White Spot!?

[furry catfish]

Hi everyone.I turned off the tank lights yesterday i didnt really check the fish out like i should of but i could see they were all swimming normally and there wern't any dead bodies,i turn them on this morning and 5/6 of my red phantom tetras are dead and when i looked at the remaining red phantom tetra he was covered in white spots!,i checked the rest of the fish (8 black phantom tetras and 4 upside down catfish) and all of them have white spot. I think it was the 2 new upside down catfish I added last week but when I checked them over they seemed fine. The fish are all swimming normally but its only a matter of time before it all goes to hell and i end up with a tank of dead fish. Help me

 

[KittyKat]

Treat with a whitespot medication as instructed by the manufacturer.

 

[karin]

Stay calm and start your treatment. You can raise the temperature on your tank to 85F or near 30C. This helps to speed the lifycycle of the ICH parasite. See my signature for a good link to treatment recommendations that I found very useful. Do not stop treatment when the "spots" go away, complete the entire course of treatment. Good luck.

 

[tropicalfish16]

Hi everyone.I turned off the tank lights yesterday i didnt really check the fish out like i should of but i could see they were all swimming normally and there wern't any dead bodies,i turn them on this morning and 5/6 of my red phantom tetras are dead and when i looked at the remaining red phantom tetra he was covered in white spots!,i checked the rest of the fish (8 black phantom tetras and 4 upside down catfish) and all of them have white spot. I think it was the 2 new upside down catfish I added last week but when I checked them over they seemed fine. The fish are all swimming normally but its only a matter of time before it all goes to hell and i end up with a tank of dead fish. Help me

How big are the white spots? Are they really tiny and look like grains of salt? If they do then your fish has Ich. You can get Ich medicine at places like PetSmart or Petco. It's a common disease that fish can have and its easily treatable. Because your fish died your fish probably have either had it for a long time or its not Ich. Ich is very contagious too, so this would make sense.

 

[furry catfish]

Ok I bought the treatment today (anti white spot) and I raised the temperature. When i added the treatment the water turned a light shade of blue, I hope that's ok because I did exactly what the bottle said. Also should I use aquarium tonic salt along with the medicine? or should i just let the medicine work on it's own?, thanks everyone for the responces

 

[KittyKat]

Ok I bought the treatment today (anti white spot) and I raised the temperature. When i added the treatment the water turned a light shade of blue, I hope that's ok because I did exactly what the bottle said. Also should I use aquarium tonic salt along with the medicine? or should i just let the medicine work on it's own?, thanks everyone for the responces

Which brand? Does it contain methylene blue?

 

[furry catfish]

it dosn't contain methylene blue but the blue is now gone from the water.

 

[KittyKat]

Ok, had a mini-panic because meth blue can kill the filter.

 

[furry catfish]

How frequent would you recommend i dose the medicine? the bottle said once every 4 days but everywhere else says that it should be once a day, and do you think I should add salt?

 

[KittyKat]

How frequent would you recommend i dose the medicine? the bottle said once every 4 days but everywhere else says that it should be once a day, and do you think I should add salt?

Do what the instructions say. Different medications work in different ways.

Aquarium salt and increased temperature will help, just make sure the salt won't interfere with the medication (ask the manufacturer if it doesn't say).

 

[furry catfish]

Ok thanks,i'll use it.I'm also wondering why my case seems to be hitting my tank harder than other cases, I've been reading other ones and they seem to get about a death a day but yesterday I found about 6 dead fish and today I found 8

 

[KittyKat]

Tell us about the set up in general..

 

[furry catfish]

it is 42 gallon,it has a Fluval 305 external filter.It has quite a few basic plants like java fern the tank had 6 red pantom tetras,8 black phantom tetras and 4 upside down catfish.I normally do 20% water changes a week.it is useally heated at about 24-26c and the ph is around 7.2-7.6

 

[KittyKat]

Set-up looks fine.

When was it cycled? When did you add last fish? Any other recent problems?

 

[furry catfish]

it was cycled roughly 6 months ago, I last added fish last sunday and I have had no other problems apart from the fact that my upside down catfish wouldnt come out of hiding.