tropical fish?

Question

my daughters clown loaches have got white spots all over there body! can some one tell me what this is and how to treat it if its a disease? thankyou

Answer 1

White spot!
Clown loach are prone to white spot, causes can be triggered by water quality and stress.
Go and get some white spot treatment, BUT only use half the recommended dose, clown loach do not have 'normal' scales like other fish, so the treatment penetrates deeper into their bodies, causing more problems.

I usually treat my tank with whitspot treatment once every 2-3 months, as a prevention.

Feeding them a variety of food helps keep their immune systems healthy, feed them on flakes, sinking pellets and frozen food. Try to stay away from live food, as they sometimes carry diseases.
My shop used to receive river shrimp from one breeder, you could see whitespot all over them!

Hope this has helped!
Lolli x

Answer 2

December 2 hit the nail on the head, however white spot and ich are two different things. Ich is a free swimming parasite (not visible to the naked eye) found in all water sources. Fish which are stressed or have an immune difficency have this free swimming parasite attach themselves to the fish.

Word of caution: removing the fish from the tank to treat it individually will not remove this parasite from your tank. (that is not to say other fish WILL catch it) It is always better to treat the entire tank if you can. The only way to truly remove this parasite from your tank is to add a UV steralizer. This is a tube which tank water is passed between UV Lights steralizing the water. This steralizing kills the free swiming form of Ich. Most advanced aquarists (especially salt water) use the steralizer.

Your best be is to get Ich medicine. Usually they recomend a water change 20% before treating. Also remember to remove any carbon or carbon filters. Carbon will absorb the medicine and you've just treated your tank for nothing.

Good luck.

Answer 3

Ich is tiny, salt grain sized wite spots on their bodies. If its bigger than a grain of salt, than its not ich and this advice will not apply to your situation. Clown loaches are especially suseptable to ick because they don't have hard scales on their body & the parasite can burrow right into their skin. They take longer than most fish to heal from the ick, but they're fixable.

You should be aware that scaleless fish like loaches are sensative to most medicines. They will look bummed out when you treat them with nearly anything. They are especilaly sensative to melaflix and copper containing products.

If its ich, its pretty easy to cure but requires prompt action and takes some time (2-3 weeks on average). It involves adding 3 tablespoons of aquarium salt per gallon of water to the tank, or a commercial medicine. Be sure to keep whatever medicine you choose in the water for 10 days after the white spots dissappear, it can live dormant in the gravel for around 10 days. Also, don't increase the temperature of the water... It willl just increase the speed the disease spreads (if its ick) and if your water isn't toxic to the ick, it will make it spread on the fish faster. If you do go with a commercial medication, you must remove the charcoal from your filter & just leave in filter floss. Charcoal will absorb the medicine.

If you want to do more research on ick / ich, you can google ick trophant and you will get a wealth of resources explaining the parasite's life cycle, diagnosis, and treatment options.

Answer 4

Yes, they are tropical and no they will not eat tropical fish food. Just get your betta fish pellets and blood worms.

Answer 5

ifs its bigger than grains of salt, its fungus and you can treat with maracyn plus. If its grains of salt, slowly raise the temperature to 87F and get quick cure or another ich treatment. DOn't use salt, loaches have low salt tolerance. Salt is a great treatment for other tropicals, but the person who recommended it obviously doesn't know that loaches are not so tolerant of salt.

Answer 6

sounds like white spot (common name) and is easily treatable just go to the local pet shop and buy some white spot treatment and read the lable carefully to make sure you give the right dosage... some say that you need to lower the dosage for plecs and loaches.

you also need to remove carbon filters as this destroys the treatment..

good luck!

Answer 7

you can get white spot treatment from all good pet shops , thats what i did when my fish had it

Answer 8

they have got white spot,a fungal disease,go to your local pet shop and purchase some treatment,make sure you follow the correct dosage instructions,

Answer 9

it sounds like white spot you can get whit spot treatment from pet shop not too expensive.

Answer 10

ICH = White Spot

Please read the last part (Cautions at the bottom) about Clown loaches and negative effects of some fish medication on them.

This disease is normally caused by sudden temperature change in the tank water.

Ichthyophthirius multifiliis is a species of ciliate protozoa which parasitizes freshwater fish. This parasite covers the entire globe. It is probably the most common aquarium fish disease and there are few Aquarists that have not met it on one or more occasions. "Ich" (the colloquially abbreviated form of the name) is the largest known parasitic protozoan found on fishes. Adult organisms are oval or round and measure 0.5 to 1.0 mm in size. The adult is uniformly ciliated and contains a horseshoe-shaped nucleus which can be seen in older individuals. The disease it causes is usually called ich or white spot, and becomes especially serious in enclosed areas, where it spreads quickly from one fish to another. Ich is the disease responsible for the most fatalities in freshwater aquarium fish and can cause notable damage to aquaculture. Marine ich is caused by an unrelated ciliate, Cryptocaryon.

