems). After you have done this, simply put it in the new tank and and move the elephant nose fish in there as you do- make sure not to keep the new filter turned off for too long or have it running in an empty tank as otherwise you'll start to lose the newly established bacteria in it.
Once the elephant nose fish is happily set up in its new tank wit newly established filter, test the water a lot over the next week for ammonia, nitrites and nitrates just to make sure there are no problems- the tank should have 0 ammonia and nitrites, but should have between 1 and 40 nitrates.
Once this is acheived, set about treating your main tanks fish with the interpet med- treating the tank for around 3 weeks would be good as this should definately kill the parasite during this time, but still try to avoid buying anymore fish for at least a further two weeks after this just to be on the safe side. Adding some extra filtration or a bubble stone would be good to help increase oxygen levels in the tank as this will make the fish feel more comfortable while they are being treated as whitespot meds are pretty strong stuff.
I don't think there's anything that can treat elephant nose fish for parasites though of any sort. If the elephant nose fish does start to show whitespot or any other sort of parasite infection (gill flukes, fish lices, internal parasites etc) and looks like it is struggling badly with the condition, then a course of salt treatment like salt bathing would be the only thing i'd advise. Copper is lethal to elephant nose fish (copper is generally found in all chemical based anti parasitic meds), but salt could be ok (need someone to help give more info on this).
For now though, just make sure the water quality is stable in the new tank and try to make sure that the elephant nose fish is as comfortable as posible. A fine sand substrate (like fine silica sand) is best with lots of cover/hiding places like pipes, caves, tunnels etc. This fish is primarily nocturnal, so there is no need for strong lighting in the tank- you will see the fish out and about a lot more if you invest in some very weak lighting like moonlight effect lighting.
Elephant nose fish detect their food via tiny electrical signals, thus they find it very difficult to recognise dead food which does not give off any signals. A diet of live worms is good, from live tubifex, bloodworms, blackworms etc- in the wild these fish would use their electrical signals to detect worms living in the mud at the bottom of lakes or rivers, so live food and fine, soft substrate is very important for these fish. The more you invest into keeping the fish properly and happily, the healthier it will be and the longer it will live
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Not many people can keep these fish alive for very long, however it is not imposible at all to do so if you research their needs properly and invest the time and care they need
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See here for more info on these fish;
http
/fish.mongabay.com/species/Gnathonemus_petersii.html
