Whitespot,finrot & Eating Problem

[CentricOregon]

ok so I have had a bad couple of weeks so far and fear I may lose some of my best fish out of this so I'm asking for everybodys help! I was away with my girlfriend for the weekend so left my parents to look after my tank saturday & sunday,I came back sunday night and had a look at my tank only to find something that I dread soooo much, a disease! Whitespot to be exact, and lots of it, my gold severums fins and my clown loaches were basically infested with it.Next day I got treatment and put it in after removing the carbon from my juwel filter.2 days later there was no sign of improvement so I checked to see how to help kill parasites off and I read turning the heater help can help, turns out my heater was already all the way up so had to leave it be so then today the second dose of treatment had to go but before I did I had a curious moment to find out wat zeolite media was, so after checking I found out I actually had zeolite media in my other filter in my tank . After removing it I added the second dose, after a while I decided to take a look at my severum and something just wasn't right, I had noticed before he looked a bit scraggy but thought since the whitespot was covering his fins completely it just made him look a bit messy, I eventually decided that I think it's finrot, it is like his fins have been badly nipped around the edges making his fins look stringy like if that makes any sense. She isn't doing good and will usually just sit in a spot moving back and forth, she doesn't eat the sinking pellets which she adores and she didn't eat any frozen foods today.She hasn't eaten since sunday. So heres my questions:

1. Since loaches don't react well to any treatment or disease, will they be ok?
2. Since I left the zeolite media in on the first dose will I need to treat again after the week is up?
3. Will my gold severum be ok with both whitespot and finrot?
4. Which of the 2 diseases is most serious?
5. If the whitespot is not gone after the week what do I do because I also have finrot that I need to treat?
6. What can I do to kill these off faster and prevent further outbreaks? ( I usually add salt but ran out a few weeks ago but have bought it again and added it)
7. Since Black ghosts don't have scales eaither will they react badl to treatment?
8. Final Question! Is there anyway to get my Severum to eat? She's my fav and don't wanna end up losing her

Sorry for the long novel and load of questions but it's not fun when you lose most of the population in your tank as I am sure you all know so the more advice the merrier, you have no idea how grateful I will be to all you advice holders lol

 

[minxfishy]

Hi no expert by any means, but I believe you should only half dose with scaleless fish, ie the clown loach and BGKF.

If the temp is already quite high, you need to make sure you extra aeration in the tank, either by airstone or by the filter outlet breaking the surface as both the high temp and the meds can reduce the oxygen levels in the tank.

If the whitespot isnt looking any better after the initial course, then definatley do a second course, do a 50% water change first. Ive read that with whitespot its best to do a second course anyway to be on the safe side.

For the finrot, melafix may be useful but Im unsure as to whether you can use both treatments at the same time, Im sure someone else can advise on that. I would treat the whitespot first though.

I dont know what else you can do to help the Sev eat, if shes feeling poorly then she probably doesnt feel like it, hopefully once the treatments start to work she will pick up again.

I hope that helps a little, good luck, got my fingers crossed for ya.

 

[CentricOregon]

Hi no expert by any means, but I believe you should only half dose with scaleless fish, ie the clown loach and BGKF.

If the temp is already quite high, you need to make sure you extra aeration in the tank, either by airstone or by the filter outlet breaking the surface as both the high temp and the meds can reduce the oxygen levels in the tank.

If the whitespot isnt looking any better after the initial course, then definatley do a second course, do a 50% water change first. Ive read that with whitespot its best to do a second course anyway to be on the safe side.

For the finrot, melafix may be useful but Im unsure as to whether you can use both treatments at the same time, Im sure someone else can advise on that. I would treat the whitespot first though.

I dont know what else you can do to help the Sev eat, if shes feeling poorly then she probably doesnt feel like it, hopefully once the treatments start to work she will pick up again.

I hope that helps a little, good luck, got my fingers crossed for ya.

Yeah I may need to see if I can get my hands on some melafix, I'm pretty sure you can mix them as it is just a herb remedy thing isn't it? I'm sure I used it before with treatment, better act fast as I have just noticed the finrot has passed on to my loaches!

