neons suffering from white spots. help!

[monstar]

wad to do. how to cure? need help asap think they wont last long

[Verminator]

White spots being your description it sounds like i can safely assume you mean your fish are suffering from white spot, which is caused by stress in fish mainly, which can be down to water conditions not right, disruptions around the tank or anything of that matter. Basically just check your basic water parameters and adjust as necessary.

The remedy is quite simple, get yourself down to any LFS and ask for a white spot rememdy (anti-white spot). Most decent LFS' will sell a remedy of some sort and they all do the same thing so purchase one and follow the dosing instructions.

White spot is an organism that basically attatches itself to a fish's body anywhere it gets a hold. It can spread rapidly and can multiply faster than you can believe just over night. I'd advise maintaining water changes perhaps 20-30% every 3-4 days. 10-20% daily would be better if possible whilst your treating your tank. Be careful though, add the treatment each time AFTER doing any W/C's so you don't siphon out what you've just added. Once you kill the 'white spot' it'll simply drop of the fish but will remain in your water, more than likely dropping to the substrate if it isnt filtered out. So its important to maintain water changes a little while after you've apparently cleared your tank of the problem to remove the dead, and some remaining living (potentially) white spots ok.

Hope this helps and your able to catch it before its too late. I had my tank infested with it about a day before i was due to go on holiday for a week. I added the first dose of anti-white spot and then I left it for a week and came back to find all fish infested still but ALOT worse, but still alive and kicking. Then i treated the water properly and only lost one fish out of about 30+ i had at the time. Its not the end of the world mate, so good luck!

[fishking]

Try also increasing your water temperature. White spots usually appear when water temperature is too cold.

[monstar]

will the remedy affect my plants? yea thanks for the advices i did a 10% water change and the white spots are reducing.

[Verminator]

No, fish infection/bacteria/disease remedies should all be plant friendly. Unless stated otherwise on the container.

[Morgan01]

sounded like a new tank syndrome. unless your fish has strong immunity else it won't go away but eventually kill them. several remedy (some already mentioned) you can consider:

- change partial water regularly
- increase temperature to 30'c
- use UV steriliser
- mix anti-ich medication in tank water
- pray

[vratenza]

can also try the aquarium salt method..worked for my 6ft tank....(cheaper too )

[monstar]

but will the salt affect the growth?

[vratenza]

"It is very easy to treat Ich with salt. You’ll need a concentration of 0.3% salt (3 teaspoons per gallon) to eradicate the Ich. To reach 0.3% salt you would add 1 teaspoon of salt per gallon of water to your tank 3 times, each 12 hours apart. Predissolve the salt in tank water and then add slowly to a high water flow area.

It is important to keep track of the salt going into your tank because salt does not evaporate and is not removed with activated carbon. It is removed only with water changes. To keep the salt at the desired level, when you do a partial water change, you must salt the new water to the same concentration as the tank water. For example, if you remove 10 gallons of water you will need to add 30 teaspoons of salt to the change water to keep the tank at 0.3%.

While treating Ich, you will need to vacuum the entire bottom of the tank each day to remove any cysts that have fallen off. This will reduce the amount of tomites swimming in the tank and will help to clear the Ich faster. Heating the tank to 78-80*F will speed up the Ich life cycle and boost the fish’s immune system response. At that temperature Ich has a life cycle of 3-5 days. Typically, your fish will look like it is getting better then another wave of spots will appear. Each cycle is usually worse than the one before. But if you keep up the water changes and salt ich will clear within a week. Maintain salt at 0.3% for 7 days after the last cyst drops off the fish. This will ensure that the Ich is indeed gone. If your tank temperature is lower, the life cycle can extend into weeks so you will need to adjust your temperature or your treatment regime accordingly.

Be sure to keep your water quality excellent during this time. Ich will stress your fish so you need to ensure optimum water quality. As trophonts leave the host, they leave behind small exit wounds. That coupled with the stress suffered by the fish can give bacteria and fungi an unfair advantage, so it is important to watch out for any signs of secondary infection shortly after a bad case of ich."

source: http://thegab.org/Articles/IchSaltTreatment.html


Well, it works for me with no casualty to plants or fauna. Previously my tank was on chiller..so I just switch off my chiller to raise the temperature naturally to ambient temperature and follow the salt regime mentioned above...I do a large water change to clear out the salt after 1-2 weeks. Result is good as there were no casualties and the tank do not need to cycle all over again.

[fiaery]

stupid question, I assume its aquarium salt you're talking about? any difference between the two, besides the obvious?

[monstar]

what stupid question?

[fiaery]

aquarium salt or table salt... cos from what I know, table salt is really BAD for freshwater fauna. Any takers?

[vratenza]

aquarium salt or table salt... cos from what I know, table salt is really BAD for freshwater fauna. Any takers?

Use aquarium salt.

Table salt have extra iodine and other trace elements added (I think) for to prevent certain nutritional deficiency disease such as goitre/hypothyroidism..

[Ian Lim]

You may want to try mentylene blue which can be bought from LFS. It works for me and my plants do not have a problem either, but it seems to kill my Otto and Cory, so take care and do not over dose. Watch the silicon too, it may turns blue.

[patricc]

Try Interpet anti white spot. Works very nicely for me

[fiaery]

the malachite green / formalin one?

[fiaery]

Just want to check- in fact I did buy Baxter General Aid and it was some funky yellow chemical that turned neon yellowish green in the water. is this anything similar to malachite green?

[Ian Lim]

Sudden high temperature change during watre change will cause the neon to get itch, that is what happen to mine when I first started keeping neon.

[fishking]

Just want to check- in fact I did buy Baxter General Aid and it was some funky yellow chemical that turned neon yellowish green in the water. is this anything similar to malachite green?

Think you better get those medications that treats white spots only. It is easy to get rid of the white spots with the correct medication.

[alex76]

My tank got this problem too... all my neon dead and now my platies r infested... will the anti white spot blue solution harm my cherry shrimp?