After approximately one week of parasitism, mature trophozoites leave their host, settle to a substrate and secrete a cyst. The encysted cell, called a tomont, undergoes rapid division over approximately twenty-four hours to produce 600-1000 daughter cells called tomites. Once these reach maturity, they exit the cyst and develop into a theront stage, which is highly mobile. Theronts then infect new fish, digging their way into exposed parts, under the scales, or more commonly into its gill plate. The entire life-cycle takes about seven to ten days to complete.

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Prevention:

Preventative measures against ichthyophthirius include buying only healthy fish from reputable dealers, separating already sick fish from healthy fish through quarantine, maintaining high water quality, and not overstocking. Adding aquarium salt to aquarium water (according to the directions which should be available on an aquarium salt package) should also prevent ich.

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Treatment:

Any treatment method must take into account the species of fish (some will not tolerate certain medications), how high the infection rate is, and the size and type of environment.

If it is detected before it becomes too serious, a number of different treatments can be applied. It should be known that only the free-swimming stage of the parasite is susceptible to treatment; neither the trophonts under the epithelium nor the tomont cysts can be killed.


1- Heat treatment

Heat treatment can be highly effective, and it can be combined with other treatments.

The three phases of the ichthyophthirius life-cycle (Adult, Cyst, Free swimming) take about 4 weeks at 21ºC (70ºF) to complete but only 5 days at 80ºF. For this reason it is recommended that the aquarium water be raised to 28-30°C (82-86°F) for the duration of the treatment. Avoid fast temperature changes; water temperature should be raised or reduced gradually 0.5-1ºC (1-2°F) per day. There are species of fish that will not tolerate the high end of temperatures needed to be effective. If the fish can stand it, raise the temperature even higher, up to 30ºC (86ºF). Raising the temperature also, presumably, reduces and kills the free swimming parasite. It is important to remember that raising the temperature higher, but not high enough so that the parasite is killed, should be used in conjunction with some sort of medication. The heat speeds up the life cycle of the ichthyophthirius, which is useful if the fish is being medicated, because otherwise the parasites simply reproduce at a faster rate, and kill the aforementioned fish quicker.

2- Salt

In small tanks, the most recommended method of treatment for ich consists of adding aquarium salt until a specific gravity of 1.002 g/cm³ is achieved, as the parasites are less tolerant of salt than fish. This is not practical in ponds because even a light salt solution of 0.01% (100 mg/L), would require large quantities of salt (272 lbs/acre-foot). Fish can be dipped in a 3% (30,000 mg/L) solution for thirty seconds to several minutes, or they can be treated in a prolonged bath at a lower concentration (0.05% = 500 mg/L). Salt at low concentrations (0.01 to 0.05% solution) is an excellent means of controlling "Ich" in recirculating systems without harming the biofilter. Care should be taken to avoid damaging aquatic plants and salt intolerant fish. In particular, do not use salt with sensitive soft water Tetras such as Neons, Cardinals and Glow-Lights or scaleless Catfish (which can be easily burned if salt is not pre-dissolved).

Salt treatment can be combined with heat treatment.

3- Chemical treatments

Chemical treatments include formalin, malachite green, chelated copper, copper sulfate and potassium permanganate. Because they can be harmed by these treatments, certain plants and invertebrates, such as snails, should be removed before application. There are also a large number of proprietary treatments available for the treatment of white spot, and the related Oodinium (velvet disease). Although based on the chemicals mentioned above, they are generally considered to be better for the safety of both the aquarist and fish than the pure chemical form of the treatment. All treatments target the free-living theronts and tomonts, which only survive about two to three days in the absence of a host fish, so treatment should be continued until a few days after the last white spot has disappeared from the fish. This will usually take about a week; 10 days is typical at 27°C (80°F) and 6 days at 29°C (84°F).

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Fish transfer
Ich can be treated with a transfer method. Fish are moved daily into a different tank with clean, conditioned, warmed water. Parasites that fall off of the fish are left behind in the tank. After moving the fish daily for 7-10 days, the fish (presumably cured) can be put back into the main tank. The disadvantage of this method is that it stresses both fish and fishkeeper.

Vacuuming the floor

Vacuuming the floor of aquarium with a syphon device can remove the parasite at cyst stage.

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Cautions:

All medications, to some degree, are toxic not only to the parasite but also to the fish. Grossly weakened fish will not tolerate medication that more robust and less infected ones may. Clown loaches, elephant noses, and many tetras are adversely impacted by the use of malachite green.

Malachite green is hazardous to handle: it is known to cause cancer, mutations, and is harmful to fetuses. Gloves and a protective mask should always be worn when handling the concentrated powder. Pregnant women should never handle this chemical. There are claims that malachite green might increase in toxicity to fish as the temperature increases. You may want to reconsider your decision to use malachite green if you intend to raise the temperature at the same time, or if you already maintain your temperature at a higher level than normal. Malachite green also tends to stain the plastic and silicone in the aquarium.