 

[CentricOregon]

This whitespot is really starting to bug me, thats 2 of my loaches now wiped from my tank so there is now 1 on his own, if he survives should I get him some buddies asap? I added melafix and pimafix into the tank today after taking the other treatment out (read that adding both will treat both diseases) so any idea on when this will start to kick in? my severums fins are fading pretty fast so hopefully it's a fast working med!

 

[minxfishy]

Hopefully within a couple of days you will see some improvement, sorry its taken hold so badly, but clowns are prone to whitespot. If you eventually get rid of this outbreak, i would leave it a good couple of weeks before adding anything else, just to be sure. What size tank do you have? Clowns get big as Im sure you know, although Im sure he would prefer company, unless you have enough space I would leave him on his own or re-home him.

Have you raised the temp in the tank? Increased aeration etc?

 

[CentricOregon]

Hopefully within a couple of days you will see some improvement, sorry its taken hold so badly, but clowns are prone to whitespot. If you eventually get rid of this outbreak, i would leave it a good couple of weeks before adding anything else, just to be sure. What size tank do you have? Clowns get big as Im sure you know, although Im sure he would prefer company, unless you have enough space I would leave him on his own or re-home him.

Have you raised the temp in the tank? Increased aeration etc?

I went to increase the tank temp but it's already at full, should I put another heater in? I have a 180litre aquarium, had my loaches for roughly a year and they only grew an inch and a half or something lol my parents gave me there 4 inch loach though so now it's him on his own, we never knew my tank had whitespot before we added him. I hadn't increased aeration, I forgot about that, will go and do that now.The whitespot seems to have vanished on my sev but it's just the finrot thats pretty bad, has lost almost half of his fins.

 

[minxfishy]

What temp is the tank at? To be honest in a 180L I wouldnt add any more clowns, they may grow slowly but eventually they will need a large tank.

Well hopefully the whitespot is starting to go, but I would continue treatment for a second dose to be on the safe side after the initial course. Do a 50% water change between courses too. If the finrot doesnt improve after this treatment, then maybe try another, but with any of my own fish that have had their fins nipped or have come to me in a bad way, the best thing Ive found is large frequent water changes, which seems to heal the fins quite quickly. Obviously you need to clear the whitespot treatments first or they wont work, but then water changes would be my action.

There isnt anything having a nip at the Sev's fins is there? Just a thought

 

[CentricOregon]

What temp is the tank at? To be honest in a 180L I wouldnt add any more clowns, they may grow slowly but eventually they will need a large tank.

Well hopefully the whitespot is starting to go, but I would continue treatment for a second dose to be on the safe side after the initial course. Do a 50% water change between courses too. If the finrot doesnt improve after this treatment, then maybe try another, but with any of my own fish that have had their fins nipped or have come to me in a bad way, the best thing Ive found is large frequent water changes, which seems to heal the fins quite quickly. Obviously you need to clear the whitespot treatments first or they wont work, but then water changes would be my action.

There isnt anything having a nip at the Sev's fins is there? Just a thought

Nah nothing ever bothers the severum, the fins are just coroding away bit by bit.I will get more loaches to keep that 1 company, I know they get big so if they get big before I get a bigger tank then I will just rehome them.I am just using pimafix and melafix together and they seem to be working better than the actual whitespot treatment so will dose them up on that everyday.The whitespot seems to have cleared of my severum but I know it won't all be gone that quickly.Won't a 50% water change between courses just betray the point in putting treatment in? and possibly give them whitespot again with constant water changes?

 

[minxfishy]

Normally after finishing a course of meds, you do a water change and add carbon to the filter to remove the meds. In this case you dont want to remove the meds but a water change is a good idea to not overdose if doing a second course. I dont mean for you to do water changes whilst treating, that would defeat the object of the treatment. I just meant after finishing with meds, 30% water changes every couple of days is sometimes just as effective in healing skin lesions or fin rot as medicating can be.

Cant see why water changes would cause another bout of whitespot, unless you mean that constant changes could stress them enough to encourage another outbreak. Providing you are not shocking them with sudden temperture changes or ph changes then I doubt it would bother them. I could be wrong, but I change my tank water every 2 - 3 days, up to 50% at a time and the fish seem to enjoy it and any time any of them have some fin damage it usually clears right up after a week or so. I had 3 silver dollars I got from the LFS who were in quite a bad way, top fins, anal fins etc almost completely eaten away by the tank mates they were with in the shop,(just couldnt leave them there!!) with plenty of water changes, Im happy to say within 4 weeks they have full grown fins again - no medications, just water changes.

