Whitespot

[adamlawes13]

whats the best treatment for whitespot?

i think a couple of my tetras have it, should i treat the whole tank?

 

[Essjay]

If the fish look as though they have salt grains on them, then they have whitespot. And you do have to treat the whole tank. The parasite has three stages, the spots on the fish are only the first. They can't be killed in this stage. The next stage is where they drop off the fish in a sort of capsule and multiply - they can't be killed in this stage either. The last stage, the only one where they can be killed, is where the capsule splits and hundreds of small parasites go swimming off to find a fish to infect. Because there could be parasites in your tank in all of these stages at once, you have to treat the whole tank.

First raise the temperature slowly to around 30 deg C. Some people find adding salt is enough together with the temperature increase, but I use a medication - King British original formula ws3 in the one I use, and there are others. You must follow the instructions to the letter even though the spots have dropped off as there must be some medication in the water to kill every last one when it gets to stage 3. And if you have any carbon in the filter, remove it before adding a medication as the carbon will adsorb it. Once the treatment has finished you will need need to use a combination of water changes and carbon to remove the medication. Either put a new batch in your filter, or as I do, put some carbon in a small internal I keep in the cupboard just for this.