 

[jacden]

What temp is the tank at? To be honest in a 180L I wouldnt add any more clowns, they may grow slowly but eventually they will need a large tank.

Well hopefully the whitespot is starting to go, but I would continue treatment for a second dose to be on the safe side after the initial course. Do a 50% water change between courses too. If the finrot doesnt improve after this treatment, then maybe try another, but with any of my own fish that have had their fins nipped or have come to me in a bad way, the best thing Ive found is large frequent water changes, which seems to heal the fins quite quickly. Obviously you need to clear the whitespot treatments first or they wont work, but then water changes would be my action.

There isnt anything having a nip at the Sev's fins is there? Just a thought

Nah nothing ever bothers the severum, the fins are just coroding away bit by bit.I will get more loaches to keep that 1 company, I know they get big so if they get big before I get a bigger tank then I will just rehome them.I am just using pimafix and melafix together and they seem to be working better than the actual whitespot treatment so will dose them up on that everyday.The whitespot seems to have cleared of my severum but I know it won't all be gone that quickly.Won't a 50% water change between courses just betray the point in putting treatment in? and possibly give them whitespot again with constant water changes?

I have just had the same problem with a whitespot outbreak, in six new fish i introduced to my tank . The fins can be affected and become very ragged. If the spots have left your severum , the cysts will be in the substrate, there they mature and eventually become free swimming and can reinfest your tank and inhabitants, if not effectively treated during this free swimming stage. It took two courses of medication to eradicate the problem for me. I used melafix alongside the whitespot meds without any problems. Melafix and Pimafix will not destroy the whitespot parasite . Waterchanges are ok. between med courses , in fact i was advised to do a good gravel vac and w.c as this reduces the maturing parasites in the substrate before starting the second med course. Hope it clears quickly for you, good luck.
Jackie

 

[CentricOregon]

What temp is the tank at? To be honest in a 180L I wouldnt add any more clowns, they may grow slowly but eventually they will need a large tank.

Well hopefully the whitespot is starting to go, but I would continue treatment for a second dose to be on the safe side after the initial course. Do a 50% water change between courses too. If the finrot doesnt improve after this treatment, then maybe try another, but with any of my own fish that have had their fins nipped or have come to me in a bad way, the best thing Ive found is large frequent water changes, which seems to heal the fins quite quickly. Obviously you need to clear the whitespot treatments first or they wont work, but then water changes would be my action.

There isnt anything having a nip at the Sev's fins is there? Just a thought

Nah nothing ever bothers the severum, the fins are just coroding away bit by bit.I will get more loaches to keep that 1 company, I know they get big so if they get big before I get a bigger tank then I will just rehome them.I am just using pimafix and melafix together and they seem to be working better than the actual whitespot treatment so will dose them up on that everyday.The whitespot seems to have cleared of my severum but I know it won't all be gone that quickly.Won't a 50% water change between courses just betray the point in putting treatment in? and possibly give them whitespot again with constant water changes?

I have just had the same problem with a whitespot outbreak, in six new fish i introduced to my tank . The fins can be affected and become very ragged. If the spots have left your severum , the cysts will be in the substrate, there they mature and eventually become free swimming and can reinfest your tank and inhabitants, if not effectively treated during this free swimming stage. It took two courses of medication to eradicate the problem for me. I used melafix alongside the whitespot meds without any problems. Melafix and Pimafix will not destroy the whitespot parasite . Waterchanges are ok. between med courses , in fact i was advised to do a good gravel vac and w.c as this reduces the maturing parasites in the substrate before starting the second med course. Hope it clears quickly for you, good luck.
Jackie

I read a topic on this forum saying melafix and pimafix together will treat finrot and whitespot? this is my 3rd day treating them and the whitespot has indeed came of my severum and his fins are beginning to heal.I messed up with the whitespot treatment first time round becaue I left the zeolite media in by mistake so I changed the water and added pimafix and melafix and it seems to be working even better than whitespot treatment.I did start the whitespot treatment again after removing the zeolite but found it wasn't acting fast enough so I changed.